A district court of the United States has jurisdiction of a
libel of a vessel for seamen's wages, which accrued while the
vessel was in the custody of a receiver appointed by a state court
upon the foreclosure of a mortgage
Page 168 U. S. 438
upon the property of a railroad company, owner of the vessel,
the vessel having been sold and passed into the purchaser's hands,
and the receiver discharged when the warrant of arrest was
served.
The remedy against the decree of the district court was an
appeal to the circuit court of appeals.
No. 135 was an appeal from the District Court for the District
of Oregon, awarding to the libellant, George Dowsett, the sum of
$825.50 due to him individually, and the further sum of $358.02 due
to him as the assignee of one Tellefson, for wages as seamen upon
the tug
Resolute. The tug was engaged in the business of
towing vessels and barges on and over the bar between Yaquina Bay
and the Pacific Ocean, and the waters tributary, thereto, within
the District of Oregon.
The libel, which was filed on April 26, 1894, was in the
ordinary form of a libel for seamen's wages, except that it alleged
that the vessel was at that time in the hands of a receiver of a
circuit court for the Oregon. Upon application's being made for a
warrant for arrest, it was refused upon the ground that the tug was
within the custody of a receiver of a state court. Subsequently,
and on February 25, 1895, upon affidavit that the receiver had been
discharged and the property sold, the order denying the warrant of
arrest and directing that the libel remain in abeyance until the
tug should be discharged from the custody of the state court, was
vacated, and a warrant of arrest ordered to issue. The tug having
been released upon bond given, the libel was thereupon amended by
alleging that, while the said services were being rendered, the
steam tug was in charge of a receiver appointed by the Circuit
Court of the State of Oregon, and that she had since been sold to
parties having notice of libellant's claim and bad been discharged
from such receivership. Exceptions were thereupon filed to the
libel upon the ground that it showed that, when the services were
rendered, the steam tug was in charge of and operated by a receiver
of the Oregon and Pacific Railroad Company, a corporation, the
owner of said steam tug, and that no maritime or other lien had
arisen by reason of such employment or by the rendition of such
services, and also that the court had no jurisdiction
Page 168 U. S. 439
in the premises. Upon a hearing before the court, these
exceptions were overruled, and leave given to answer the amended
libel.
Claimants having elected not to answer the libel, their default
was entered, and a final decree awarded in favor of the libelant in
the amount claimed by him, whereupon the claimants prayed an appeal
to this Court, and the district court certified that
"the only question arising upon said appeal is the question as
to whether or not, under the facts stated in the amended libel and
the exceptions thereto, this Court acquired or had jurisdiction to
pronounce the said decree."
MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The sole question presented by the record in this case is
whether the court was correct in assuming jurisdiction of a libel
for seamen's wages which accrued while the vessel was in the
custody of a receiver, appointed by a state court, upon the
foreclosure of a mortgage upon the property of the Oregon &
Pacific Railroad Company, owner of the tug.
Jurisdiction is the power to adjudicate a case upon the merits,
and dispose of it as justice may require. As applied to a suit
in rem for the breach of a maritime contract, it
presupposes -- first, that the contract sued upon is a maritime
contract; and, second, that the property proceeded against is
within the lawful custody of the court. These are the only
requirements necessary to give jurisdiction. Proper cognizance of
the parties and subject matter being conceded, all other matters
belong to the merits.
Page 168 U. S. 440
The contention of libelant is that, as a maritime lien is the
sole foundation of a proceeding
in rem, such facts must be
averred as to show that a lien arose in the particular case or at
least that if the libel shows that a lien could not have existed,
it should be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The averment
relied upon in this libel is that the vessel was, at the time the
services were rendered, in the hands of a receiver appointed by a
state court. This fact, however, is not absolutely inconsistent
with a lien
in rem for seamen's wages.
Paxson v.
Cunningham, 63 F. 132. It may have been expressly bargained
for by the receiver, it may be implied from the peculiar
circumstances under which the services were rendered, or it might
be held to have arisen from the peremptory language of the statute,
Rev.Stat. § 4535, that
"no seaman shall, by any agreement other than is provided by
this title, forfeit his lien upon the ship, or be deprived of any
remedy for the recovery of his wages to which he would otherwise
have been entitled, and every stipulation in any agreement
inconsistent with any provision of this title . . . shall be wholly
inoperative."
Prima facie, the rendition of mariner's services
imports a lien, and the mere fact that the vessel is navigated by a
receiver does not necessarily negative such lien, although there
may be facts in the particular case to show that the above statute
does not apply, or that credit was expressly given to the owner, to
the charterer, or to some third person. In fact, the question of
lien or no lien is not one of jurisdiction, but of merits.
