FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MANOUCHEHR MONAZZAMI 

TAGHADOMI, Individually and as

Special Administrator of the Estate

of Nahid Davoodabadi, deceased;

THE ESTATE OF NAHID No. 03-16129

DAVOODABADI; AHMAD D.C. No.

DAVOODABADI, Father of Nahid  CV-01-00171-

Davoodabadi; KOBRA AHANGARY, ACK/KSC

Mother of Nahid Davoodabadi,

Plaintiffs-Appellants, OPINION

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendant-Appellee. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Hawaii

Alan C. Kay, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 8, 2004—San Francisco, California

Filed March 22, 2005

Before: Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Robert E. Cowen,* and

Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge O’Scannlain

*The Honorable Robert E. Cowen, Senior United States Circuit Judge

for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation. 

3445
COUNSEL

Peter A. Schey, Los Angeles, California, argued the cause for

the appellant; Teresa Tico, Hanalei, Hawaii, was on the briefs.

Philip Berns, U.S. Attorney’s Office, San Francisco, California, argued the cause for the appellee; Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Edward H. Kubo, and Michael Chun,

3448 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
U.S. Attorney’s Office, San Francisco, California, were on the

brief. 

OPINION

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge: 

In this tort claim against the federal government arising out

of an accident at sea, we explore whether suit can be brought

under the Suits in Admiralty Act, the Public Vessels Act, or

the Federal Tort Claims Act.

I

This case arises from an accident at sea.1 Manouchehr

Monazzami Taghadomi (a U.S. citizen) and his wife Nahid

Davoodabadi (a citizen of Iran) rented a kayak during their

honeymoon in Maui. Their boat was buffeted by harsh wind

and waves, and Nahid was tossed overboard, attacked by a

shark, and died. Monazzami washed up on an island and was

stranded for three days before he was rescued. He was hospitalized for several days. 

While the couple was still in the foundering kayak, a witness on land noticed it through his binoculars. Concerned, he

telephoned the Coast Guard’s Maui office and gave a description of the kayak and its location. About twenty minutes after

receiving the call, the Maui office contacted the Coast Guard

Operations Center in Honolulu. The Operations Center, in

turn, contacted a Coast Guard cutter—the Kiska—and

directed it toward the kayak. The Kiska conducted a brief

1Because we are reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we must consider the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. See

Oliver v. Keller, 289 F.3d 623, 626 (9th Cir. 2002). The relevant facts are

not in dispute for purposes of this appeal. 

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3449
search, but darkness soon fell, and at about seven o’clock that

evening the search was called off. 

This lawsuit followed. Monazzami originally filed a complaint, individually and as special administrator of the estate

of Nahid, against Extreme Sports Maui, the company that

rented the kayak to Taghadomi. In subsequent amended complaints the estate and Nahid’s parents were each added as separate plaintiffs and the United States was added as a defendant.2

The plaintiffs (collectively, the “survivors”) seek damages

from the United States for wrongful death and emotional distress. They allege that the Coast Guard was negligent both in

carrying out its rescue operation and in failing to contact local

authorities who had access to better rescue equipment that

might have been able to save the couple. The United States

moved to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. The survivors opposed the motion and also moved to

amend their Complaint once again to clarify their claims

against the United States. The district court granted the United

States’ motion for summary judgment, holding that the survivors’ claims are not cognizable, and denied as futile the survivors’ motion to amend. The court entered judgment for the

United States and this appeal timely followed. We review the

grant of summary judgment de novo. See Oliver v. Keller, 289

F.3d 623, 626 (9th Cir. 2002).

II

[1] The United States, of course, is liable in court only

when it has waived its sovereign immunity. Three immunitywaiving statutes are relevant here. The first is the Federal Tort

Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2674 et seq., which generally renders the United States liable for its torts to the same

extent as a private actor. The FTCA includes an exception,

however, for “[a]ny claim for which a remedy is provided” by

2The plaintiffs have settled their dispute with Extreme Sports Maui, and

the United States is the only remaining defendant. 

3450 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
either of the other two statutes relevant to this case. 28 U.S.C.

§ 2680. These are the Public Vessels Act (“PVA”), 46 U.S.C.

App. § 781 et seq., and the Suits in Admiralty Act (“SAA”),

46 U.S.C. App. § 741 et seq.

[2] The PVA renders the United States liable in admiralty

for “damages caused by a public vessel of the United States.”

3

46 U.S.C. App. § 781. The PVA, however, contains a special

reciprocity requirement that permits foreign nationals to sue

the U.S. government only if their country of nationality would

permit a similar suit by a U.S. citizen. 46 U.S.C. App. § 785.

