General Maritime Law as Federal Common Law
General maritime law is the judge-made body of rules that governs navigation and commerce on navigable waters. It is federal common law. Congress can change it by statute. Courts still fill the gaps. That mix makes admiralty unusual in modern American law. Most private-law fields now sit in state codes. Admiralty kept a national judicial tradition.
The Constitution gave federal courts admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Early judges then borrowed from English admiralty and from the law of nations. They adapted those sources to American ports and rivers. The result was a uniform set of principles for ships, seamen, cargo, and collisions. Uniformity was the point. A vessel moves from Houston to New York. The legal rules should not flip at each state line.
Federal common law here is not a free-floating power to invent policy. The Supreme Court has said that courts may develop maritime rules where Congress is silent. They must respect the Constitution and federal statutes. When Congress speaks—through the Jones Act, the Limitation Act, or DOHSA—the statute controls. Where the statute stops, general maritime law continues. Maintenance and cure is a classic example. No single modern act created the whole duty. Courts still enforce it as part of the seaman’s historic protection.
Preemption fights follow from that structure.
A state may add remedies that do not collide with the federal maritime design. A state may not punch a hole in uniformity that admiralty needs. Wrongful-death remedies, punitive damages, and products claims have all produced this tension. Courts ask whether the state rule would frustrate the federal scheme. They also ask whether the claim is “maritime” in the first place. Location on water is not always enough. The wrong must have a connection to maritime activity.
Procedure sits beside substance. Admiralty cases can proceed in federal court without diversity of citizenship.
Plaintiffs may still sue in state court under the saving-to-suitors clause. The choice of forum does not erase general maritime law. A state jury can try a maritime negligence case. The governing principles remain federal unless a valid state supplement applies. Houston lawyers meet this split constantly. Injury suits often start in state court. Collision and limitation fights often start in federal court.
Commerce supplies the policy.
Predictable rules lower the cost of shipping. They also protect crews who work far from home. General maritime law therefore balances two aims. One is commercial certainty for owners, charterers, and insurers. The other is special solicitude for seamen, whom courts have called wards of the admiralty. Those aims clash after a casualty. The same body of law must decide unseaworthiness, comparative fault, and who pays for salvage.
In short, general maritime law is federal common law because the Constitution put admiralty in the national courts and left much of the doctrine to judges.
Statutes now occupy large fields. The common-law residue still decides duties that Congress never fully coded. A Houston maritime case often turns on that residue: what the vessel owed, what the seaman can recover, and which court may say so. Statute first. Judge-made admiralty next. State law only where uniformity can bear it.