Judicial power as well as legislative is conferred upon the territorial government by the organic act establishing the Territory, the provision being that the judicial power shall be vested in a supreme court, district courts, probate courts, and in justices of the peace. Appellate jurisdiction from the district courts to the supreme court is also given, and with that view the provision is that writs of error, bills of exception, and appeals shall be allowed under such regulations as may be prescribed by law, from which it plainly follows that the district courts created by the organic act are and were intended to be courts of general original jurisdiction.
Provision is also made for writs of error and appeals from the territorial Supreme Court to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations as are required to remove here the judgment or decree of the Federal Circuit Court for re-examination, where the value of the property or the amount in controversy exceeds two thousand dollars, or where the Constitution of the United States or an act of Congress or a treaty is brought in question.
Express power is also given to the district courts of the Territory to have and exercise the same jurisdiction in all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States as is vested in the circuit and district courts of the United States, and also of all cases arising under the laws of the Territory. 10 Stat. 175; Rev. Stat., sects. 1910, 1911.
Matters of fact of a preliminary nature, disconnected with the question of jurisdiction, are not controverted; as, for example, it is not disputed that the steamship is owned by the respondent steamship company, and that she is one of the line they employ in the transportation of passengers and freight between the port of Seattle, one of the ports of Puget Sound, and the port of San Francisco, in the State of California; nor is it denied that the complaining party purchased a ticket as a cabin passenger for a passage, at the time alleged, from the former to the latter port, nor that she went on board for that purpose, and that a stateroom was assigned to her for use during the voyage by the proper officer or agent in charge.
None of these matters are denied in the argument here, and the injured party alleges that while she had stepped into her stateroom for a few minutes a portion of a concealed hatchway in the floor of the cabin near the door of her stateroom was uncovered by some of the officers, agents, of employees of the company, and was by their gross carelessness and negligence left open and unguarded, in consequence of which and without her fault she, in returning from her stateroom to the cabin, fell through the hatchway down into the hold of the steamship, a distance of about twenty feet, whereby she broke and crushed the bones of her right arm and received other grievous injuries, which, as she believes, ill disable her for life.
Compensation for her injuries being refused by the company, she, her husband joining with her, instituted the present suit in rem against the steamship in the proper district court of the Territory to recover such redress as the law affords in such cases. Service was made and the respondents appeared and demurred to the libel for several causes, of which the following are the most material in this investigation: (1) That the District Court had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter alleged in the libel. (2) That neither the acts of Congress nor the admiralty rules of practice promulgated by the Supreme Court apply in the courts of the territory.