Cite as: 506 U. S. 80 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
the seizure, all rights under it are gone. Although judicial jurisdiction once attached, it is divested by the subsequent proceedings; and it can be revived only by a new seizure. It is, in this respect, like a case of capture, which, although well made, gives no authority to the prize Court to proceed to adjudication, if it be voluntarily abandoned before judicial proceedings are instituted." Id., at 291 (emphasis added).
Fairly read, The Brig Ann simply restates the rule that the court must have actual or constructive control of the res when an in rem forfeiture suit is initiated. If the seizing party abandons the attachment prior to filing an action, it, in effect, has renounced its claim. The result is "to purge away all the prior rights acquired by the seizure," ibid., and, unless a new seizure is made, the case may not commence. The Brig Ann stands for nothing more than this.
The rule invoked by the Government thus does not exist, and we see no reason why it should. The fictions of in rem forfeiture were developed primarily to expand the reach of the courts and to furnish remedies for aggrieved parties, see Continental Grain Co. v. Barge FBL-585, 364 U. S. 19, 23 (1960); Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210, 233 (1844), not to provide a prevailing party with a means of defeating its adversary's claim for redress. Of course, if a "defendant ship stealthily absconds from port and leaves the plaintiff with no res from which to collect," One Lear Jet, 836 F. 2d, at 1579 (Vance, J., dissenting), a court might determine that a judgment would be "useless." Cf. The Little Charles, 26 F. Cas., at 982. So, too, if the plaintiff abandons a seizure, a court will not proceed to adjudicate the case. These exceptions, however, are closely related to the traditional, theoretical concerns of jurisdiction: enforceability of judgments and fairness of notice to parties. See 1 R. Casad, Jurisdiction in Civil Actions § 1.02, pp. 1-13 to 1-14 (2d ed. 1991); cf. Miller v. United States, 11 Wall. 268, 294-295 (1871) ("Confessedly
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