Terrell v. The B.F. Woolsey

• Decision Date: 23 October 1880
• Citation: 4 F. 552
• Parties: TERRELL v. THE SCHOONER B. F. WOOLSEY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

4 F. 552

TERRELL v. THE SCHOONER B. F. WOOLSEY.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

October 23, 1880

Henry D. Hotchkiss, for Hawkins.

H. B Kinghorn, for Daniel H. Terrell.

BLATCHFORD C.J.

This libel was filed in the district court against the schooner B F. Woolsey, in rem, for wages alleged to be due to the libellant as a mariner on board of that vessel. One Daniel H Terrell filed a claim to the vessel, and one John P. Hawkins also filed a claim to the vessel. Each claimed a right as owner to bond the vessel and defend the suit. Daniel H Terrell was the owner of the vessel. Hawkins claims to have acquired and displaced the title of Daniel H. Terrell by certain proceedings in a suit in the supreme court of New York. On the petition of Daniel H. Terrell, and after hearing him and Hawkins, and examining the proceedings in said suit, the district court made an order permitting Daniel H. Terrell to intervene and claim the vessel as her owner, and to defend the suit, and adjudging that Hawkins was not her owner, or entitled to appear as claimant or to defend this suit, and striking out his claim. Hawkins appealed to this court. ^[1] The only question involved is as to the title which Hawkins acquired. In October, 1879, Hawkins brought a suit in the supreme court of New York against Daniel H. Terrell and one Whitehead. The complaint in that suit alleged that the plaintiff was a shipwright; that in August, 1879, the defendant, Daniel H. Terrell, owned the vessel and employed the plaintiff to make certain alterations and repairs on her; that for that purpose said Terrell delivered the vessel into the possession of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff performed labor on her, and furnished materials to her of the value of $869.46, which sum said Terrell promised to pay; that the vessel remains in the possession of the plaintiff, and he has a lien on her for the value of said alterations and repairs; that he has incurred expenses for wharfage and a watchman; and that the defendants have, or claim to have, some interest in the vessel; but, if any, it accrued subsequently to the plaintiff's lien. The prayer of the complaint was for a judgment 'that the defendants be foreclosed of all right, title, interest, or equity of redemption in said schooner, and that said schooner may be decreed to be sold according to law; that out of the proceeds of such sale there be paid to the plaintiff the amount of his said claim, and costs, and the expense of keeping the vessel,' and 'that the defendant, Daniel H. Terrell, may be adjudged to pay any deficiency that may remain after the payment of said claim,' and costs and expenses.

Daniel H. Terrell put in an answer raising issues for trial. Whitehead answered, raising issues, and setting up a mortgage on the vessel given to him before the plaintiff's claim accrued, and alleging that the state court had no jurisdiction of the cause of action. The suit was tried in the state court as an equity suit, before the court without a jury, and a judgment was rendered that the defendant Terrell owed the plaintiff $861.31, 'for which sum the plaintiff has a lien on the schooner B. F. Woolsey, and that the plaintiff is entitled to a judgment of foreclosure and sale of the schooner B. F. Woolsey; ' and that the plaintiff 'recover from said defendant Terrell any deficiency which may remain after such sale;' and that the vessel be sold at public auction under the direction of a referee whom the judgment appointed; that the referee give a specified notice of the sale by advertisement, etc., that any of the parties to the suit might purchase; that the referee execute to the purchaser a bill of sale of the vessel; that out of the proceeds, after deducting his fees, and the expenses of the sale, and the cost of keeping the vessel after the judgment and before the sale, he pay to the plaintiff a specified sum for his costs and charges in the suit, and also the sum so found due to him; that he deposit the surplus, if any, in court, and make a report of the sale, and specify any deficiency in the sufficiency of the proceeds to pay said amounts; that the defendant, Daniel H. Terrell, pay such deficiency to the plaintiff; that the plaintiff have execution therefor; that the purchaser at such sale be let into possession on production of the referee's bill of sale; 'and that the defendants, and all persons claiming under them, or any or either of them, be forever barred and foreclosed of all right, title, or interest, and equity of redemption in the said schooner sold as aforesaid.'

Subsequently the judgment was amended by striking out the word 'referee' in all places, and inserting the work 'receiver,' and requiring from the receiver a bond in $1,000. The receiver sold the vessel at auction under this judgment, and Hawkins became the purchaser of her at such sale. The bill of sale of her to him by the receiver is not in the case. The advertisement of sale gave notice that the receiver would sell 'all the right, title, and interest which Daniel H. Terrell and Almeron Whitehead had to or in the schooner B. F. Woolsey on the third day of November, 1879. ' The proceedings in the suit in the state court are sought to be upheld under the provisions of the act of the legislature of the state of New York, passed May 8, 1869, (Laws of New York of 1869, c. 738, p. 1785,) entitled 'An act to provide for enforcing the liens of inn-keepers, boarding-house keepers, mechanics, workmen, or bailees upon chattel property. ' The statute provides as follows:

'Section 1. Any inn-keeper, boarding-house keeper, mechanic, workman, or bailee who shall have a lien upon any chattel property, may commence an action in any court having jurisdiction of the amount of such lien for an enforcement and foreclosure thereof.

'Section 2. Such action shall proceed in all respects as civil actions in the court in which the same is commenced.

'Section 3. The judgment in such action may be the same as in other civil actions in the same court, and, in addition thereto, if in favor of the plaintiff, may fix the amount of such lien and adjudge the foreclosure of the same and the sale of the chattel property affected thereby, and specify the officer who shall make such sale, and in such case shall direct the disposition of the proceeds thereof to the payment of the amount of such lien, with the costs of the action, and the costs and expenses of such sale, and shall provide for the safekeeping of any surplus arising thereon, and the payment thereof to the owner of such chattel property, or his assigns or representatives.

'Section 4. There shall be the same right of appeal from the judgment in such actions as in other civil actions in the court in which the same shall be commenced.

'Section 5. Nothing in this act contained shall be held or construed to affect or impair the right of any person to enforce or foreclose a lien upon chattel property in any other manner than as is herein provided.'

It is enacted, by section 563 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, that the district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction of all civil causes 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 'such jurisdiction shall be exclusive except in the particular cases where jurisdiction of such causes * * * is given to the circuit courts. ' No jurisdiction of any of such causes is anywhere given by statute to the circuit courts, except where the parties are citizens of different states. With this exception the jurisdiction of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction is in the district courts of the United States, exclusive of the state courts, unless the suit in the state court falls under the head of 'a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.'

It is very clear that the contract for the alteration and repairing of the vessel, set up in the complaint in the suit in the state court as the foundation of that suit, was a maritime contract, and that any suit thereon must be a civil cause of maritime jurisdiction. In re the Josephine, 39 N.Y. 19.

In Brookman v. Hamill, 43 N.Y. 554, it is said of the United States statute: 'This act absolutely divests the state tribunals of jurisdiction to enforce maritime claims or contracts, subject only to the proviso which saves to suitors the right in such cases to pursue in the state courts such common-law remedies as the common law is competent to give. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that any state law which attempts to provide for the...