USA Foreclosure Wiki

The Adeline (N.D. Fla. 1918)

4 min read

The Adeline (1918)

Citation: 252 F. 953 · Court: U.S. District Court, N.D. Florida (Sheppard, District Judge) · Decided: July 8, 1918

Source note (2026-10-18):

  • Links on this page to https://static.case.law/f/252/cases/0953-01.json are an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.

Facts

The Hyer Launch Company furnished supplies to the gasoline launch Adeline, which worked in the harbor of Pensacola. Before the supplier sued in admiralty, a third party’s creditor had the launch seized under an attachment issued out of an Escambia County, Florida justice-of-the-peace court in a suit against the launch’s owner; the state court ordered the launch “sold as perishable property and liable to deterioration,” and it “was sold in conformity to the statute of Florida.” The purchaser took possession under a bill of sale. The supplier knew of the state proceedings but waited until the purchaser had possession, then had admiralty process issued against the launch for its supply claim. The purchaser answered that the state-court sale had “forever released and discharged” any lien.

Holding

“The sale of a boat subject to admiralty jurisdiction under process of a state court, under statutory provisions, as perishable property, does not extinguish a maritime lien for supplies advanced prior to the proceedings and sale” (headnote 2). The libelant’s exceptions to the answer were sustained.

Reasoning

  • The court accepted that a state perishable-property sale ordinarily “will confer a good title in the purchaser, without regard to the title or interest of the defendant, or extent of claims or liens fastened thereon by common or statutory law” — but not as to maritime liens.
  • It adopted Chief Justice Taney’s statement (dissenting in Taylor v. Carryl, 20 How. 583) as “the correct doctrine”: admiralty and maritime liens “are therefore outside the line which marks the authority of a common-law court of a state … And if a common-law court sells the vessel to which the lien has attached, upon condemnation, to pay the debt, or on account of its perishable condition, it must sell subject to the maritime liens, and they will adhere to the vessel in the hands of the purchaser, and of those claiming under him.”
  • It read the Taylor v. Carryl majority as resting only on the first-jurisdiction comity rule, and cited The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, and Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, for limits on state interference with the general maritime law.
  • A state statutory sale of a boat “on the theory of necessity is inapplicable, and cannot be said to be an appropriate common-law remedy” under the saving-to-suitors clause.

Practical impact

  • Buyers: a vessel bought at a state-court sale (execution, attachment, perishable-property sale) — and, by stronger reasoning, at a private state-law lien sale — can be arrested later by a holder of a pre-sale maritime lien. Only a federal in rem sale cuts such liens off (46 U.S.C. § 31326). See marina-and-storage-lien-sales-of-vessels.
  • Lienholders: the supplier here lost nothing by waiting through the state sale.
  • Owners: state proceedings against the owner do not clear the vessel for resale.

Good-law status

No negative treatment was located; the principle is consistent with later appellate statements that “only a federal admiralty court acting in rem has the jurisdiction to quiet title to a vessel conclusively by extinguishing its maritime liens” (in-re-millenium-seacarriers-2005) and that a maritime lien “can be executed and divested only by a proceeding in rem” (barnes-v-sea-hawaii-rafting-2018, quoting Vandewater v. Mills). A citator check was not run this session (needs_verification). As a 1918 district-court decision it is persuasive, not binding, authority.

Applies in →

florida (decided there); principle applies nationally through federal admiralty law. See vessels, admiralty-arrest-and-marshals-sale, maritime-liens-and-preferred-ship-mortgages.

Sources

This page provides general legal information, not legal advice. Verify the holding and its current treatment against the primary source and consult a licensed maritime attorney before acting. Last verified: 2026-10-16.

Graph View

Backlinks