## Facts

- California enacted a statute making vessels liable for, among other claims, the nonperformance or malperformance of transportation contracts and granting a lien enforceable by a lawsuit brought directly against the vessel, with attachment and potential sheriff’s sale to satisfy any judgment.
- The steamship *Moses Taylor* was an ocean-going vessel used to carry passengers and freight between Panama and San Francisco and was owned by a New York resident.
- Hammons purchased steerage passage for $100 under a contract promising transportation to San Francisco with reasonable dispatch and providing proper food, water, and berths or other lodging conveniences during the voyage.
- Hammons alleged the passage contract was breached because he was delayed for days at the Isthmus of Panama and, during the voyage, received unwholesome provisions and was crowded into unhealthy steerage quarters with inadequate space and air due to too many steerage passengers.
- After arriving in San Francisco, Hammons filed an in rem proceeding in a California justice of the peace court, naming the *Moses Taylor* as the defendant and proceeding under the California statute.
- The vessel’s agent appeared and objected that the justice court lacked jurisdiction because the claim fell within the exclusive admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the federal courts; the objection was overruled.
- The justice court entered judgment for Hammons, and the judgment was affirmed in the state appellate process.
- The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error to review the validity of the state-court judgment entered in the in rem proceeding.

## Issues

1. Is a contract for ocean transportation of a passenger a maritime contract within federal admiralty and maritime jurisdiction?
2. May a state statute authorize state courts to hear an in rem action directly against a vessel to enforce a claim for breach of a maritime passage contract?
3. Does the Judiciary Act’s saving-to-suitors clause permit a state-court in rem proceeding that seizes and sells a vessel to satisfy a maritime claim?

## Decision

- The Court held that a passage contract for transportation by ocean steamship is a maritime contract; there is no principled distinction between such a contract and a maritime contract to carry goods.
- The Court held that an in rem proceeding against a vessel to enforce liability arising from that maritime contract is a civil cause of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.
- The Court held that § 9 of the Judiciary Act constitutionally grants federal district courts exclusive cognizance over civil admiralty and maritime causes, and a state may not confer that jurisdiction on its own courts by statute.
- The Court held that the saving-to-suitors clause preserves only common-law remedies where the common law is competent to give them—generally in personam actions—and does not preserve admiralty-style in rem proceedings.
- The Court reversed the state-court judgment because the state court lacked jurisdiction to proceed in rem against the vessel.

## Legal Principles

- A contract for ocean transportation of passengers is a maritime contract within admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.
- The defining form of an admiralty in rem suit is that the vessel (or other thing) is seized and made the defendant; common-law process ordinarily reaches property only through a personal defendant.
- Congress may make federal judicial power exclusive in designated areas, and § 9 of the Judiciary Act validly makes federal district court jurisdiction exclusive over civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.
- A state statute authorizing an in rem action against a vessel for a maritime cause of action, with attachment and sale of the vessel, is an attempt to grant admiralty jurisdiction to state courts and is ineffective to that extent.
- The saving-to-suitors clause preserves common-law remedies (such as in personam contract actions against the owner) but does not preserve admiralty in rem remedies.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court invalidated California’s use of a state-court in rem proceeding against the *Moses Taylor* to enforce a passenger’s maritime passage-contract claim, holding that admiralty in rem jurisdiction belongs exclusively to the federal courts and that the saving-to-suitors clause does not allow a state to provide an admiralty-style seizure-and-sale remedy against the vessel.


Hammons v. The Moses Taylor, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 411 (1866)