The Knapp, Stout Co Company v. John Caffrey

Decision Date14 May 1900
Docket NumberNo. 263,263
Citation177 U.S. 638,44 L.Ed. 92,20 S.Ct. 824
PartiesTHE KNAPP, STOUT, & CO. COMPANY, Plff. in Err. , v. JOHN McCAFFREY
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

This was a bill in equity filed in the circuit court for the county of Mercer, Illinois, by the defendant in error, John McCaffrey, against the Knapp, Stout, & Co. Company (hereinafter called the Knapp Company), and the Schulenburg & Boeckler Lumber Company (hereinafter called the Schulenburg Company), and its assignees, to enforce a lien for towage upon a half raft of lumber then lying at Boston Bay, in Mercer county.

The suit arose from a contract made April 6, 1893, by McCaffery with the Schulenburg Company, in which, after reciting that McCaffrey had purchased of this company three steam tow boats for the sum of $17,500, it was agreed that McCaffrey was to tow all the rafted lumber such company would furnish him at or below their mill at Stillwater, Minnesota, to St. Louis, and deliver the same there to the company in quantities not exceeding one half a raft at a time, for which service he was to be paid $1.12 1/2 per thousand feet, board measure, for the lumber contained in the raft. The other provisions of the contract, of which there were many, were not material to the present controversy. After towing a number of rafts for the company, the charges for which remained unpaid, one of McCaffrey's steamers, known as the Robert Dodds, lift Stillwater October 13, 1894, with raft No. 10 of that year. The river being low and navigation difficult, McCaffrey was instructed to divide the raft, to bring one half to St. Louis, and to lay up the other half in some safe harbor. In compliance with these instruc- tions McCaffrey divided the raft on October 20 at Boston Bay harbor in Mercer county, leaving one half there, while the other half was towed to St. Louis and delivered to the lumber company on November 2. The company paid the clerk of the boat $1,250 without directions as to its application, and McCaffrey applied it on the amount due him for the towage of other rafts. The steamer returned to Boston Bay the morning of November 4, and laid up outside the raft for the winter.

On the next day, November 5, the Schulenburg Company sold the half raft in Boston Bay to the Knapp Company for $15,000, part in cash and the remainder in a note due in four months, which was paid at maturity. A bill of sale was given for the lumber, and a letter written to the watchman in charge of the raft informing him of the sale. On November 9 the Schulenburg Company made a voluntary assignment in St. Louis for the benefit of creditors. McCaffrey, hearing of the assignment, offered both companies to tow the half raft to St. Louis under his contract, but the Knapp Company informed him that they did not wish him to do so, saying that they did their own towing; whereupon McCaffrey, claiming to be still in possession of the half raft and believing that the company was about to take it from him by force, filed this bill to foreclose his lien for towage. The Knapp Company gave a bond for the amount of the claim and took the raft away.

The case came on for hearing in the circuit court upon pleadings and proofs, and resulted in a decree dismissing the bill without prejudice. McCaffrey appealed to the appellate court, which reversed the decree of the circuit court, and remanded the cause with directions to enter a decree for the sum of $3,643.17, with interest thereon. The Knapp Company appealed to the supreme court of the state, which affirmed the judgment of the appellate court (178 Ill. 107, 52 N. E. 898); whereupon defendant sued out a writ of error from this court.

Mr. Charles P. Wise for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. C. E. Kremer and Guy C. Scott for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendants set up in their answers and insisted, both before the appellate court and the supreme court of Illinois, that, if plaintiff had any lien upon the raft at all for his towage services, it was a maritime lien, enforceable only in the district court of the United States as a court of admiralty. This is the only Federal question presented in the case.

By article 3, § 2, of the Constitution, the judicial power of the general government is declared to extend to 'all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;' and, by § 9 of the original judiciary act of 1789 (1 Stat. at L. 76, chap. 19), it was enacted 'that the district courts shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several states, . . . exclusive original cognizance 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.' This language is substantially repeated in subdivision 8 of Rev. Stat. § 563, wherein it is expressly stated that 'such jurisdiction shall be exclusive, except in the particular cases where jurisdiction of such causes and seizures is given to the circuit courts.'

