# Kossick v. United Fruit Co.

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 29, 1961 · 365 U.S. 731

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422180

## Case

- **Full name:** Kossick v. United Fruit Co.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 29, 1961
- **Citations:** 365 U.S. 731; 81 S. Ct. 886; 6 L. Ed. 2d 56; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 1955
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Whittaker
- **Judges:** Harlan, Frankfurter, Whittaker, Stewart
- **Cited by:** 581 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422180

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that whether a contract invokes the federal courts' admiralty jurisdiction is particularly difficult, as "the boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts — as opposed to torts or crimes — being conceptual rather than spatial have always been difficult to draw.”
- explaining that “ ‘[t]he only question is whether the transaction relates to ships and vessels, masters and mariners, as the agents of commerce ’ ” (quoting 1 E. Benedict, Admiralty 131 (6th ed. 1940)) (emphasis added)
- explaining that the determination of whether to apply state law in admiralty involves an accommodation of interests and holding that the New York stat ute of frauds did not apply to maritime contract
- noting “that a shipowner’s duty to provide maintenance and cure may ordinarily be discharged by the issuing of a master’s certificate carrying admittance to a public hospital, and that a seaman who refuses such a certificate or the free treatment to which it entitles him witho…
- rejecting the argument that just because maritime law is “federal law and therefore supreme by virtue of Article VI of the Constitution,” this implies that “wherever a maritime interest is involved, no matter how slight or marginal, it must displace a local interest, no matter…

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Whittaker,
dissenting.
Like the Court of Appeals, 275 F. 2d 500 , I think the oral contract here claimed by petitioner was not a maritime but a New York contract and barred by its statute of frauds. New York Personal Property Law, § 31, par. 2. I therefore dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422180. Public record. Not legal advice.