Just v. Chambers the Friendship Ii

• Decision Date: 03 March 1941
• Docket Number: No. 373,373
• Citation: 312 U.S. 668,61 S.Ct. 687,85 L.Ed. 903,312 U.S. 383
• Parties: JUST et al. v. CHAMBERS. THE FRIENDSHIP II
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

312 U.S. 383

61 S.Ct. 687

312 U.S. 668

85 L.Ed. 903

JUST et al.

v CHAMBERS. THE FRIENDSHIP II.

No. 373.

Argued Feb. 5, 6, 1941.

Decided March 3, 1941.

As Amended Mar. 31, 1941.

Messrs. W. O. Mehrtens, of Miami, Fla., Samuel W. Fordyce and Walter R. Mayne, both of St. Louis, Mo., for petitioners.

Mr. Raymond Parmer, of New York City, for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent, as executrix of the estate of Henry C. Yeiser, Jr., owner of the yacht 'Friendship II', brought this proceeding in admiralty for limitation of liability. 46 U.S.C. § 183, 46 U.S.C.A. § 183. Petitioners presented claims for damages for personal injuries due to carbon monoxide gas poisoning alleged to have occurred on board the vessel. It was cruising at the time within the territorial limits of the State of Florida and petitioners were guests of the owner. On the owner's death, petitioners' claims were filed against his estate.

Upon the facts the District Court found liability to the claimants and denied limitation upon the ground of neglect of duty by the owner. The court held that under a statute of Florida the claimants' causes of action survived the owner's death.

Upon appeal from the interlocutory decree, 28 U.S.C. § 227, 28 U.S.C.A. § 227, the Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that all the findings of fact made by the District Judge were supported by the evidence; that, as the injuries thus proved were not occasioned without the knowledge or privity of the shipowner, respondent could not have limitation; that as the ship was at fault as well as the owner the causes of action in rem survived the owner's death and the claimants on that ground might recover up to the value of the ship, but that under the governing principles of admiralty law the personal liability of the owner did not survive. The Friendship II, 5 Cir., 113 F.2d 105. Because of the importance of the question as to the enforceability in admiralty of the claims for personal injuries against the estate of the deceased tortfeasor, we granted certiorari. October 21, 1940. Just v. Chambers, 311 U.S. 634, 61 S.Ct. 63, 85 L.Ed. —-.

In support of the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals, respondent asks us to review the evidence with respect to the cause of the claimants' injuries and the breach of duty by the shipowner, contending that the evidence was insufficient to support the findings. Applying the well-established rule, we accept the concurrent findings of the courts below upon these matters (Texas & New Orleans R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway & S. S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 558, 50 S.Ct. 427, 429, 74 L.Ed. 1034) and we confine our attention to the question of the survival of the causes of action.

There is no question that there was a maritime tort. There is also no question that the injury occurred within the territorial limits of Florida and that under the local statute, as construed by the Supreme Court of the State, the causes of action survived against the wrongdoer's estate. This was recognized by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 5 Cir., 113 F.2d at page 107. Compiled General Laws of Florida 1927, Section 4211; Waller v. First Savings & Trust Co., 103 Fla. 1025, 1047, 1049, 138 So. 780; Granat v. Biscayne Trust Co., 109 Fla. 485, 488, 147 So. 850; State ex rel. Wolf Construction Co. v. Parks, 129 Fla. 50, 56, 57, 175 So. 786.

The statutory provision for limitation of liability, enacted in the light of the maritime law of modern Europe and of legislation in England, has been broadly and liberally construed in order to achieve its purpose to encourage investments in shipbuilding and to afford an opportunity for the determination of claims against the vessel and its owner. Norwich & N.Y. Transp. Company v. Wright, 13 Wall. 104, 121, 20 L.Ed. 585. It looks to a complete disposition of what may be a 'many cornered controversy', thus applying to proceedings in rem against the ship as well as to proceedings in personam against the owner, the limitation extending to the owner's property as well as to his person. The City of Norwich, 118 U.S. 468, 503, 6 S.Ct. 1150, 1162, 30 L.Ed. 134; Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., 273 U.S. 207, 216, 47 S.Ct. 357, 359, 71 L.Ed. 612. It applies to cases of personal injury and death as well as to cases of injury to property. Butler v. Boston Steamship Co., 130 U.S. 527, 552, 9 S.Ct. 612, 617, 32 L.Ed. 1017; The Albert Dumois, 177 U.S. 240, 259, 20 S.Ct. 595, 602, 44 L.Ed. 751. The limitation extends to tort claims even when the tort is non-maritime. Richardson v. Harmon, 222 U.S. 96, 32 S.Ct. 27, 56 L.Ed. 110.

