The 400-foot (120 m) unpowered ore barge William E. Reis was moored to some timber pilings located near Columbus Street in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Cleveland, Terminal and Valley Railway (CT&V) owned a swing bridge over the Cuyahoga, located near the intersection of Riverbed and Sycamore Streets.

[3] The Moore, following the Eads, struck a dock co-owned by the CT&V and the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company and then jammed stern first into the space between the eastern pier of the Superior Viaduct and the bank of the river.

The river’s now constrained and redirected current undermined the ships and carved away a large portion of the riverbed,[5] doing considerable damage to the piers of the CT&V swing bridge and the Superior Viaduct.

[6] The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which owned a controlling interest in the CT&V,[7] also sued to recover the cost of repairing the swing bridge pier and pilings and the dock.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, sitting as a court of admiralty, found that the ship's owners had failed to properly staff the vessel during the flood, and that the lone shipkeeper aboard the Reis had failed to properly maintain the vessel's moorings during the flood.

1886)., the Supreme Court had held that a case for damages under maritime law could proceed only if "the substance and consummation" of the wrong had taken place on navigable waters.

In each case, the fact that a fire began aboard a ship and spread to land did not bring the tort under admiralty law.

1886)., the Supreme Court held that there was no cause under maritime law in the case where a ship's jib struck a building on land.

1904)., the Supreme Court had held that damage to a maritime navigation beacon permanently attached to the sea floor was properly brought under admiralty law.

[13] The "aids to navigation" rule outlined in Cleveland Terminal and Valley Railway was widely incorporated into American admiralty jurisprudence over the next 40 years.

That year, Congress enacted the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, which extended tort claims under U.S. maritime law to include cases caused by a vessel on navigable waters, whether or not the action occurred or was consummated on land.