Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/570

 550 FBDEBAL BEPOBTSB. , �"a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it" �It is very clear that the contraot for the alteration and repairing of the vessel, set up in the complaint in tl^e suit in the state court as the foundation of that suit, was a maritime con- traot, and that any suit thereon must be a civil cause of mar- itime jurisdiction. In re the Josephine, 39 N. Y. 19. �In Broohnan v. Hamill, 43 N. Y. 554, it is said of the United States statute : "This act absolutely divests the state tribunals of jurisdiction to enforce maritime daims or con- tracts, Bubject only to the proviso which saves to suitors the right in such cases to pursue in the state courts such com- mon-law remedies as the common law is competent to give. It is. impossible to escape the conclusion that any state law ■which attempts to provide for the enforcement of a maritime claim or contract by any but a common-law remedy infringes upfln the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal courts over that cjass of cases." �Is the remedy given by the statute of New York such a common-law remedy, competent to be given by the common lawr, as the act of congress refers to? The state statute is one to enforce a lien on the property. It does not, in terms, provide for a suit against any individual, but merely for an actio» for the enforcement and foreclosure of the lien. But probably it intends a suit in personam against an individua] defendant, and a money judgment against him. It then pro- vides for an additional judgment fixing the amount of the lien and adjudging the foreclosure of the same, "and the sale of the chattel property afifeoted thereby." It enacts that the judgment may specify the officer who shall make the sale. The proceeds of the sale are to be applied to pay the lien. It is necessarily implied that the title to the chattel is to pass by the sale, and that the court shall give, by the officer, some evidence of the passing of such title, such as a bill of sale or certificate of sale. The proceeding is essentially one to enforce and foreelose the lien of the chattel. The chattel is, indeed, not seized by process in the suit in the first in- ����