Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

Opinion of the Court.

and not of appellate jurisdiction, while as a question of original jurisdiction, it is duly pending before the District Court of the United States on pleadings which put that very question in issue." See also In re Cooper, 143 U. S. 472.

No. 136 is also a libel for wages, and involves precisely the same questions as are involved in the case of Dowsett, and will be disposed of in the same way. Claimants have mistaken their remedy in these cases, and should have appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals.

The decrees of the District Court, in so far as they assume jurisdiction of these cases, are therefore

Affirmed.

THE WILLIAM M. HOAG.

THE THREE SISTERS.

APPEALS FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF OREGON.

Nos. 137, 138. Submitted November 12, 1897.- Decided December 6, 1897.

These cases are affirmed as to the jurisdiction of the District Court on the authority of The Resolute, ante, 437.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. William T. Muir and Mr. John W. Whalley for appellants.

Mr. L. B. Cox, Mr. W. W. Cotton, Mr. Thomas O'Day and Mr. C. F. Lord for respondents.

MR. JUSTICE BROWN delivered the opinion of the court.

These cases differ from those already disposed of ante, 437, only in the fact that the libels contain claims by the masters of those vessels, with an averment that during the time they were employed there was an officer known as the purser; that the agents of the receiver and the purser collected and received all

Opinion of the Court.

the earnings from the vessels from both passengers and freight, and paid over such earnings in the ordinary course of business to the receiver; that none of the earnings of the vessels passed through the hands of the masters, and that their sole duties consisted in navigating the steamers upon routes selected by the receiver within the State of Oregon, and that all the supplies and materials were purchased by the said receiver through other agents and servants. This allegation is evidently designed to raise the question whether the ancient doctrine enforced upon the court of admiralty by prohibition from Westminster Hall, that the master has no lien for his wages, and which was declared to be the law by this court in the case of The Orleans, 11 Pet. 175, has any application to modern methods, where a purser or other agent is employed by the owner to collect the freights and pay the bills of the vessel, the practice formerly being for the master to receive all the freight, pay the crew and buy the supplies. The denial of the lien of the master was based upon the theory that he had a lien upon the freight for his wages, and having the freight in his own hands was presumed to pay himself. The argument is made that, the reason for the rule having ceased to exist, the rule itself, which denied the master a lien upon the vessel, has become obsolete.

A lien was also claimed and admitted on behalf of the masters under a local statute of Oregon; but it was also insisted in defence thereto that the masters had not proceeded within the time allowed by law for the enforcement of such claim.

The latter question, at least, if not the former, did not affect the jurisdiction of the court, but went to the merits alone. The decrees of the court below in these cases are also, in respect to jurisdiction,

Affirmed.

Statement of the Case.

STEWART v. BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD

COMPANY.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

No. 97. Argued November 8, 1897.- Decided December 6, 1897.

The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has jurisdiction of an action, sounding in tort, brought by the administrator of a deceased person against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, to recover damages for the benefit of the widow of the deceased by reason of his being killed by a collision which took place while he was travelling on that railroad in the State of Maryland.

The purpose of the several statutes passed in the States in more or less conformity to what is known as Lord Campbell's act, is to provide the means for recovering the damages caused by that which is in its nature a tort, and where such a statute simply takes away a common law obstacle to a recovery for the tort, an action for that tort can be maintained in any State in which that common law obstacle has been removed, when the statute of the State in which the cause of action arose is not, in substance, inconsistent with the statutes or public policy of the State in which the right of action is sought to be enforced.

While, under the Maryland statute authorizing the survival of the right of action, the State is the proper plaintiff and the jury trying the cause is to apportion the damages recovered, and under the act of Congress in force in the District of Columbia, the proper plaintiff is the personal representative of the deceased, and the damages recovered are distributed by law, these differences are not sufficient to render the statutes of Maryland inconsistent with the act of Congress, or the public policy of the District of Columbia.

ON October 22, 1894, plaintiff in error as plaintiff filed in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia an amended declaration containing two counts. The first alleged that John Andrew Casey, plaintiff's intestate, was killed through the negligence of the defendant company, in the State of Maryland; that said intestate left surviving no parent or child but only his wife, Alice Triplett Casey, for whose benefit this action was brought. The second count set forth in addition to the matters disclosed in the first a statute of the State of Maryland in respect to recovery in such cases. A demurrer

Statement of the Case.

to this declaration was sustained and judgment entered for defendant. This was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, and from such judgment of affirmance. plaintiff has brought the case here on error.

The statute in force in the District of Columbia, act of February 17, 1885, c. 126, 23 Stat. 307, provides for recovery in case the act causing death is done within the limits of the District of Columbia; that "the person who or corporation which would have been liable if death had not ensued shall be liable to an action for damages for such death, notwithstanding the death of the person injured;" that the recovery shall not exceed $10,000; that the action shall be brought in the name of the personal representative of the deceased, and within one year after his death, and that the damages recov ered shall not be appropriated to the payment of the debts of the deceased, but enure to the benefit of his or her family and be distributed according to the provisions of the statute of distributions. The Maryland statute, which is copied in the declaration, Rev. Code Maryland, 1878, p. 724, provides in the first section that whenever the death of a person shall be caused by the wrongful act, negligence, etc., of another, "the person who would have been liable if death had not ensued, shall be liable to an action for damages." Sections 2 and 3 are as follows:

"SEC. 2. Every such action shall be for the benefit of the wife, husband, parent and child of the person whose death shall have been so caused, and shall be brought by and in the name of the State of Maryland, for the use of the person entitled to damages, and in every such action the jury may give such damages as they may think proportioned to the injury resulting from such death to the parties respectively for whom and for whose benefit such action shall be brought, and the amount so recovered, after deducting the costs not recovered from the defendant, shall be divided amongst the abovementioned parties, in such shares as the jury by their verdict shall find and direct: Provided, That not more than one action shall lie for and in respect of the same subject-matter of complaint; and that every such action shall be commenced

Opinion of the Court.

within twelve calendar months after the death of the deceased person.

"SEC. 3. In every such action, the equitable plaintiff on the record shall be required, together with the declaration, to deliver to the defendant, or his attorney, a full particular of the persons for whom and on whose behalf such action shall be brought, and of the nature of the claim in respect of which damages shall be sought to be recovered."

Mr. Edwin Sutherland for plaintiff in error.

Mr. George E. Hamilton for defendant in error. Mr. Michael J. Colbert was on his brief.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

The Court of Appeals was of opinion that the action could not be maintained under the statute of the District of Columbia, because that authorizes recovery only in case the injury causing death is done within the limits of the District, nor under the Maryland statute because of the peculiar form of remedy prescribed therein, citing in support of the latter contention Pollard v. Bailey, 20 Wall. 520. A statute of Alabama made stockholders of a bank individually liable for its debts, and according to the construction given to it by the Supreme. Court of the State the remedy provided was a suit in equity, whereas in that case a single creditor had sued one of the stockholders in an action at law; and in denying the right to maintain such action this court observed, page 526:

"The individual liability of stockholders in a corporation for the payment of its debts is always a creature of statute. At common law it does not exist. The statute which creates it may also declare the purposes of its creation, and provide for the manner of its enforcement. The liability and the remedy were created by the same statute. This being so, the remedy provided is exclusive of all others. A general liability created by statute without a remedy may be enforced

[ocr errors]
« iepriekšējāTurpināt »