[3] The SAA is broader: it renders the United States liable

in admiralty in any case in which, “if a private person or property were involved, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained.” 46 U.S.C. App. § 742. It contains no reciprocity

requirement. One might wonder why the PVA even exists,

since the SAA appears to cover all admiralty claims, including those involving a public vessel. The answer lies in history.

Until 1960 the SAA applied only to “merchant vessels,” a category mutually exclusive of “public vessels.” See United

States v. United Cont’l Tuna Corp., 425 U.S. 164, 167 n.1

(1976). For this and other reasons, admiralty lawyers preparing to file a claim were often uncertain which statute to file

under—the PVA, the SAA, or in some cases the FTCA or the

Tucker Act.4 Congress solved the problem by amending the

3A “public vessel” is one owned or operated by the United States and

used in a public capacity. See In re United States and Mathiasen’s Tanker

Indus., 367 F.2d 505, 509 (3d Cir. 1966) (“[G]overnment ownership and

use as directed by the government exclusively for a public purpose suffice

without more to make a ship a public vessel.”); United States v. United

Cont’l Tuna Corp., 425 U.S. 164, 167 n.1 (1976) (holding a naval

destroyer is a “public vessel” under the PVA). 

4The Tucker Act applied to certain contract claims involving public vessels. The details of which statute applied in which situation are not relevant here. For a thorough explanation, see Unifying Maritime Claims

Against the United States, 30 J. Mar. L. & Com. 41, 45-49 (1999). 

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3451
SAA; one of the changes removed the reference to merchant

vessels. See United Cont’l Tuna, 425 U.S. at 166-78. 

The survivors cannot bring their claims under the PVA or

the SAA, both because of the PVA’s reciprocity requirement

and because they failed to file within the applicable limitations periods under those statutes. They therefore seek,

instead, to bring their claims under the FTCA.

A

The first question we must answer is whether the survivors’

claims are maritime in nature—that is, whether they fall

within federal admiralty jurisdiction. For the PVA and the

SAA are relevant only to maritime claims and thus pose no

obstacle to asserting non-maritime claims under the FTCA. 

The survivors seek to bring two different claims against the

United States. First, they claim that the Coast Guard cutter

Kiska’s search for the kayakers was negligently carried out

(either by its crew or by land-based Coast Guard officers). We

refer to this as the “negligent-search claim.” Second, they

claim that the two Coast Guard offices (in Maui and Honolulu) which knew about the kayak in distress negligently

failed to contact the Maui Fire Department or any other local

agency with access to a helicopter or other rescue vessels. We

refer to this as the “failure-to-communicate claim.” 

No one disputes that the negligent-search claim is maritime

in nature. The survivors argue, however, that the failure-tocommunicate claim is not maritime and therefore not within

the scope of the SAA or the PVA. Thus, they conclude, it is

the proper subject of an action under the FTCA. 

[4] A tort claim falls within the admiralty jurisdiction of the

federal courts when two conditions are met. First, the tort

must occur on or over navigable waters; this is the “locality”

or “situs” test. See Solano v. Beilby, 761 F.2d 1369, 1370-71

3452 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
(9th Cir. 1985); Guidry v. Durkin, 834 F.2d 1465, 1469 (9th

Cir. 1987). Second, the actions giving rise to the tort claim

must “bear a significant relationship to traditional maritime

activity.” Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland,

409 U.S. 249, 268 (1972). This is the “nexus” or “relationship” test. See Solano, 761 F.2d at 1371; Guidry, 834 F.2d at

1469. Admiralty jurisdiction exists only when both these

requirements are satisfied.5See Whitcombe v. Stevedoring

Services of America, 2 F.3d 312, 314 n.2 (9th Cir. 1993). The

survivors contend that neither test is met here.

1

[5] With regard to the locality test, the survivors argue that

because the Coast Guard’s actions (or failure to act) took

place entirely on land, the alleged negligence did not occur on

navigable waters. This contention is unavailing, however,

because it ignores the clear law of our circuit that the situs of

a tort for the purpose of determining admiralty jurisdiction is

the place where the injury occurs.6See Solano, 761 F.2d at

1371 (citing cases); Guidry, 834 F.2d at 1469; Oppen v. Aetna

Ins. Co., 485 F.2d 252, 256 (9th Cir. 1973) (“The locus of a

tort is the place where injury takes effect.”). 

