Ex parte Slayton
| Decision Date | 01 October 1881 |
| Parties | EX PARTE SLAYTON |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
PETITION for a writ of prohibition
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Alfred Russell for the petitioner.
Mr. J. H. McGowan, contra.
We are of opinion that, notwithstanding Admiralty Rules Nos. 54, 55, 56, and 57 of this court, the owner of a vessel may institute appropriate proceedings, in a court of competent jurisdiction to obtain the benefit of the limitation of liability provided for by sects. 4284 and 4285 of the Revised Statutes, without waiting for a suit to be begun against him or his vessel for the loss out of which the liability arises. As was said at this term in The Scotland (supra, p. 24), our rules were not intended to prevent an owner from availing himself of any other remedy or process which the law itself entitled him to adopt, but to aid him in bringing into concourse those having claims against him arising from the acts of the master or crew.
Section 4284 expressly allows the owner to institute appropriate proceedings in any court, that is to say, any court of competent jurisdiction, for the purpose of apportioning among the proper parties the sum for which he is liable. Sect. 4285 provides, that it shall be deemed a sufficient compliance on his part with the requirements of the act if he shall transfer all his interest in the vessel and freight to a trustee, appointed by the court for the persons who may prove to be legally entitled thereto. Any court, therefore, which gets actual possession of the things to be transferred, and about which the concourse of claimants is to be had, is a court of competent jurisdiction to try the questions that will properly arise upon the apportionment to be made. Even though he should institute proceedings before he or his vessel is sued, the courts will either follow our rules as far as practicable, or do something which is equivalent, to obtain jurisdiction of the thing about which the litigation is to be had. No monition can properly issue either under the operation of our rules, or otherwise, until this jurisdiction of the thing has been in some way secured.
On looking into the return of the district judge in this case we find that the proceedings were instituted by the owner of the steamer 'Alpena' in the district where the port is situated, to which the steamer was bound, at the time the loss occurred, on one of her regular trips...
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