Campbell v. H. Hackfeld & Co.

• Decision Date: 26 October 1903
• Docket Number: 942.
• Citation: 125 F. 696
• Parties: CAMPBELL v. H. HACKFELD & CO., Limited.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

125 F. 696

CAMPBELL v. H. HACKFELD & CO., Limited.

No. 942.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

October 26, 1903

J. J Dunne and Gill & Farley (R. W. Breckone, of counsel), for appellant.

Kinney McClanahan & Bigelow, for appellee.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Hawaii.

Before GILBERT and ROSS, Circuit Judges, and HAWLEY, District Judge.

ROSS Circuit Judge.

This cause comes here on appeal from a decree of the District Court for the District of Hawaii sustaining an exception of the appellee to the jurisdiction of the court over the parties or the cause of action stated in the libel, and dismissing the libel, without prejudice, for want of jurisdiction.

The libelant was a stevedore, and the libelee a corporation engaged in the business of loading and unloading vessels at Honolulu. The libel shows that in pursuance of its business the libelee on the 26th day of July, 1902, undertook to unload a cargo of coal from the Norwegian bark Aeolus, then anchored in navigable waters of the port of Honolulu, and that the libelant was one of the libelle's employes engaged in that work; that while so engaged in the hold of the vessel the libelant was, by reason of the carelessness of the libelee and of other of its employes, severely injured, for which injury he asked damages. Not only does the libel fail to allege anything against the ship, its owner, officers, or crew, but it affirmatively alleges 'that the persons who were engaged in the unloading of said bark Aeolus were all employes of said defendant, and not members of the crew, or employes of said bark Aeolus, and not fellow servants of any capacity with any of the employes of said bark Aeolus.'

Instances are numerous in which stevedores have maintained libels for injuries sustained by reason of defective machinery or appliances of the ship, or by reason of the negligence of its owner or of some of its officers or crew. Many of such cases are referred to in The Anaces, 93 F. 240, 34 C.C.A. 558, and in the briefs of counsel in the present case. But no case has been cited, and it is asserted by counsel that no case can be found, where a stevedore was allowed to maintain in a court of admiralty an action for damages, against the stevedore who employed him, for injuries sustained by reason of the negligence of the head stevedore, or of one or more of his other employes. The mere fact that they are outside the acknowledged limit of admiralty cognizance over marine torts for it would be little short of absurd to suppose that there have not been injured in their work through the negligence of the contracting stevedore or of some of his employes. The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 37, 18 L.Ed. 125; The Queen v. Judge of the City of London Court, Q.B. Div. Vol. 28, 1892, pp. 273-298.

The fundamental principle underlying all cases of tort, as well as contract, is that, to bring a case within the jurisdiction of a court of admiralty, maritime relations of some sort must exist, for the all sufficient reason that the admiralty does not concern itself with nonmaritime affairs. In concluding his great opinion in the case of De Lovio v. Boit et al., 2 Gall. 398, 474, Fed. Cas. No. 3,776, Judge Story said:

'On the whole, I am, without the slightest hesitation, ready to pronounce that the delegation of cognizance of 'all civil cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction' to the courts of the United States comprehends all maritime contracts, torts, and injuries. The latter branch is necessarily bounded by locality. The former extends over all contracts, wheresoever they may be made or executed, or whatsoever may be the form of the stipulations, which relate to the navigation, business, or commerce of the sea.'

Torts, as well as contracts, not maritime, are outside of admiralty cognizance.

It is quite true that in many of the decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as of the Circuit Courts of Appeals and of the Circuit Courts, the broad statement is made that in cases of tort the sole test of jurisdiction is locality; and that fact is made the basis of a criticism of the decision of the court below in the present case, found in the Harvard Law Review for January, 1903 (16 Harv.Law Rev. 210, 211), in which it is said that that decision-- 'Infringes a rule which originated in the very nature of admiralty jurisdiciton, and which has been satisfactory in its practical operation. This test has been all but universally regarded as the sole one. See The Plymouth, supra. The single authority to the contrary is the somewhat obscurely stated dictum of a text-writer. Benedict, supra, 308. The principal case seems then, at variance with the spirit of the previous cases, even though reconcilable with the points actually decided. Not only would the adoption of its doctrine unsettle a rule which has long been assumed to be law, but it would make the question of jurisdiction over torts subject to the difficulty which so often perplexes cases of contract, namely, the necessity of deciding in each case what is a maritime relation. The decision in the principal case seems, therefore, unfortunate, as increasing complication and uncertainty in the law, without, apparently, securing any practical gain to compensate for these disadvantages.'

It is expressly admitted in this article that 'in every instance which has been found, however, a maritime relation such as is required by the court' below, has in fact existed.

It is a cardinal rule that the language of every court must be construed with reference to the case made for decision, and should not be extended so as to embrace cases that could hardly have been within its contemplation when using the language. Take, for instance, the expression of the Supreme Court in the case of The Plymouth, supra, in respect to the point in question, where it is said, 'Every species of tort, however occurring, and whether on board a vessel or not, if upon the high seas or navigable waters, is of admiralty cognizance. ' That language is quite as broad as, if not broader than, that used by any other court in any of the cases upon the subject, and, taken literally, would include within the jurisdiction of the admiralty court a very celebrated case that arose on the Bay of San Francisco in the year 1870, when A. P. Crittenden, a...