The Unadilla
| Decision Date | 16 March 1896 |
| Parties | THE UNADILLA. v. THE UNADILLA. GERMAN-AMERICAN BANK OF BUFFALO |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Brown & Cook and D. L. Cruice, for petitioner.
Schuyler & Kremer, for respondent.
The Unadilla was sold at the instance of a lienholder, and its proceeds are now in the registry of this court. The German-American Bank appears as an intervening petitioner. The home port of the Unadilla was Tonawanda, near Buffalo, in the state of New York. The petitioning bank is situated in Buffalo. The petitioner's claim arises from advances made by the petitioner to the owner of the Unadilla at Buffalo for prospective supplies to and repairs upon the Unadilla. The advances were made in reliance upon an understanding between the owner and the bank that there should be a lien upon the vessel for the amount thereof.
The statutes of New York provide for a lien for 'advances made for the purpose of procuring necessaries for such ship or vessel. ' Admiralty Rule 12 provides a lien to material men 'for supplies or repairs, or for necessaries. ' This, plainly, does not extend to the petitioner's case. The bank was in no sense a material man. Rule 17 provides a lien on account of maritime hypothecation for supplies, repairs, or other necessaries in a foreign port. The case of the petitioner does not fall under this rule. There is no other rule in admiralty except the forty-third, hereafter referred to, which even remotely touches the petitioner's case.
The question, then, arises whether, having a lien by virtue of the New York statute, for the enforcement of which, however by a proceeding in rem, no provision is made by the admiralty rules, the petitioner is entitled to share in the proceeds in the registry, and, if so, in what order. I have examined with as much care as my time would permit the line of federal decisions from which light upon this question might be obtained, and, without attempting to summarize the principles therein separately developed, will state only the conclusions to which they have brought me. These conclusions seem to me to be especially apparent in the cases of The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, The General Smith, 4 Wheat. 438, and The J. E Rumbell, 148 U.S. 1, 13 Sup.Ct. 498.
Maritime law is entirely distinct from the municipal law of the land. It is, and always has been a separate and distinctive jurisprudence. But, though relating to the sea, and radically different, in some respects, from the conceptions of municipal law, it has always been an attribute of some sovereignty, and enforced in the courts of such sovereignty. The constitution of the United States transferred this jurisprudence from the sovereignty of the states to that of the nation. The maritime law proper finds its expression now only in the national will. The states can add nothing to it nor take anything from it; and, in the field of strictly maritime law, state legislation is ineffectual except as such l...
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