444
Opinion of the Court
its substance has remained largely unchanged. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 41(3) and 371 Third (1940 ed.) ("saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy where the common law is competent to give it"); 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1) (1946 ed., Supp. II) ("saving to the libellant or petitioner in every case any other remedy to which he is otherwise entitled"); Act of May 24, 1949, ch. 139, § 79, 63 Stat. 101 ("saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled"). The jurisdictional statute now states that "[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of . . . any civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled." 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1) (emphasis added).
What the drafters of the Judiciary Act intended in creating the saving to suitors clause is not entirely clear and has been the subject of some debate. See, e. g., 1 J. Goebel, Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801, History of the Supreme Court of the United States 474 (1971). Compare Casto, The Origins of Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction in an Age of Privateers, Smugglers, and Pirates, 37 Am. J. Legal Hist. 117, 139-149 (1993), with Gutoff, Original Understandings and the Private Law Origins of the Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction, A Reply to Professor Casto, 30 J. Mar. L. & Com. 361, 387-390 (1999). This Court theorized that the saving to suitors clause was "inserted, probably, from abundant caution, lest the exclusive terms in which the power is conferred on the District Courts might be deemed to have taken away the concurrent remedy which had before existed. This leaves the concurrent power where it stood at common law." New Jersey Steam Nav. Co. v. Merchants' Bank of Boston, 6 How. 344, 390 (1848).
In early cases we defined the limits of the clause. For instance, proceedings in rem were deemed outside the scope of the clause because an in rem action was not a common law remedy, but instead a proceeding under civil law. See, e. g.,
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