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Editor: Rod Sullivan
Profession: Maritime Attorney

Category: Supreme Court Rulings

It is amazing to me how many otherwise intelligent lawyers are hung up on the concept that admiralty cases need to be brought in federal court. Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution granted original jurisdiction to U.S. federal courts over admiralty and maritime matters. However, most admiralty cases in the United States can be brought in either federal or state court.

The federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction pursuant to the terms of a federal statute known as the "Savings to Suitors" clause. Under the Savings to Suitors clause, certain remedies are exclusively limited to being filed in the federal courts: suits seeking to arrest ships to enforce maritime mortgages and liens, petitions to limit a shipowner's liability to the value of a ship after a major accident, and actions seeking to partition ownership of a ship. But those are only the rare cases which the average lawyer is not going to try to handle themselves anyway (leave these to maritime experts--like me).

However, the vast majority of maritime actions, such as suits for damage to cargo, injuries to seamen, collisions between vessels, wake damage, and maritime polution cases may be brought in either state court or federal court.