8. Limited to Movable Things.—
These liens arise only upon movable things engaged in commerce and navigation. They cannot exist in anything which is fixed and immovable and not the subject of maritime commerce or navigation. Thus they will subsist in vessels, rafts and cargoes but not upon a bridge or a ship totally out of commission (Rock Island Bridge, 6 Wall. 213; Pulaski, 33 Fed. 383). The lien has been sustained against a dredge. (Atlantic, 53 Fed. 607).
9. Priorities.—
Important priorities exist among maritime liens and these are adjusted when the ship is sold in admiralty to satisfy her debts. The purchaser at an admiralty sale, as elsewhere stated, takes the ship free of all existing liens; the proceeds of the sale are distributed among the lienors according to their priorities, after deducting costs and expenses.
Liens for torts take precedence over all prior liens, and the later lien for tort will be preferred to an earlier if there has been an absence of diligence in enforcing it. The John G. Stevens, 170 U. S. 113, is the leading case on the priority of liens against the offending vessel for torts committed by her. Mr. Justice Gray held:
But the question we have to deal with is whether the lien for damages by the collision is to be preferred to the lien for supplies furnished before the collision.
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The collision, as soon as it takes place, creates, as security for the damages, a maritime lien or privilege, jus in re, a proprietary interest in the offending ship, and which, when enforced by admiralty process in rem, relates back to the time of the collision. The offending ship is considered as herself the wrongdoer, and is herself bound to make compensation for the wrong done. The owner of the injured vessel is entitled to proceed in rem against the offender, without regard to the question who may be her owners, or to the division, the nature, or the extent of their interests in her. With the relations of the owners of those interests, as among themselves, the owner of the injured vessel has no concern. All the interests existing at the time of the collision in the offending vessel, whether by way of part ownership, of mortgage, of bottomry bond, or of other maritime liens for repairs or supplies, arising out of contract with the owners or agents of the vessel, are parts of the vessel herself, and as such are bound by and responsible for her wrongful acts. Any one who had furnished necessary supplies to the vessel before the collision, and had thereby acquired, under our law, a maritime lien or privilege in the vessel herself, was, as was said in The Bold Buccleugh [7 Moore P. C. 267] before cited, of the holder of an earlier bottomry bond, under the law of England, "so to speak, a part owner in interest at the date of the collision and the ship in which he and others were interested was liable to its value at that date for the injury done without reference to his claim [7 Moore P. C. 285]."
Liens arising out of matters of contract will be paid in substantially the following order:—
Salvage.