Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/284

 AdMIRxVLTY.

62 Sect.

2.

Exercise of Jurisdiction.

on a bottomry or respondentia bond or to the possession of the ship, might take proceedings in personam against the owners of the property which would have been arrested if the proceedings had been in rem{c). Subsequently, in 1854, the High Court of Admiralty w^as empowered by statute to institute proceedings by personal service of a monition upon the owners of the property the subjectmatter of the dispute, without the necessity of issuing a warrant to arrest the

Ameunt lecoverable.

Law

adminis-

tered in

Admiralty.

property

(cQ.

The question whether the amount

of the judgment recoveran Admiralty action in personam can extend beyond the value of the res does not seem to have been decided, though there is some authority for holding that, although the Court of Admiralty did exercise a jurisdiction in personam, whenever there was a proceeding in rem it limited the damages recoverable to the value of the res {e).

91.

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92- The law administered in Admiralty actions is not the ordinary municipal law of England, but is the law which the High Court of Admiralty, by Act of Parliament or reiterated decisions, traditions, and principles, has adopted as the English maritime law (/). (c) The Volant (1842), 1 W. Eob. 383. See R. V. Jadf/e of the City of London Court, [1892] 1 Q. B. 273, at 310, and cases there cited. It was assumed where the proceedings were pp. 307 by monition that an action in rem was dej)ending, so that all rights were tacitly reserved (see The TreJawney (1801), 3 C. Rob. 216 n. Five Steel Barqes (1890), 15 P. D. 142, 146; The Carqo ex Port Victor, [1901] P. 243, at

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pp. 254, 256).

The Admiralty Court Act, 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 78), s. 13._ This section repealed with numerous savings by the Statute Law Ee vision Act, 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c. 19). As to the present practice, see p. 105, ju)st. (f) See R. V. Jud(je of the City of London Court, supra, at -p. 310, per Kay, L.J. If this is so, the argument assented to by the court in The Dictator, [1892] P. 304, that where in an action in rem the defendant had aj)peared the action became an action in ]>ersonani and consequently the liability of the defendant might extend beyond the value of the res, would fall to the ground, as of course the liability of the defendant in personam could only be the liability of the defendant in an Admiralty action in personam. Accordingly the (/) The Gaetano and Maria (1882), 7 P. D. 137, 143. original and common law jurisdiction of that court must be ascertained from the continuous practice and the judgments of its judges and from the judgments The former, in moulding and crystallising the of the courts at Westminster, principles and practice of their court, used the laws of the Rhodians, of Wisbey, the Hanse towns, of Oleron, the Digest, and Prench and other ordinances, which, though they are no part of the law of England, contain many valuable principles and statements of marine practice. See The Gas Float Whitton, No. 2, [1896] P. 42, at p. 48, per Lord Esher, M.R., quoting Abbott, Law of Merchant Ships and Seamen, 5th ed., Preface to the 1st ed., p. xi. [d)

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