Panama R. Co. v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 15 February 1923
• Docket Number: 36.
• Parties: PANAMA R. CO. v. JOHNSON.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

289 F. 964

PANAMA R. CO. v. JOHNSON.

No. 36.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

February 15, 1923

On Rehearing, May 14, 1923. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] [Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Richard Reid Rogers, of New York City, for f New York City, for plaintiff in error.

Silas B. Axtell, of New York City (Wade H. Ellis, of Washington D.C., of counsel), for defendant in error.

Burlingham, Veeder, Mastin & Fearey, of New York City (Morton L. Fearey, of New York City, of counsel), amici curiae.

Before ROGERS, MANTON, and MAYER, Circuit Judges.

ROGERS Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

This action is brought on the common-law side of the court to recover for injuries received by a seaman upon a vessel at sea. The tort alleged occurred on navigable water-- the Guanuquil river, in Ecquador, South America; and all causes arising out of transactions occurring on navigable waters are, by the general admiralty law, within the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts, whether the waters are part of the high seas, or are domestic or foreign.

The plaintiff has seen fit, however, not to sue in an admiralty court. In bringing it in a common-law court, he has proceeded under the Act of June 5, 1920, known as the Jones Act (41 Stat.pt. 1, c. 250, p. 988. Section 33 of that act amended section 20 of the Act of March 4, 1915, to read as follows:

'Sec. 20. That any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply; and in case of the death of any seaman as a result of any such personal injury the personal representative of such seaman may maintain an action for damages at law with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States conferring or regulating the right of action for death in the case of railway employees shall be applicable. Jurisdiction in such actions shall be under the court of the district in which the defendant employer resides or in which his principal office is located.'

The constitutionality of that act is challenged, however, in this case. If the act is unconstitutional, there is no authority for instituting this action at law. We must, therefore, consider the objection which has been raised. If the act is void, the court was without jurisdiction, and it is not necessary to consider any of the other assignments of error upon which defendant relies.

Article 3, Sec. 2, of the Constitution declares that the judicial power shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and it is said that, in view of this provision in the fundamental law, Congress is without power to substitute for the maritime law regulating the rights of seamen, as known and accepted when the Constitution was adopted, an entirely different and common-law system governing such matters.

In 1861, in The Steamer St. Lawrence, 1 Black, 522, 526, 17 L.Ed. 180, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, writing for the court and referring to the fact that the Constitution delegates to the federal government the judicial power in all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, declares that:

'Certainly no state law can enlarge it, nor can an act of Congress or rule of court make it broader than the judicial power may determine to be its true limits.'

The court in that case, however, recognized the power of Congress to alter and change the forms and modes of proceeding in the admiralty courts in matters having no relation to the subject of jurisdiction, and to transfer the trial of seamen's causes from the admiralty to the common-law courts.

The fact that the Constitution extended the judicial power of the federal courts to the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and that this meant the admiralty and maritime law at the time the Constitution was adopted, does not preclude Congress from subsequently making alterations in the system of law thus referred to; and it has never been understood that the rights of seamen existing under the maritime law would in all cases have to be asserted in the courts of admiralty to the exclusion of the courts of common law.

Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, referring to the grant of admiralty jurisdiction, wrote as follows:

'The reasonable interpretation would seem to be that it conferred on the national judiciary the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, exactly according to the nature and extent and modifications in which it existed in the jurisprudence of the common law. When the jurisdiction was exclusive, it remained so; when it was concurrent, it remained so. Hence the states could have no right to create courts of admiralty as such, or to confer on their own courts the cognizance of such cases as were exclusively cognizable in admiralty courts. But the states might well retain and exercise the jurisdiction in cases of which the cognizance was formerly concurrent in the courts of common law. The latter class of cases can be no more deemed cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction than cases of common law.' 3 Com. on Const. Sec. 1006.

The fact must therefore be kept in mind that in a certain class of cases affecting the rights of seamen the courts of admiralty and the courts of common law had and still have a concurrent jurisdiction, and that that class of cases are not to be regarded as exclusively pertaining to the admiralty jurisdiction and as such to be heard in an admiralty court, and so are beyond the power of Congress to affect by its legislation.

In the Judiciary Act of 1789 (1 Stat. p. 76, c. 20) the right of the common-law courts was recognized, and it was provided that the federal District Courts should have exclusive jurisdiction of all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, 'saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy where the common law is competent to give it. ' And that provision has ever since remained unrepealed. Rev. St. Sec. 563, par. 8 (Comp. St. Sec. 991(3)).

The maritime law afforded two remedies. One was a proceeding in rem, and the other was a proceeding in personam. Where the proceeding was in rem, the jurisdiction of admiralty was exclusive; where it was in personam, the courts of common law had a concurrent jurisdiction. And when a party came into the common-law court with a proceeding in personam, which he might have brought in the admiralty court, the cause was disposed of according to the procedure which governed that class of courts, and was tried with a jury. It certainly cannot now be questioned that the act under which the plaintiff proceeded was in any respect invalid in providing that a seaman who suffers a personal injury in the course of his employment may sue at law and have a right to a trial by jury.

But, while a seaman who was injured in the service of his ship has from the beginning had a right to sue in the common-law court and to have a jury trial, the amount he was entitled to recover was not measured by common-law standards, but by those prescribed by the maritime law. By that law the vessel owner was liable to a seaman injured by the negligence of a member of the crew, whether a superior officer or not, only for his maintenance, cure, and wages. The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 23 Sup.Ct. 483, 47 L.Ed. 760; Chelentis v. Luckenbach Steamship Co., 247 U.S. 372, 38 Sup.Ct. 501, 62 L.Ed. 1171. The Jones Act, however, extends the seaman's right to recover damages for personal injuries, and applies in such cases the remedy given under the statutes of the United States to railway employees.

In The Lottawana, 21 Wall. 558, 577 (22 L.Ed. 654) the court, referring to the maritime law, said:

'It cannot be supposed that the framers of the Constitution contemplated that the law should forever remain unalterable. Congress undoubtedly has authority under the commercial power, if no other, to introduce such changes as are likely to be needed.'

The Congress has, for example, long since changed the rule of unlimited liability imposed upon shipowners by the maritime law, and created a limited liability. This it first did by an act passed March 3, 1851. The matter came before the Supreme Court in The Scotland, 105 U.S. 24, 31 (26 L.Ed. 1001) and Mr. Justice Bradley, referring to the statute, said:

'But it is enough to say, that the rule of limited liability is now our maritime rule. It is the rule by which, through the act of Congress, we have announced that we propose to administer justice in maritime cases.'

Again in Butler v. Boston & Savannah Steamship Co., 130 U.S. 527, 9 Sup.Ct. 612, 32 L.Ed. 1017, the statute limiting liability was before the court, and was held applicable to cases of personal injury and death, as well as to cases of loss of or injury to property. In that case certain earlier cases in the court were commented upon, and Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the court, said:

'These quotations are believed to express the general, if not unanimous, views of the members of this court for nearly 20 years past, and they leave us in no doubt that, whilst the general maritime law, with slight modifications, is accepted as law in this country, it is subject to such amendments as Congress may see fit to adopt. One of the modifications of the maritime law, as received here, was a rejection of the law of limited liability. We have rectified that. Congress has restored that article to our maritime code. We cannot doubt its power to do this. As the Constitution extends the judicial power of the United States to 'all cases of admiralty and maritime

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