North German Fire Ins. Co. v. Adams

• Citation: 142 F. 439
• Decision Date: 14 November 1905
• Docket Number: 1,189.
• Parties: NORTH GERMAN FIRE INS. CO. v. ADAMS.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

142 F. 439

NORTH GERMAN FIRE INS. CO. v. ADAMS.

No. 1,189.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

November 14, 1905

Thomas Bates, for appellant.

W. F Carroll, for appellee.

Before GROSSCUP, BAKER, and SEAMAN, Circuit Judges.

SEAMAN Circuit Judge (after stating the facts).

This decree in admiralty rests upon a contract insuring the owners of the steamer Gordon Campbell against fire risks alone, and jurisdiction is challenged on the proposition that such contract is not maritime, but is 'a personal contract of indemnity, which is made on the land and is to be performed on the land. ' The test of admiralty jurisdiction to enforce contract obligations was long an open question in this country under the confusion which arose from the narrow English rules, but was finally settled in the leading case of Insurance Co. v. Dunham, 11 Wall. 26, 20 L.Ed. 90. As there stated, in the unanimous opinion of the court, by Mr. Justice Bradley:

'The true criterion is the nature and subject-matter of the contract, as whether it was a maritime contract, having reference to maritime service or maritime transactions.'

So defined, jurisdiction was upheld of a libel in personam to enforce liability under a policy of marine insurance approving 'the learned and exhaustive opinion' of Mr Justice Story, of like effect, at the circuit, in the early case of De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gall. 398, Fed. Cas. No. 3,776. The doctrine thus formulated and applied has been reaffirmed and constantly followed (see, in this court, The Richard Winslow, 34 U.S.App. 542, 545, 71 F. 428, 18 C.C.A. 344, and Boutin v. Rudd, 53 U.S.App. 525, 529, 82 F. 685, 27 C.C.A. 526), so that the inquiry whether the contract is maritime is not governed by the fact that insurance is a personal contract between the parties, nor by the further fact that the contract is both made and performable on land. Since the Dunham decision all maritime contracts are recognized as within the admiralty jurisdiction, and the maritime nature of a contract depends upon its subject-matter, and not upon locality (Boutin v. Rudd, supra), nor upon the personal obligations of the parties.

The subject-matter of this insurance contract is not only 'property that is water-borne' (vide 2 Parsons on Ship and Admir. 181, published prior to the Dunham decision) but the insurance was placed upon the steamer as one engaged in navigation upon the Great Lakes. By the terms of the policy the owners were to be insured against the risks of fire in such service. It was not in the general form of a marine insurance policy involved in Insurance Co. v. Dunham, supra, wherein the risks usually enumerated are 'perils of the sea, fire, barratry, theft, piracy, capture, arrest and detentions' (1 Parsons on Marine Ins. 544), as the indemnity was limited to fire risks. So the precise question now raised, whether such fire insurance policy is a maritime contract in the jurisdictional sense, was not decided in that case; and does...