“It is elementary hornbook law that a contract for the sale of a vessel is not within the admiralty jurisdiction of the district courts.”
How later courts described this case
- “It is elementary hornbook law that a contract for the sale of a vessel is not within the admiralty jurisdiction of the district courts.”
- charter-sale agreement is outside admiralty jurisdiction when charter was only for six months, the purchase price equalled the total charter payments, and charteree had notified the owner of its intent to purchase the vessel and had tendered the purchase price
- see also cases cited in: 1 Benedict on Admiralty (1940 Ed.), § 71; and Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty (1957 Ed.), §§ 1-14
- “The rule is settled that contracts for building a ship, or contracts for selling a ship, are not maritime contracts .... ”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ROGERS, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the conclusion that the decree must be reversed. The jurisdiction of the admiralty courts is restricted to maritime subjects. The contract involved is plainly a contract of sale. For a contract to fall within the admiralty jurisdiction, it must concern transportation by sea, relate to navigation or *198 maritime employment, or be one of navigation and commerce on navigable waters. And the contract here does not come under any of these heads. The rule is settled that contracts for building a ship, or contracts for selling a ship, are not maritime contracts, and within the jurisdiction of the admiralty.
I also agree that courts of admiralty, having obtained jurisdiction, do not dispose of nonmaritime subjects, after the manner of courts of equity, for the purpose of doing complete justice. While admiralty courts act as courts of equity so far as their powers go■, their powers are limited to maritime contracts or transactions, and they have no general jurisdiction to administer relief as courts of equity, or to administer. complete relief. They differ, too; from the equity courts, in that they do not undertake to- determine equitable rights.
I desire, however, to withhold any expression of opinion concerning certain cases referred to in the above opinion, and which do not seem to me to be involved in the matter now before the court.