Law Commons^™

A Sea Change In Creditor Priorities, Kristen Van De Biezenbos

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the operation of maritime law undermines a primary justification for creditor priorities under U.S. law. Under current law, when a debtor becomes insolvent, its secured creditors will be paid the full amount of their debt to the extent of their security interest, even if that leaves nothing to pay unsecured creditors. This is controversial with respect to involuntary unsecured creditors, particularly those with tort claims against the debtor. Defenders of this scheme of priorities have argued that allowing greater priority to involuntary creditors would hinder the availability or increase the cost of credit. However, involuntary creditors …

Tarrification Of The Coastwise Trade Laws, Keith E. Diggs

Michigan Law Review

The coastwise trade laws prohibit foreign vessels and mariners from transporting goods or passengers between American ports. These anticompetitive laws punish American producers and consumers yet barely sustain a dwindling merchant marine. Every attempt to repeal the laws encounters insurmountable political resistance. Reformers of the coastwise trade laws, then, should instead try to convert the prohibition on foreign involvement into a tariff.

A Sea Of Confusion: The Shipowner's Limitation Of Liability Act As An Independent Basis For Admiralty Jurisdiction, Amie L. Medley

Michigan Law Review

The Shipowner's Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 allowed the owner of a vessel to limit his liability in the case of an accident to the value of the vessel and its cargo if he could show he had no knowledge of or participation in the negligent act that resulted in the loss. In 1911, the Supreme Court decided Richardson v. Harmon, a case which was interpreted for several decades to hold that the Limitation Act formed an independent basis for admiralty jurisdiction. In a 1990 case, the Supreme Court stated in a footnote that it would not reach …

Compensation And Reward For Saving Life At Sea, Steven F. Friedell

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores the life salvage rules under the general maritime law and under the 1912 life salvage statute. Surprisingly, some life salvors had greater rights under the general maritime law than they have under cases construing the statute. This Article suggests that courts have given insufficient attention to the purposes of the Brussels Salvage Convention of 1910, which inspired the 1912 statute, and that American courts should .remain free to recognize all rights that life salvors possessed before the Brussels Convention.

This Article then considers whether American courts should further expand the rights of life salvors by awarding life …

Maritime Contiguous Zones, Lloyd C. Fell

Michigan Law Review

During the past two centuries, various states which had previously limited their claims of full sovereignty to narrow marginal seas have also asserted special types of jurisdiction over high seas zones outside what they claimed (or what others accepted) as territorial waters. This comment deals with such claims to contiguous zones of the high seas over which the littoral state asserts authority: which may affect the interests of other states.

Longshoreman-Shipowner-Stevedore: The Circle Of Liability, Harney B. Stover, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

It is universally recognized that in the past two decades the United States Supreme Court has substantially revised the law under which seamen, longshoremen and harbor workers (or their survivors) may recover damages for personal injury and death. One of the more recent and most authoritative texts in the field of admiralty and maritime law devotes an entire chapter, 147 pages in length, to the subject of the rights of seamen and maritime workers (or their survivors) of recovery for injury and death. The introduction to that chapter likens the Court's rewriting of the law in this field to a …

Admiralty - Wrongful Death Statutes - Use Of State Law, Louis Frey

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner's decedent, a carpenter, was employed by a contractor hired to repair the Bonneville Dam, which is owned and operated by the United States. During the course of his employment, decedent was drowned when the boat he was in capsized in the water below the dam. Petitioner sued the United States in federal district court under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that the accident was caused by the negligence of employees of the United States who were operating the dam. The claim was based on the Oregon Wrongful Death Statute and on the Oregon Employer's Liability Law, which, in …

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study, Second Edition. Volume Two. Foreign Corporations: Torts: Contracts In General, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The second volume of Ernst Rabel's comparative treatise on the conflict of laws was originally published in 1947. This new edition completes the plan to revise the first two volumes, as arranged with the approval of the author before his death on September 7, 1955. Pursuant to this plan, the present edition has been made possible through the continued support of the work by the University of Michigan Law School and the generous cooperation of the Max Planck-Institut für aüslindisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg, in making available the competent services of a member of the staff of the Institut, …

Admiralty - Constitutional Law - Effect Of State Regulation Of Marine Insurance On Uniformity Of Maritime Law, Charles G. Williamson, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner's houseboat, used to transport passengers commercially on a lake between Texas and Oklahoma, was insured against fire and other loss by respondent. Following destruction of the boat by fire, respondent denied liability because of breaches of policy warranties against assignment, pledging, transferring, and use for hire. The petitioner's action was brought in the state court and removed to a federal court because of diversity of citizenship. Texas statutes provide that breaches of policy provisions by the insured are no defense unless the breach contributes to the loss, and that provisions in policies against pledging are invalid. Petitioner contended that …

Admiralty - Warranty Of Seaworthiness - Extension To Injury Caused By Appliance Not In Control Of Shipowner, George S. Flint S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Libellant, a longshore foreman for a stevedoring company loading petitioner's ship, was injured when a snatch block broke, causing some loading gear to fall upon his leg. Conflicting evidence in the lower court was resolved by the trial judge, who found that the snatch block was supplied by the stevedoring company. On the basis of this finding, the trial court held that neither the ship nor its appliances were unseaworthy, and that libellant could not recover against the shipowner. The court of appeals reversed and remanded the cause for determination of damages. On certiorari to the Supreme Court, held, …

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume Two. Foreign Corporations: Torts: Contracts In General, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

Full application of comparative methods to the law of conflicts requires a working plan of some magnitude. We ought to take stock of the conflicts rules existing in the different countries of the world, state their similarities or dissimilarities, and investigate their purposes and effects. The solutions thus ascertained should moreover be subjected to an estimation of their usefulness, by the standards appropriate to their natural objective. Conflicts rules have to place private life and business relations upon the legal background suitable to satisfactory intercourse among states and nations. They are valuable to the extent that their practical functioning, rather …

The Revision Of The Treaties Of Montevideo On The Law Of Conflicts, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Law Review

In its issue of July 1940, the Revista Juridica Argentina of Buenos Aires has published the new "Tratados de Derecho Internacional Privado" of Montevideo concluded in 1939 and 1940. We are grateful to this review for apprising us of a significant event in the field of international codification.

