maritime contract
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 365 U.S. 731 - Kossick v. United Fruit Co. · 1961Most cited · 1,438 citing opinions
The boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts—as opposed to torts or crimes—being conceptual rather than spatial. The principle by reference to which cases are supposed to fall on one side of the line or the other is an exceedingly broad one: 'The only question is whether the transaction relates to ships and vessels, masters and mariners, as the agents of commerce.' Without doubt a contract for hire either of a ship or of the sailors and officers to man her is within the admiralty jurisdiction; oral contracts are generally regarded as valid by maritime law.
How the Supreme Court has restated “maritime contract”
Each Supreme Court definition of “maritime contract,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “maritime contract”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “maritime contract” — 1,825 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1859–1961
- ORIGINAL
A contract for building a ship or supplying engines, timber, or other materials for her construction, is clearly not a maritime contract.
The contract for the transportation of the plaintiff was a maritime contract. As stated in the complaint, it related exclusively to a service to be performed on the high seas, and pertained solely to the business of commerce and navigation. There is no distinction in principle between a contract of this character and a contract for the transportation of merchandise. The same liability attaches upon their execution both to the owner and the ship.