The question to be decided presents itself in three aspects, which may be stated as follows: (1) Can a suit i admiralty be maintained in the courts of the United States to recover damages for the death of a human being on the high seas, or waters navigable from the sea, caused by negligence, in the absence of an act of congress or a statute of a state giving a right of action therefor? (2) If not, can a suit in rem be maintained in admiralty against an offending vessel for the recovery of such damages when an action at law has been given therefor by statute in the state where the wrong was done, or where the vessel belonged? (3) If it can, will the admiralty courts permit such a recovery in a suit begun nearly five years after the death, when the statute which gives the right of action provides that the suit shall be brought within one year?
It was held by this court, on full consideration, in Insurance Co. v. Brame, 95 U.S. 756, 'that by the common law no civil action lies for an injury which results in death.' See, also, Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U.S. 11, 21. Such, also, is the judgment of the English courts, where an action of the kind could not be maintained until Lord Campbell's act, (9 & 10 Vict. c. 93.) It was so recited in that act, and so said by Lord BLACKBURN in The Vera Cruz, 10 App. Cas. 59, decided by the house of lords in 1884. Many of the cases bearing on this question are cited in the opinion in Insurance Co. v. Brame. Others will be found referred to in an elaborate note to Carey v. Berkshire R. Co., 48 Amer. Dec. 633. The only American cases in the common-law courts against the rule, to which our attention has been called, are Cross v. Guthery, 2 Root, 90; Ford v. Monroe, 20 Wend. 210; James v. Christy, 18 Mo. 162; and Sullivan v. Union Pac. R. Co., 3 Dill. 334. Cross v. Guthery, a Connecticut case, was decided in 1794, and cannot be reconciled with Goodsell v. Hart-ford, etc., R. Co., 33 Conn. 55, where it is said: 'It is a singular fact that by the common law the greatest injury which one man can inflict on another, the taking of his life, is without a private remedy.' Ford v. Monroe, a New York case, was substantially overruled by the court of appeals of that state in Green v. Hudson River R. Co., 41 N. Y. 294; and Sullivan v. Union Pac. R. Co., decided in 1874 by the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nebraska, is directly in conflict with Insurance Co. v. Brame, decided here in 1878.
We know of no English case in which it has been authoritatively decided that the rule in admiralty differs at all in this particular from that at common law. Indeed, in The Vera Cruz, supra, it was decided that even since Lord Campbell's act a suit in rem could not be maintained for such a wrong. Opinions were delivered in that case by the Lord Chancellor, (SELBORNE,) Lord BLACKBURN, and Lord WATSON. In each of these opinions it was assumed that no such action would lie without the statute, and the only question discussed was whether the statute had changed the rule. In view, then, of the fact that in England, the source of our system of law, and from a very early period one of the principal maritime nations of the world, no suit in admiralty can be maintained for the redress of such a wrong, we proceed to inquire whether, under the general maritime law as administered in the courts of the United States, a contrary rule has been or ought to be established.
In Plummer v. Webb, 1 Ware, 75, decided in 1825, Judge WARE held, in the district court of the United States for the district of Maine, in an admiralty suit in personam, that 'the ancient doctrine of the common law, founded on the principles of the feudal system, that a private wrong is merged in a felony, is not applicable to the civil polity of this country, and has not been adopted in this state,' (Maine;) and that 'a libel may be maintained by a father, in the admiralty, for consequential damages resulting from an assault and battery of his minor child,' ' fter the death of the child, though the death was occasioned by the severity of the battery;' but the suit was dismissed because upon the evidence it did not appear that the father had in fact been damaged. The case was afterwards before Mr. Justice STORY or appeal, and is reported in 4 Mason, 380, but the question now involved was not considered, as the court found that the cause of action set forth in the libel and proved was not maritime in its nature.