Federal Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction Part 3: Territorial Scope

Legal Sidebari

Federal Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction
Part 3: Territorial Scope
September 20, 2022
This Legal Sidebar post is the third in a five-part series that discusses the bases and scope of U.S.
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Last year, a supply-chain bottleneck arose at the nation’s ports with
as many as 101 container ships waiting for berths at the nation’s Los Angeles and Long Beach ports in the
weeks before Christmas. These delays added to the time it took to deliver the goods to market and
increased the costs of transporting them. Claims for breaches of maritime contracts related to shipping
delays may fall within U.S. admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. As a result, Congress may be interested
in how this area of law operates. Additional information on this topic can be found at the Constitution
Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
Since the Founding, the Supreme Court has grappled with the scope of federal courts’ “admiralty and
maritime” jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution and federal statutes. The Supreme Court has
held that “all suits involving maritime claims, regardless of the remedy sought, are cases of admiralty and
maritime jurisdiction within the meaning of Article III whether they are asserted in the federal courts or,
under the saving clause, in the state courts.” Generally, the Court’s cases analyzing admiralty jurisdiction
have addressed when particular claims qualify as “maritime.” Such cases have examined (1) the territorial
extent of such jurisdiction; (2) its subject matter scope; and (3) the availability of concurrent state court
jurisdiction over maritime claims.
The Supreme Court has held that neither Congress, nor the states, nor U.S. courts can enlarge admiralty
jurisdiction beyond its constitutional limits. Congress has successfully enlarged the Judiciary Act’s initial
statutory grant of admiralty jurisdiction to the lower federal courts on several occasions, which suggests
that it has not granted the courts admiralty jurisdiction to the full extent that the Constitution may allow.
However, the precise boundaries that the Constitution establishes for this jurisdiction remain unclear. The
Court has suggested that various historical and policy-based considerations may delineate the
jurisdiction’s boundaries, including the types of maritime cases that state admiralty courts could
adjudicate at the time of the Constitution’s adoption; the Framers’ reasons for conferring admiralty
jurisdiction on the federal judiciary (for example, to establish more uniformity in admiralty proceedings);
and Congress’s practical need to address new “maritime concerns.”
The extent to which Congress may reduce the scope of admiralty jurisdiction is also unclear. In one case,
the Supreme Court suggested that “grave” constitutional questions would arise if the Court interpreted the
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Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (known as the “Jones Act”) to prohibit federal courts from exercising
admiralty jurisdiction over a seaman’s personal injury claims against his employer while allowing such
suits at common law. The Court avoided ruling on whether the statute would encroach on the
Constitution’s grant of admiralty jurisdiction by construing the Jones Act to allow the seaman to sue
either on the “admiralty side” of a federal court with trial by judge or the “law side” of the court with a
right to a jury trial. The Court’s decision suggests that the Constitution may impose some limits on
Congress’s ability to withdraw certain maritime-related claims from admiralty jurisdiction, at least when
those claims remain cognizable in common law courts.
With respect to admiralty jurisdiction’s territorial scope, courts generally consider the location in which a
tort or crime occurs to be a major factor when determining whether the tort or crime falls within admiralty
jurisdiction. Early in U.S. history, the Supreme Court interpreted the territorial extent of federal admiralty
jurisdiction in accordance with the rules of the English admiralty courts. As a result, the Court construed
that jurisdiction narrowly, limiting it to causes of action that arose on the high seas and rivers subject to
the ebb and flow of the tide.
The law changed significantly in the mid-19th century when the Court held that the English rules on
jurisdiction at the time of the U.S. Constitution’s adoption could not limit the territorial extent of federal
admiralty jurisdiction. In The Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, the Court reviewed a federal law that
extended admiralty jurisdiction over certain claims that arose on the Great Lakes and connecting waters.
The Court upheld the law, determining that the Constitution’s initial grant of admiralty jurisdiction
embraced such waters, even if they were beyond the ebb and flow of the tide. A couple of decades later,
the Court specifically held that admiralty jurisdiction, as conferred by the Constitution and federal
statutes, extended to claims arising on all navigable waters of the United States.
Thus, as currently understood, admiralty jurisdiction extends to all public waters that are navigable in
fact, regardless of whether they are saltwater or freshwater or subject to the ebb and flow of the tide.

Author Information

Brandon J. Murrill

Legislative Attorney




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