It is true that there can be no decree
in rem against
the vessel except for the enforcement of a lien given by the
maritime law, or by a state law; but if the existence of such a
lien were a question of jurisdiction, then nearly every question
arising upon the merits could be made one of jurisdiction. Thus,
supplies furnished to a vessel import a lien only when they are
sold upon her credit, and the defense ordinarily made to such
claims is that they were sold upon the personal credit of the owner
or charterer; but certainly it could not be claimed that this was a
question of jurisdiction. The existence of a lien for collision
depends upon the question of fault or no
Page 168 U. S. 441
fault, but it never was heard of that it thereby became a
question of jurisdiction. Salvage services too ordinarily import a
lien of the very highest rank, but it has sometimes been held that
if such services are rendered by seamen in the employ of a wrecking
tug, or by a municipal fire department, no lien arises, for the
reason that the men are originally employed for the very purpose of
rescuing property from perils of the sea or loss by fire. In the
case under consideration, a portion of the libelant's claim arises
by assignment from Tellefson, and the authorities are almost
equally divided upon the question whether such assignment carries
the lien of the assignor to his assignee. Obviously these are not
jurisdictional questions.
In determining the question of a lien in the case under
consideration, much may depend upon the manner in which the vessels
were sold by the receiver. Were they sold in bulk, and merely as a
part of the entire property of the insolvent corporation, upon the
foreclosure of the mortgage, or was each vessel sold separately,
and subject to the liens for mariner's wages which accrued before
and while they were in the possession of the receiver? Did the
order direct these vessels to be sold free of maritime liens, or
subject to them, or was it silent in this particular? Were the
lienholders upon these vessels paid from the purchase money,
according to their relative rank, as they would have been had the
sale been conducted by a court of admiralty? If they were, that
would amount to very strong, if not conclusive, evidence against
the subsequent endeavor to enforce the liens in a court of
admiralty. We cannot assume that the court would authorize its
receiver to run these vessels without making some provision for a
preferential payment of their current expenses.
Meyer v.
Western Car Co., 102 U. S. 1;
Kneeland v. American Loan Co., 136 U. S.
89. None of these were questions which went to the
jurisdiction of the court to entertain the libels, but were such as
would properly arise either upon the exception to the libels or
upon an answer putting the facts in issue.
Had the vessel, at the time the warrant of arrest was served,
been in the actual custody of the receiver, a different
question
Page 168 U. S. 442
would have been presented; but the facts of this case show that
she had been sold, and had passed into the hands of her purchaser,
and that the receiver had been discharged.
The case of
Ex Parte Gordon, 104 U.
S. 515, goes even further than is necessary to support
the action of the district court in assuming jurisdiction of this
case. In that case, a writ of prohibition was sought to restrain
the District Court for the District of Maryland from proceeding
against a vessel to recover damages for loss of life in a
collision. It was held that, as the case was one of a maritime
tort, of which the district court unquestionably had jurisdiction,
it was for that court to decide whether the vessel was liable for
pecuniary damages resulting from the loss of life. "Having
jurisdiction," said the Chief Justice,
"in respect to the collision, it would seem necessarily to
follow that the court had jurisdiction to hear and decide what
liability the vessel had incurred thereby."
The question was held not to be jurisdictional, but one properly
arising upon the merits.
See also The Charkieh, 8 Q.B. 97;
Schunk v. Moline &c. Co., 147 U.
S. 500;
Smith v. McKay, 161 U.
S. 355.
So, too, in
In re Fassett, 142 U.
S. 479, the owner of the yacht
Conqueror filed
a libel for possession against her and the collector for the port
of New York, claiming delivery of the vessel to him and damages
against the collector, who had seized her as a dutiable import. The
collector applied to this Court for a writ of prohibition, alleging
that the district court had no jurisdiction of the suit. We held
that the subject matter of the libel was a marine tort; that the
question whether the vessel was liable to duty was properly
justiciable in the district court, and that that court had
jurisdiction. Said Mr. Justice Blatchford, in delivering the
opinion of the Court, p.
142 U. S.
474:
"The district court has jurisdiction to determine the question,
because it has jurisdiction of the vessel by attachment, and of
Fassett by monition, and for this Court to decide, in the first
instance and in this proceeding, the question whether the yacht is
an article imported from a foreign country, and subject to duty
under the customs revenue laws, would be to decide that question as
a matter of original jurisdiction,
Page 168 U. S. 443
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, insofar as they assume
jurisdiction of these cases, are therefore
Affirmed.