When the jurisdiction of the court in admiralty has attached through a petition for limitation, the jurisdiction to determine claims is not lost merely because the shipowner fails to establish his right to limitation. We have said that the court of admiralty in such a proceeding acquires the right to marshal all claims, whether of strictly admiralty origin or not, and to give effect to them by the apportionment of the res and by judgment in personam against the owner, so far as the court may decree. And that, if Congress has this constitutional power, it necessarily follows, as incidental to that power, that it may furnish a complete remedy for the satisfaction of those claims by distribution of the res and by judgments in personam for deficiencies against the owner, if he is not released by virtue of the statute. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Southern Pacific Co., supra, 273 U.S. at page 217, 47 S.Ct. at page 359, 71 L.Ed. 612. While it is recognized that the equitable rule for retaining jurisdiction in order completely to dispose of a cause does not usually apply in admiralty, the proceeding for limitation of liability is different from the ordinary admiralty suit and, by reason of the statute and rules governing it, the court of admiralty has authority to grant an injunction and thus bring litigants into the admiralty court. There is thus jurisdiction to fulfill the obligation to do equity to claimants by furnishing them a complete remedy although limitation is refused. Id., 273 U.S. at page 218, 47 S.Ct. at page 360, 71 L.Ed. 612.

But respondent contends that to permit recovery upon the claims here in question would do violence to a precept of the admiralty law that causes of action for personal injury die with the person. Respondent argues that the source of this principle was not the common law¹ but the civil law² and that it should be regarded as an integral part of the maritime law, considered as an independent body of law, and hence can be changed only by Congress which has not acted.³

Whether the particular rule now invoked is so securely based in our maritime law⁴ that a different one can be established only by legislation and not by the exercise of the judicial power responding to present standards of justice, ⁵ we need not now consider. For, while the injury occurred on navigable waters, these were within the limits of Florida whose legislation provided that the cause of action should survive. And it is not a principle of our maritime law that a court of admiralty must invariably refuse to recognize and enforce a liability which the State has established in dealing with a maritime subject. On the contrary, there are numerous instances in which the general maritime law has been modified or supplemented by state action, as e.g. in creating liens for repairs or supplies furnished to a vessel in her home port. The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 580, 22 L.Ed. 654; The J. E. Rumbell, 148 U.S. 1, 12, 13 S.Ct. 498, 500, 37 L.Ed. 345.⁶ With respect to maritime torts we have held that the State may modify or supplement the maritime law by creating liability which a court of admiralty will recognize and enforce when the state action is not hostile to the characteristic features of the maritime law or inconsistent with federal legislation. The City of Norwalk, D.C., 55 F. 98; Western Fuel Company v. Garcia, 257 U.S. 233, 242, 42 S.Ct. 89, 90, 66 L.Ed. 210; Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company v. Kierejewski, 261 U.S. 479, 43 S.Ct. 418, 67 L.Ed. 756; Vancouver Steamship Co. v. Rice, 288 U.S. 445, 53 S.Ct. 420, 77 L.Ed. 885.⁷

This is illustrated, in the cases cited, by the effect given in admiralty to state legislation creating liability for wrongful death. The leading continental States of Europe, whose jurisprudence was developed from the civil law have given a remedy in such a case,⁸ but a right of action was denied by the common law and likewise by the admiralty in England. And this Court, upon an elaborate review of the decisions, concluded that no suit for wrongful death would lie 'in the courts of the United States under the general maritime law'. The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 213, 7 S.Ct. 140, 146, 30 L.Ed. 358. See, also, The Corsair, 145 U.S. 335, 344, 12 S.Ct. 949, 951, 36 L.Ed. 727. The absence of a federal or state statute giving a right of action was emphasized. But when a State, acting within its province, has created liability for wrongful death, the admiralty will enforce it.

There was a careful and comprehensive exposition of this subject by Judge Addison Brown in The City of Norwalk, supra, decided shortly after The Corsair, supra. He observed that if it was not within the power of the State to create such a liability in a maritime case, the statutes of the majority of the States would be void so far as they related to deaths in cases arising on navigable waters. But the validity of judgments in the state courts giving damages in such cases, and the validity of the statutes on which they rested, had been sustained. American Steamboat Company v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522, 21 L.Ed. 369; Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U.S. 99, 23 L.Ed. 819. The grounds of objection to the admiralty jurisdiction in enforcing liability for wrongful death were similar to those urged here; that is, that the Constitution presupposes a body of maritime law, that this...