Hall v. Devoe Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 November 1882
• Citation: 14 F. 183
• Parties: HALL v. DEVOE MANUF'G CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

14 F. 183

HALL v. DEVOE MANUF'G CO.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

November 14, 1882

Scudder & Carter, for the Devoe Manufacturing Company.

Beebe Wilcox & Hobbs, for libelant.

NIXON D.J.

A libel in personam was filed in the above case, alleging as the cause of action a collision between the canal-boat T. W Griffin, whereof the libelant was owner, and the tug-boat F W.

Devoe, whereof the Devoe Manufacturing Company was owner. The collision occurred in March 1882, on the East river, near the mouth of Newtown creek, in the eastern district of New York. A monition issued with the usual attachment clause. The marshal has made his return that the respondent, a foreign corporation, was not found in his district, and that he had seized the tug-boat F. W. Devoe, and held the same to respond to the libelant's claim for damages. A motion is now made to set aside the service of process on the ground of a want of jurisdiction in the court.

It appears from affidavits filed and used at the hearing that on the twenty-seventh of October last, when the seizure was made by the marshal, the F. W. Devoe was lying in the Kill von Kull, between Staten Island and New Jersey, fastened to the end of a dock at Bayonne, in New Jersey, two or three hundred feet below low-water mark, and about half a mile from the entrance to the bay of New York. The proctor for the respondent insists that although the tug, when seized, was fastened to a pier extending into the water from the New Jersey shore, she was lying below low-water mark in Kill von Kull, and hence was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the eastern district of the state of New York. The precise claim is that in all admiralty proceedings the jurisdiction of the district court of the United States for the southern and eastern districts of New York extends over the waters of the Hudson river and Kill von Kull to low-water mark on their western shores, to the exclusion of the district court of the United States for the state of New Jersey. The question is an important one, involving large interests, and demands careful consideration. If the construction contended for can be fairly given to the legislation of congress in defining the judicial districts of New Jersey and New York, the people of the first-named state have been laboring under a delusion for many years in regard to its territorial boundaries, and the judges of this court have been exercising unwarrantable authority over cases in admiralty which should have been tried and determined in the districts of our sister state.

The question came before the late circuit judge (BLATCHFORD) of the southern district of New York, in 1878, in the case of The Schooner L. W. Eaton, and seems to have been examined by him with great care. 9 Ben. 289. The vessel had been attached by the marshal of the New York district on the first of April, 1875, being at the time afloat, and fastened by means of lines to a dock at Jersey City and outside of low-water mark, the wharf projecting into the navigable waters of the Hudson river, west of Manhattan island, and to the south of the mouth of Spuyten Duyvil creek. A motion was made on behalf of the claimant to discharge the attachment, on the ground that the vessel was not, at the time of the seizure, in the jurisdiction of the court. The learned judge denied the motion and filed an elaborate opinion, in which he held--

(1) That it was the established law of that district that the locus in quo in such a case was within the jurisdiction of the southern district of New York in admiralty; (2) that said jurisdiction existed prior to the agreement of September 16, 1833, between New York and New Jersey, which agreement is set forth in the act of congress of June 28, 1834, (4 St.at Large, 708) and that nothing within the agreement or the act restricted the jurisdiction; and (3) that sections 541 and 542 of the Revised Statutes did not have the effect of altering the jurisdiction.