[6] Solano itself makes clear that this rule holds even when

some of the negligent activity occurs on land. In Solano, two

longshoremen were moving a Cadillac down a ramp onto a

ship, when—because of the car’s defective brakes—it began

rolling out of control and caused a collision that injured both

5There is a narrow exception to the locality requirement for claims

based on the plaintiff’s “maritime status,” but it is plainly not applicable

here, and the survivors do not suggest otherwise. See Gebhard v. S.S.

Hawaiian Legislator, 425 F.2d 1303, 1307-08 (9th Cir. 1970) (noting that

the maritime-status exception applies to claims for maintenance and cure

as well as claims under the Jones Act). 

6

Indeed, we have occasionally characterized the first prong of the test

for admiralty jurisdiction as simply requiring that “the injury occur on

water.” E.g., Whitcombe, 2 F.3d at 315. 

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3453
men. They brought an admiralty action against the marine

cargo terminal which had stored the Cadillac, alleging that it

negligently failed to inspect the car and warn the men of the

defective brakes. Id. at 1370. We held that “[t]he injury . . .

occurred on the ramp of a ship, satisfying the requirement of

maritime locality.” Id. at 1371. Notably, in a subsequent case

we held that a suit against a cargo terminal operator for damage that occurred to cargo while inside the terminal was not

within admiralty jurisdiction. Whitcombe, 2 F.3d at 314-15

(“[D]amage to cargo in the terminal operator’s warehouse is

jurisdictionally distinguishable from damage that occurs while

loading the vessel.”). It is clear, then, that the place of injury

is the determinative factor. See also Smith v. Lampe, 64 F.2d

201, 202 (6th Cir. 1933) (“[W]here the negligent act orginates

on land and the damage occurs on water, the cause of action

is within the admiralty jurisdiction.”); In re Motor Ship

Pacific Carrier, 489 F.2d 152, 157 (5th Cir. 1974); 2 Am. Jur.

2d Admiralty § 75 (“For the purpose of determining admiralty

jurisdiction, the tort is deemed to occur, not where the wrongful act or omission has its inception, but where the impact of

the act or omission produces such injury as to give rise to a

cause of action.”). 

[7] The survivors contend that the Supreme Court’s decision in Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge &

Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527 (1995), undermines the Ninth Circuit

cases described above and supports the survivors’ position. It

does not. Grubart dealt with claims brought against the Great

Lakes Dredge and Dock Company by plaintiffs whose buildings on land were damaged by a flood resulting from Great

Lakes’s allegedly faulty replacement of wooden bridge pilings in the Chicago River. Id. at 530-31. The Supreme Court

held that the claims fell within federal admiralty jurisdiction.

Its holding was explicitly based on the Admiralty Extension

Act,7 46 U.S.C. App. § 740, which was enacted by Congress

in 1948 and provides that

7This statute is sometimes referred to as the Extension of Admiralty

Jurisdiction Act. See, e.g., Gebhard, 425 F.2d at 1306. 

3454 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
[t]he admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the

United States shall extend to and include all cases of

damage or injury, to person or property, caused by

a vessel on navigable water, notwithstanding that

such damage or injury be done or consummated on

land. 

Id.; see Grubart, 513 U.S. at 534-36. The AEA is a statute of

inclusion, not exclusion: it merely extends admiralty jurisdiction to cover damage occurring on land but caused by vessels

on navigable water. It has no application to this case, and the

survivors do not contend otherwise. Nothing in Grubart hints

at any modification of the traditional rule that the situs of a

tort is the place of injury—and hence that tort claims based

on injuries occurring on navigable water are within admiralty

jurisdiction. In fact, the Grubart Court observed that “it is not

apparent why the need for admiralty jurisdiction in aid of

maritime commerce somehow becomes less acute merely

because land-based parties happen to be involved.” 513 U.S.

at 545.

It is worth noting another line of cases which could erroneously be taken to support the survivors’ argument. In Guidry

v. Durkin, 834 F.2d 1465, 1469 (9th Cir. 1987), we held that

the tort of defamation is cognizable in admiralty only when its

prima facie elements occur at sea. Id. at 1470. Specifically,

the Guidry court held that the publication of the defamatory

material must occur at sea. Id.; cf. Lamontagne v. Craig, 632

F. Supp. 706, 708 (N.D. Cal. 1986) (holding that no admiralty

jurisdiction existed over a defamation claim in which publication occurred on land). Similarly, in J. Lauritzen A/S v. Dashwood Shipping, Ltd., 65 F.3d 139 (9th Cir. 1995), we held that

