Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/87

 HOLMES V. 0. ife 0. BY. 00. 16 �Holmes v. 0. & C. Ey. Co. �{District Court, D. Oregon. , 1880.) �1. Dbath, Action for — Although an action maj not lie at common law �to recover damages for the death of a person, it will at the civil law, and therefore semble that it will in admiralty. �2. Mahinb Tort. — A marine tort is one that occurs on any public, navi- �gable water of the United States, whather caueed by a wrongful act or omission, and the proper district court, as a court of admiralty, bas jurisdiction of a 8uit to recover damages therefor. �3. EiGHT GivEN BT State Btatctb.— The jurisdiction of the national �courts does not always, nor often, depend upon the origin of the rights of the parties ; and where a state statute gives a right, the same may be asserted or enforced in such courts whenever the citizenship of the parties or the nature of the subject will permit. �4. Bame.— The right given by section 367 of the Oregon Civil Code to an �administrator, to recover damages on account of the death of his in- testate f rom the party by whose act or omission such death was caused, may be enforced in the national courts. �6. SAJdDE. — Suit m Admiralty. — When a passenger on the railway ferry- boat, plymg accross the Wallamet river between East Portland and Portland, was drowned by reason of the negligence of the owner of the boat or its servants, a marine tort was tommitted, for which a suit maybe maintained in the district court by the administrator of the deceased to recover the damages given therefor by section 867. supra. �In Admiralty. �Sidney Dell, for libellant. �Joseph N. Dolph, for defendant. �Deady, D. J. This suit iS brought to recover the sum of $4,900, on account of the death of William A. Perkins, the libellant's intestate, alleged to have been caused by the neg- ligence of the defendant on November 16, 1868, while trans- porting said Perkins across the Wallamet river, at Portland, on the defendant's duly enroUed steam ferry-boat Number One. �Substantially, the libel alleges that on September 17, 1879, by the order of the county court of Jackson county, Oregon, the libellant was dnly appointe d administrator of the edtate ����