Warner & Wife v. Steamship Uncle Sam

Citations

• 9 Cal. 697

Syllabus

<p>An action brought by husband and wife against a steamer for breach of a contract to carry the wife to New York via Nicaragua, the alleged breach consisting in carrying the wife to Panama, and causing her detention there and consequent illness, and other injuries, though based on a contract, sounds in tort, and the wife is a proper and necessary party plaintiff.</p> <p>Such an action is confessedly based upon the provision of the statute rendering steamers liable for breaches of contracts for the transportation of passengers or property. The contract is the substantial cause of action, and the injuries received are alleged by way of special damage. The wife is, therefore, not a proper party plaintiff, and a complaint, making her a party, is demurrable.—Per Field, dissenting.</p> <p>Where the husband and wife are joined as plaintiffs, and the contract sued on and set forth in the complaint, was made between the husband only and the defendants, the name of the wife as plaintiff was mere surplusage, and not a defect of parties under the Code, and might have been stricken out on notice, if insisted.—Per Burnett, J.</p> <p>The grant of jurisdiction, to the Federal Courts in admiralty cases, is not exclusive in terms, neither is its exercise prohibited to the States, nor is its exercise by the State Courts incompatible with the harmonious working of the system established by the Federal Constitution.</p> <p>It is only on the distinct ground that the appellate power of the Supreme Court of the United Slates extends to the State Courts in proper cases, that the concurrent original jurisdiction of the State and Federal Courts over civil admiralty cases can be sustained.—Per Burnett, J.</p> <p>Until the question of the exclusive jurisdiction in the Federal Courts is directly passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the jurisdiction to the exclusion of all cognizance by the State Courts, is affirmed, this Court should hesitate to declare the act of the Legi