The "saving to suitors" clause from the supreme court in 2001, in Lewis v. Lewis & Clark. You can read the discussion, but the first and last sentences make the point about the meaning:
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Federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over admiralty and maritime claims, but the jurisdictional statute "sav[es] to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled." 28 U.S.C. 1333(1).
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Article III, 2, of the United States Constitution vests federal courts with jurisdiction over all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Section 9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 codified this grant of exclusive original jurisdiction, but "sav[ed] to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it." Ch. 20, 9, 1 Stat. 77. In the intervening years, Congress has revised the language of the saving to suitors clause, but 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 (184
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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., 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 (191
. 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 Court of Cal., County of San Diego, 346 U.S. 556, 560-561 (1954); Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522, 533-534 (1873)."
How is redeeming your currency an admiralty/maritime claim?
