Cite as: 531 U. S. 438 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, 571-572 (1867); The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, 431 (1867). We later distinguished between the concept of rights and remedies. Chelentis v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 247 U. S. 372, 383-384 (1918). In Chelentis, we held that maritime law governs a seaman's right to recovery against a vessel owner for his injuries aboard the vessel. We explained that "[t]he distinction between rights and remedies is fundamental. A right is a well founded or acknowledged claim; a remedy is the means employed to enforce a right or redress an injury." Id., at 384.
In a subsequent case, the Court defined the saving to suitors clause as a grant to state courts of in personam jurisdiction, concurrent with admiralty courts. Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109, 123 (1924). We held enforceable an arbitration agreement between an owner of a steamship and a company that chartered the ship. We reasoned that agreements to arbitrate were valid under admiralty law, and that the State of New York had the power to confer on its courts the authority to compel parties to submit to arbitration. We explained that the state arbitration law merely provided a remedy in state court:
"The 'right of a common law remedy,' so saved to suitors, does not . . . include attempted changes by the States in the substantive admiralty law, but it does include all means other than proceedings in admiralty which may be employed to enforce the right or to redress the injury involved. It includes remedies in pais, as well as proceedings in court; judicial remedies conferred by statute, as well as those existing at the common law; remedies in equity, as well as those enforceable in a court of law." Id., at 123-124.
Thus, the saving to suitors clause preserves remedies and the concurrent jurisdiction of state courts over some admiralty and maritime claims. See also Madruga v. Superior
445
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