The Admiral Peoples

This is ah appeal from a decree in admiralty sustaining appellee’s exceptions to the appellant’s libel in rem, which raised the question of the jurisdiction of the admiralty court over the tort upon which the appellant based her action.

The appellant was a passenger on the Admiral Peoples, and was injured while disembarking from the vessel by falling upon the dock as she attempted to step from the gangplank. The negligence complained of was in furnishing a gangplank which required the passenger to step down six inches to the dock when leaving the gangplank. The passenger was seventy-three years of age at the time, and as result of her fall suffered severe injuries.

It is well settled that injuries occurring upon the dock are injuries upon the land, and that admiralty has no jurisdiction over the place of injury. The cases in which this principle has been applied are so numerous that we deem it unnecessary to enter into an extended discussion of them. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court (State Industrial Comm. v. Nordenholt Corp., 259 U. S. 263 , 42 S. Ct. 473 , 66 L. Ed. 933 , 25 A. L. R. 1013; Smith & Son v. Taylor, 276 U. S. 179 , 48 S. Ct. 228, 229 , 72 L. Ed. 520 ;…