A Selection Of Cases And Other Authorities On The Law Of Admiralty, Pt.2: The Maritime Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Books

“The following collection of cases and other authorities on the Law of Admiralty requires prefatory comment in at least two particulars.

In the first place, the collection is incomplete. It has been necessary to keep within rather definite limits of space. Within those limits it has seemed better to develop selected topics somewhat fully, leaving out others altogether, rather than to spread the collection out over as much of the field as one would like to include….

In the second place, the collection is tentative. There are no footnotes and such materials as are usually thus included must be supplied …

A Selection Of Cases And Other Authorities On The Law Of Admiralty, Pt.1: The Jurisdiction Of Admiralty Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Books

“The following collection of cases and other authorities on the Law of Admiralty requires prefatory comment in at least two particulars.

In the first place, the collection is incomplete. It has been necessary to keep within rather definite limits of space. Within those limits it has seemed better to develop selected topics somewhat fully, leaving out others altogether, rather than to spread the collection out over as much of the field as one would like to include….

In the second place, the collection is tentative. There are no footnotes and such materials as are usually thus included must be supplied …

A Selection Of Cases And Other Authorities On The Law Of Admiralty, Pt.3: The Reception And Modification Of Maritime Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Books

“The following collection of cases and other authorities on the Law of Admiralty requires prefatory comment in at least two particulars.

In the first place, the collection is incomplete. It has been necessary to keep within rather definite limits of space. Within those limits it has seemed better to develop selected topics somewhat fully, leaving out others altogether, rather than to spread the collection out over as much of the field as one would like to include….

In the second place, the collection is tentative. There are no footnotes and such materials as are usually thus included must be supplied …

Note And Comment, George E. Longstaff, George L. Clark, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Constitutionality of the LA Follette Amendment to the Internal Revenue Law of 1921 - The United States Senate on November 5, 1921, inserted in the Revenue Act, then before the Senate, a provision that taxpayers in their income tax returns must specify what state and municipal bonds they hold, or else be subject to a penalty of five per cent. That provision was dropped out in conference, but it will come up again, and it is well to look at its constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting unreasonable searches.

Requisitioned And The Government-Owned Ship, J. Whitla Stinson

Michigan Law Review

Jurisdiction over requisitioned and government-owned merchantmen and their liabilities under maritime laws are questions which present no real novelty. They were regarded by the ancient sea-law and were as familiar to it as they have recently become,-on account of the exigencies of the late war, to the admiralty systems of to-day. The maritime law of Rome supplies modem cases with the most cogent parallels and is reflected today in the jurisprudence of France and other continental and Latin countries. The jurisdictional question which figures most prominently in these cases relates to the authority to arrest or libel the property of …

Book Reviews, G L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

Handbook of Admiralty Law. By Robert It. Hughes, M.A., LL.D., of the Norfolk (Va.) Bar. Second Edition. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1920. Pp. xviii, 572.

Note And Comment, G L. Canfield, Edson R. Sunderland, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, George D. Clapperton

Michigan Law Review

Maritime Liens - Personality of Ship - In Coal Company v. Fisheries Company (Advanced Sheets, Nov. 15, ig2o), the Supreme Court denies a lien for supplies of coal furnished the owner of a fleet of vessels for use thereon and, incidentally, brings into stronger relief the admiralty doctrine of the personality of the ship as distinguished from that of the owner. At the time the arrangement was made, the shipowner was without money or credit and could not enter upon its operations without a supply of coal for its ships and factories. The Coal Company agreed to supply its requirements …

Book Reviews, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Part I of Mr. Ogilvie's book is entitled, "The Evolution of the Principle" and is intended to serve as an introduction to the subject of internatitonal rights on inland navigable waterways. Systematic treatment of the subject is reserved for a later volume. Assuming that free navigation on inland waterways is the natural sequence of freedom on the seas, the author sketches briefly the growth of maritime enterprise, the early development of maritime law, the history of maritime discovery, and the triumph after long controversy of the freedom of the seas- One short chapter is devoted to freedom of navigation on …

State Legislation Extending To Navigable Waters, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, 37 Sup. Ct. -, decided May 21, 1917, the Supreme Court announces a decision in some respects of far reaching importance. It was held therein, Mr. Justice HOLMEs dissenting, that the WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT of the State of New York did not support an award to the widow and children of a workman killed on board a ship of the Company while at the pier in New York City. Clearly the terms of the New York act covered the case, unless the fact that the accident occurred on navigable waters of the United States …

State Legislation Extending To Navigable Waters, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, 37 Sup. Ct. -, decided May 21, 1917, the Supreme Court announces a decision in some respects of far reaching importance. It was held therein, Mr. Justice HOLMEs dissenting, that the WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT of the State of New York did not support an award to the widow and children of a workman killed on board a ship of the Company while at the pier in New York City. Clearly the terms of the New York act covered the case, unless the fact that the accident occurred on navigable waters of the United States …