It is quite obvious, from carefully reading his opinion, that when he assumed it was the established law of his district that the locus in quo was within his jurisdiction, the judge only meant to assert that his distinguished predecessor, Judge BETTS, had so declared the law. I cannot find that the question was ever discussed before May, 1860, when it arose before Judge BETTS in the case of U.S. v. Ship Julia Lawrence. ^[*] His opinion was never published in any volume of his admiralty decisions, and its full text first appears in Judge BLATCHFORD'S opinion. The jurisdiction of the New York court over the place of the seizure was challenged in that case, it begin admitted on both sides that the ship when seized was attached to a pier or dock on the New Jersey side of the river and upon waters of the bay. Judge BETTS states that two questions were debated before him on the issue of law. The first regarded the actual boundary line of the southern district of New York. He does not say what the second was, but it is to be inferred from his subsequent reasoning that it had reference to the effect which the arrangement entered into between the states of New York and New Jersey respecting their mutual boundary line had upon the antecedent legislation of congress. He correctly holds that any variation of the line, made by the assent of New York, subsequent to the establishment of the United States judicial districts, would not affect the dimensions and authorities of those districts, without the full concurrence of the government of the United States in such change

Entertaining such profound respect for the opinion of this able judge, I wish to suggest, with much diffidence, that the unsound conclusions which he reached arose from two false assumptions. He assumed (1) that the judiciary act of 1789 fixed the boundary line of the district of New York to low-water mark on the western shore of Hudson river; and (2) that the agreement entered into in 1833, between New York and New Jersey, in regard to the boundary, altered or changed some previously-existing line. If it can be shown that no foundation in fact existed for such premises, not much weight should be given to the conclusions drawn from them.

1. As to the first assumption, the second section of the judiciary act, approved September 24, 1789, (1 St.at Large, 73,) divides the United States into 13 judicial districts, and its only statements in regard to New Jersey and New York are, 'one to consist of the state of New York and to be called the New York district, and one to consist of the state of New Jersey, and to be called the New Jersey district. ' It is an historical fact that at that time there was an existing controversy between these states respecting the proper running of the line dividing their jurisdiction-- New York claiming the whole of the Hudson river to the low-water mark of the western shore, and New Jersey insisting that her territorial boundary extended to the middle of the river. Congress did not attempt to settle the conflict; expressed no opinion on the question of boundary; but simply constituted the districts, limiting their jurisdiction to state lines, wherever the interested parties should afterwards determine these lines to be.

I find nothing more definite in this respect in the act of April 9, 1814, (3 St.at Large, 120,) when congress divided New York into two districts, although Judge BETTS states in his opinion that he discovers there 'more distinction of discrimination in the restatement of the boundary line' than he did in the act of 1789. The only reference to the subject is in the first section, where it is enacted that 'the counties of Rensselaer, Albany, Schenectady, Schoharie, and Delaware, together with all that part of the state lying south of the above-named counties, shall compose one district, to be called the southern district of New York, and all the remaining part of the said state shall compose another district, to be called the northern district of New York.'

His honor, Judge BLATCHFORD, seems to lay great stress upon the fact that 'by the Revised Statutes of New York, which took effect January 30, 1830, it was declared that the boundary of the state of New York, as its jurisdiction was then asserted, ran from a point on the west side of the Hudson river, in the latitude of 41 degrees north, southerly along the west shore at low-water mark of Hudson river, of the Kill von Kull, of the sound between Staten Island and New Jersey, and of Raritan bay to Sandy Hook, in such manner as to include * * * all the islands and waters in the bay of New York, and within the bounds above described. Clearly,' says the learned judge, 'the locus in quo in this case (Eaton) was, by such description, within the state of New York, and it was therefore within the southern district of New York.'

In reply it may be suggested that many years before, to-wit, on the third of December, 1807, the legislature of New Jersey passed an act which declared, after reciting in the preamble that the commissioners of the states of New York and New Jersey had met and failed to come to an amicable adjustment of the eastern boundary line of the state, and that it was necessary to preserve the lawful jurisdiction of the state until the existing controversy was brought to a legal conclusion and determination, that the boundary line of the county of Bergen (then adjoining the Hudson river, Kill von Kull, and New York bay) extended to the middle or midway of the waters adjoining said county, and imposed severe penalties upon all persons who attempted, without authority from New Jersey, to execute legal process therein. Would it not be quite as pertinent to respond: 'Clearly, the locus in quo in this case was by such description within the state of New Jersey, and...