Meikle v. LEEDS SHIPPING COMPANY

• Decision Date: 19 June 1957
• Docket Number: No. 561.,561.
• Citation: 152 F. Supp. 206
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: James Hatnick MEIKLE, a minor 17 years of age, who sues by his next friend, Roy L. Sykes, Plaintiff, v. LEEDS SHIPPING COMPANY, Ltd. and Sir William Reardon Smith & Sons, Ltd., Defendants.

152 F. Supp. 206

James Hatnick MEIKLE, a minor 17 years of age, who sues by his next friend, Roy L. Sykes, Plaintiff, v. LEEDS SHIPPING COMPANY, Ltd. and Sir William Reardon Smith & Sons, Ltd., Defendants.

No. 561.

United States District Court E. D. Virginia, Newport News Division.

June 19, 1957.

Jett, Sykes & Howell, Henry E. Howell, Jr., Norfolk, Va., for plaintiff.

Seawell, Johnston, McCoy & Winston, Charles R. Dalton, Jr., Norfolk, Va., for defendant.

HOFFMAN, District Judge.

This action was instituted in the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News by the infant plaintiff, a citizen of Great Britain, suing by his next friend, against Leeds Shipping Company, Ltd., and Sir William Reardon Smith & Sons, Ltd., both foreign corporations, to recover damages for personal injuries and loss of earnings alleged to have been sustained while plaintiff was attempting to descend a ladder from the defendants' steamship Eastern City to a dock at the Chesapeake & Ohio piers at Newport News, Virginia. The plaintiff allegedly fell, striking a "bumper log" or "camel" tied to the side of the dock and floating in the water.

Suit was commenced as a civil action in the state court, plaintiff basing his claim for recovery in terms of negligence and unseaworthiness. Upon removal by defendants to this Court, plaintiff has filed a motion to remand the action to the state court. Plaintiff contends that since the action is between aliens, neither of whom is a citizen of any state of the United States, there is no right of removal under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1441(b). Defendants contend the removal proper since the claim asserted, based on general maritime law, arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States within the meaning of the removal statute.

Section 1441(b) states grounds for removal of actions as follows:

"Any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded on a claim or right arising under the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States shall be removable without regard to the citizenship or residence of the parties. Any other such action shall be removable only if none of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought."

The principal contention advanced to support the claim that jurisdiction exists on the civil side is predicated upon the assertion that all claims arising under general maritime law and cases "wherein the matter in controversy * * * arises under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States".

It is apparent from the authorities that the question is not free from doubt. The Fourth Circuit has not yet determined whether a district court may entertain an action at law predicated upon a maritime tort in the absence of diversity of citizenship. Varying aspects of the problem have been resolved in other Circuits. The Second, Third, Seventh and Ninth Circuits¹ have considered the question and concluded that, in the absence of diverse citizenship, a federal court is without jurisdiction to entertain an action at law based on the general maritime law as one arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States.

The First Circuit has also considered the question, concluding in Doucette v. Vincent, 1 Cir., 194 F.2d 834, that claims under the general maritime law arise under the Constitution within the meaning of Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331.

In Benedict on Admiralty, 6th Ed. Vol. 4, 1957 Supp., p. 44, the author leans to the conclusions as set forth by the Third Circuit in Jordine v. Walling, 185 F.2d 662, by stating:

"The common law side of the federal district court can not entertain a suit for maintenance and cure or for indemnity for injuries under the general maritime law unless the jurisdictional limit amount of $3,000 can be shown, and unless diversity of citizenship exists. These jurisdictional requirements do not apply in a Jones Act suit."

The authorities are well cited in Doucette, Jordine and Paduano. It is apparent that this conflict will ultimately have to be resolved by the United States Supreme Court as was perhaps indicated in Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 410, footnote 4, 74 S.Ct. 202, 98 L.Ed. 143.

It is the opinion of this Court that the view adopted by a majority of the circuits is a correct interpretation of the law. The ultimate solution must necessarily depend upon a determination of whether Congress intended to include in its grant of "case arising" jurisdiction to federal courts the power also to adjudicate claims made pursuant to general maritime law. Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States provides:

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; — to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; — to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; — to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; — to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State; —between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects."

In American Insurance Company v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, 26 U.S. 511, 7 L.Ed. 242, Chief Justice Marshall pointed out that the separate provision for jurisdiction of cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws on the one hand, and cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction on the other, contemplated distinct classes of cases so that the grant of jurisdiction over one class did not necessarily confer jurisdiction over the other. As was conceded in Doucette v. Vincent, supra, the distinct classification of cases was not redundant. In the American Insurance Company case, Chief Justice Marshall marks the distinction between the separate constitutional authorization of federal jurisdiction in the following language:

"The constitution and laws of the United States give jurisdiction to the district courts over all cases in admiralty; but jurisdiction over the case does not constitute the case itself. We are, therefore, to inquire, whether cases in admiralty, and cases arising under the laws and constitution of the United States, are identical. If we have recourse to that pure fountain from which all the jurisdiction of the federal courts is derived, we find language employed which cannot well be misunderstood. The constitution declares, that `the judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, or other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction'. The constitution certainly contemplates these as three distinct classes of cases; and if they are distinct, the grant of jurisdiction over one of them, does not confer jurisdiction over either of the other two. The discrimination made between them, in the constitution, is, we think, conclusive against their identity. If it were not so, if this were a point open to inquiry, it would be difficult to maintain the proposition that they are the same. A case in admiralty does not, in fact, arise under the constitution or laws of the United States."

Thus, the Supreme Court early in its history pointed out that the class of cases within the "case arising" clause was wholly distinct from those included within the phrase "admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction" within the meaning of the Constitution.

The Judiciary Act of 1875 was the first broad grant of powers to federal courts to adjudicate all civil actions arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, same having been taken from Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution itself. Such language is still to be found in 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331. This grant of broad "case arising" jurisdiction to the lower federal courts by the Judiciary Act is, as was pointed out in Paduano, supra, no broader than that authorized in the Constitution itself. Therefore, the Supreme Court decisions, including that of American Insurance Co. v. Canter, supra, interpreting Article III, Section 2, should also apply to and control interpretations of the present § 1331. Counsel have not cited, nor has this Court's independent research disclosed any case evidencing the overruling or failure to follow the Supreme Court's earlier exposition on this division of jurisdiction; nor does the legislative handling of the admiralty and maritime matters indicate a congressional intent to unite the admiralty and the maritime jurisdiction of the federal courts with the grant of "case arising" jurisdiction as is pointed out in Paduano, supra, wherein the court said:

"First, the primary policy for investing the federal courts with `arising under' jurisdiction, viz., to insure the availability of a forum designed to minimize the danger of hostility toward, and specially suited to the vindication of, federally created rights, does not support and, indeed, points to the absence of any necessity for the inclusion of admiralty and maritime matters, since such a forum had always been available. Second, from 1875 to the present, Congress has continued to provide for a wholly separate admiralty and maritime jurisdiction and has authorized the promulgation by the Supreme Court of separate rules governing proceedings in admiralty. Third, whenever the Congress has deemed it desirable to afford claimants the right to maintain an action at law or the right to trial by jury in maritime matters even in the absence of diversity, it has considered it necessary to make specific statutory grants of these rights." 221 F.2d 618.

Thus, historically separate bases of a federal...