Jurisdiction of maritime torts depends exclusively upon the commission of the wrongful act upon navigable waters[347] regardless of the voyage and the destination of the vessel.[348] By statutory elaboration, as well as judicial decision, maritime torts include injuries to persons,[349] damages to property arising out of collisions or other negligent acts,[350] and violent dispossession of property.[351] But until Congress makes some regulation touching the liability of parties for marine torts resulting in the death of the persons injured, a State statute providing "that when the death of one is caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, the personal representatives of the former may maintain an action therefor against the latter, if the former might have maintained an action, had he lived, against the latter for an injury for the same act or omission," applies, and, as thus applied, it constitutes no encroachment upon the commerce power of Congress.[352]
PRIZE CASES, FORFEITURES, ETC.
From the earliest days of the Republic, the federal courts sitting in admiralty have been held to have exclusive jurisdiction of prize cases.[353] Also, in contrast to other phases of admiralty jurisdiction prize law as applied by the British courts continued to provide the basis of American law so far as practicable,[354] and so far as it was not modified by subsequent legislation, treaties, or executive proclamations. Finally, admiralty and maritime jurisdiction comprises the seizure and forfeiture of vessels engaged in activities in violation of the laws of nations or municipal law, such as illicit trade,[355] infraction of revenue laws,[356] and the like.[357]
PROCEEDINGS IN REM
Procedure in admiralty jurisdiction differs in few respects from procedure in actions at law, but the differences that do exist are significant. Suits in admiralty take the form of a proceeding in rem against the vessel and, with exceptions to be noted, proceedings in rem concerning navigable waters are confined exclusively to federal admiralty courts. However, if a common law remedy exists, a plaintiff may bring an action at law in either a State or federal court of competent jurisdiction,[358] but in this event the action is a proceeding in personam against the owner of the vessel. On the other hand, although the Court has sometimes used language which would confine proceedings in rem to admiralty courts,[359] yet it has sustained proceedings in rem in the State courts in actions of forfeiture. Thus in the case of C.J. Hendry Co. v. Moore,[360] the Court held that a proceeding in rem in a State court against fishing nets in the navigable waters of California was a common law proceeding within the meaning of § 9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, and therefore within the exception to the grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the federal courts. At the same time, however, the Court was careful to confine such proceedings to forfeitures arising out of violations of State law.
ABSENCE OF A JURY
Another procedural difference between actions at law and in admiralty is the absence of jury trial in civil proceedings in admiralty courts unless Congress specifically provides for it. Otherwise the judge of an admiralty court tries issues of fact as well as of law.[361] Indeed, the absence of a jury in admiralty proceedings appears to have been one of the reasons why the English government vested a broad admiralty jurisdiction in the colonial vice-admiralty courts of America, since they provided a forum where the English authorities could enforce the Navigation Laws without what Chief Justice Stone called "the obstinate resistance of American juries."[362]
TERRITORIAL EXTENT OF ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME JURISDICTION
As early as 1821 a federal district court in Kentucky asserted admiralty jurisdiction over inland waterways to the consternation of certain interests in Kentucky which succeeded in inducing the Senate to pass a bill confining admiralty jurisdiction to the ebb and flow of the tide, only to see it defeated in the House.[363] However, in 1825, in The Thomas Jefferson[364] the Court relieved these tensions by confining admiralty jurisdiction to the high seas and upon rivers as far as the ebb and flow of the tide extended in accordance with the English rule. Twenty-two years later this rule was qualified in Waring v. Clarke,[365] when the Court ruled that the admiralty jurisdiction under the Constitution was not to be limited or interpreted by English rules of admiralty and extended the jurisdiction of the federal courts to a collision on the Mississippi River ninety-five miles above New Orleans. In this ruling the Court moved in the direction of accommodating the rising commerce on the inland waterways and prepared the way for the Genesee Chief,[366] which reversed The Thomas Jefferson and sustained the constitutionality of an act of Congress passed in 1845 giving the district courts jurisdiction over the Great Lakes and connecting waters, and so in effect extended the admiralty jurisdiction to all the navigable waters of the United States.[367] The Genesee Chief therefore vastly expanded federal power,[368] and marked a trend which was continued in Ex parte Boyer,[369] where admiralty jurisdiction was extended to canals, and in The Daniel Ball,[370] where it was extended to waters wholly within a given State provided they form a connecting link in interstate commerce. This latter case is also significant for its definition of navigable waters of the United States as those that are navigable in fact, and as navigable in fact when so "used, or * * * susceptible of being used, in their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water."[371] The doubts left by the Ball case in its distinction between navigable waters of the United States and navigable waters of the States were clarified by In re Garnett,[372] where it was held that the power of Congress to amend the maritime law was coextensive with that law and not confined "to the boundaries or class of subjects which limit and characterize the power to regulate commerce," and that the admiralty jurisdiction extends "to all public navigable lakes and rivers." In United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co.,[373] the concept of "navigable waters of the United States" was further expanded to include waterways which by reasonable improvement can be made navigable for use in interstate commerce provided there is a balance between cost and need at a time when the improvement would be useful. Nor is it necessary that the improvement shall have been undertaken or authorized. Conversely, a navigable waterway of the United States does not cease to be so because navigation has ceased, and it may be a navigable waterway for only part of its course. Although this doctrine was announced as an interpretation of the commerce clause, the Garnett case and the decision rendered in Southern S.S. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board,[374] to the effect that admiralty jurisdiction includes all navigable waters within the country, makes it applicable also to the admiralty and maritime clause.