The scope of the admiralty jurisdiction under these clauses was considered in a number of cases, arising not long after the district courts were established, notably so in that of De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gall. 398, Fed. Cas. No. 3776, wherein Mr. Justice Story brought his great learning to bear upon an exhaustive examination of all the prior authorities upon the subject both in England and in America.

But the exclusive character of that jurisdiction was never called to the attention of this court until 1866, when the states had begun to enact statutes giving liens upon vessels for causes of action cognizable in admiralty, and authorizing suits in rem in the state courts for their enforcement. The validity of these laws had been expressly adjudicated in a number of cases in Ohio, Alabama, and California. The earliest case arising in this court was that of The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, sub nom. The Moses Taylor v. Hammons, 18 L. ed. 397, in which was considered a statute of California creating a lien for the breach of any contract for the transportation of persons or property, and also providing that actions for such demands might be brought directly against the vessel. The act further provided that the complaint should designate the vessel by name; that the summons should be served upon the master, or person in charge, the vessel attached, and, in case of judgment recovered by the plaintiff, sold by the sheriff. An action having been brought by a passenger before a justice of the peace of the city of San Francisco for failure to furnish him with proper and necessary food, water, and berths, the defense was interposed that the cause of action was one of which the courts of admiralty had exclusive jurisdiction. The case finally reached this court, where the defense was sustained, the court holding that the contract for the transportation of the plaintiff was a maritime contract; that the action against the steamer by name, authorized by the statute of California, was a proceeding in the nature and with the incidents of a suit in admiralty. Upon this point Mr. Justice Field observed: 'The distinguishing and characteristic feature of such suit is that the vessel or thing proceeded against is itself seized and impleaded as the defendant, and is judged and sentenced accordingly. It is this dominion of the suit in admiralty over the vessel or thing itself which gives to the title made under its decrees validity against all the world. By the common-law process, whether of mesne attachment or execution, property is reached only through a personal defendant, and then only to the extent of his title. Under a sale, therefore, upon a judgment in a common-law proceeding, the title acquired can never be better than that possessed by the personal defendant. It is his title, and not the property itself, which is sold.' The court also held that the statute of California to the extent to which it authorze d actions in rem against vessels for causes of action cognizable in admiralty, invested her courts with admiralty jurisdiction, and to that extent was void.

At the same term arose the case of The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, 18 L. ed. 451, in which a statute of Iowa giving a lien for injuries to persons or property, and providing a remedy in rem against the vessel, was held to be obnoxious to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal courts. Speaking of the common-law remedy, saved by the statute, Mr. Justice Miller observed: 'But the remedy pursued in the Iowa courts in the case before us is in no sense a common-law remedy. It is a remedy partaking of all the essential features of an admiralty proceeding in rem. The statute provides that the may be sued and made defendant without proceeding against the owners, or even mentioning their names. That a writ may be issued and the vessel seized, on filing a petition similar in substance to a libel. That after a notice in the nature of a monition, the vessel may be condemned and an order made for her sale, if the liability is established for which she was sued. Such is the general character of the steamboat laws of the western states.' The same principle was applied in the case of The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, sub nom. The Belfast v. Boon, 19 L. ed. 266, to a statute of Alabama under which contracts of affreightment were authorized to be enforced in rem in the state courts by proceedings the same in form as those used in the courts of admiralty. This was also held to be unconstitutional.

The principle of these cases was restated in The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 579, sub nom. Rodd v. Heartt, 22 L. ed. 654, 663, although the question settled by that case was that materialmen furnishing repairs and supplies to a vessel in her home port do not acquire thereby a lien upon the vessel by the general maritime law. To the same effect is The J. E. Rumbell, 148 U. S. 1, 37 L. ed. 345, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 498, in which a lien by a state law for such repairs and supplies was given...

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