Hill v. The Amelia
12 F. Cas. 150
S.D.N.Y.
1873
Check Treatment
BLATCHFORD, District Judge.

As the legal title to the vessel is in the respondent Towns, and has never passed from him, by a bill of sale, and as the libellant is seeking, therefore, in this suit, to enforce a merely equitable interest against such legal title, and a possession asserted by the respondent under it, I think the case is one of which a court of admiralty will not take cognizance, to deliver possession of the vessel to the libellants. A petitory suit, to try the title to a vessel, must be confined to, and based on, a legal title. Kellum v. Emerson [Case No. 7,669]; Kynoch v. The S. C. Ives [Id. 7,958]. Whatever rights the libellant has must be enforced in some other forum. The libel is dismissed, with costs.