a claim for tortious interference with contract was not cognizable in admiralty when all of the prima facie elements—

including damages—occurred on land. Id. at 143. It is clear,

however, that our decisions in Guidry and J. Lauritzen were

not propounding a general rule that any tort claim is within

admiralty jurisdiction only when all of its prima facie eleTAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3455
ments occur at sea. Rather, they were concerned with defining

the location at which injury is deemed to occur, in the context

of defamation and tortious interference with contract—torts in

which injury is often diffuse (or, in the case of defamation,

sometimes presumed rather than proved). See Guidry, 834

F.2d at 1469 (“[S]itus of a tortious injury depends . . . on the

type of tort alleged.” (first emphasis added)). The survivors

do not claim that the injuries occurred anywhere but at sea.

Thus, the locality requirement is satisfied.

2

[8] We turn, then, to the nexus requirement. The survivors

argue that the land-based Coast Guard’s failure to communicate with the land-based Maui Fire Department is insufficiently related to maritime activity to support admiralty

jurisdiction. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Grubart

describes the two relevant inquiries: 

The connection test raises two issues. A court,

first, must “assess the general features of the type of

incident involved” to determine whether the incident

has “a potentially disruptive impact on maritime

commerce.” Second, a court must determine whether

“the general character” of the “activity giving rise to

the incident” shows a “substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.” 

Grubart, 513 U.S. at 534 (citations omitted). As to the first

inquiry, the “type of incident involved” is to be considered at

an “intermediate” level of generality. Id. at 538. In Grubart,

for example, the Court described the incident (which specifically involved the faulty replacement of wooden pilings supporting bridges) as “damage by a vessel in navigable water to

an underwater structure.” Id. at 539. So described, the incident clearly posed a danger to maritime commerce. 

[9] A corresponding description of the “type of incident

involved” in this case would thus be something such as “in3456 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
jury to boaters whose vessel capsizes at sea because of a

potential rescuer’s negligence in carrying out its rescue operation.” One could quibble about precisely how to frame the

question, but it is clear that at any reasonable level of generality the incident had a “potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce.” See, e.g., Polly v. Estate of Carlson, 859 F.

Supp. 270, 272 (E.D. Mich. 1994) (“That men were overboard

in an emergency situation by itself is likely to disrupt commercial activity . . . .”). The efficacy of search-and-rescue

operations has a direct effect on the health and lives of seamen. While the kayakers in this case were engaged in recreational and not commercial activity, there is no reason to

regard that fact as relevant to the nature of the Coast Guard’s

activity, which would presumably have been the same no matter the purpose of the kayakers’ excursion at sea. Cf. Sisson

v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 364 (1990) (“[T]he relevant “activity”

is defined not by the particular circumstances of the incident,

but by the general conduct from which the incident arose.”).

Search-and-rescue operations also affect the vessels themselves: insofar as the rescuer can preserve the vessel, it prevents economic loss to the vessel’s owner. 

The second inquiry within the nexus test requires us to

decide whether the “general character of the activity giving

rise to the incident shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.” Grubart, 513 U.S. at 534 (internal

quotation marks omitted). A preliminary question arises: what

constitutes the “activity giving rise to the incident”? The survivors ask us to follow the path carved out in Delta County

Ventures, Inc. v. Magana, 986 F.2d 1260 (9th Cir. 1993). That

case dealt with a claim against the owner of a houseboat by

a guest who dove off the boat, hit an object in the water, and

was paralyzed. The guest sued the owner for negligently situating the boat. The owner asserted admiralty jurisdiction so it

could invoke the Limitation of Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. App.

§ 183, to limit its liability to the value of the boat. We held

that there was no admiralty jurisdiction because the “activity

giving rise to the incident” had no relationship to traditional

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3457
maritime activity. We did so, however, because we conceived

of the “activity” in question as the guest’s diving into the

water, and held that recreational diving has no relation to traditional maritime activity. Id. at 1262-63. It would be inappropriate, we held, to look past the immediate event surrounding

the injury to a more remote cause such as the boat owner’s

negligent placement of the boat near an underwater object.

But see id. at 1264 (Kozinski, J., dissenting). 

[10] Were we bound by the approach of the Delta County

Ventures majority, the survivors’ argument might have some

merit: the activity in question could be defined as recreational

kayaking, which (arguably, though not obviously) does not

bear a sufficient relationship to traditional maritime activity.

But the Delta County Ventures approach is flatly inconsistent

with the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Grubart and

hence is no longer good law. Cf. Miller v. Gambie, 335 F.3d

889, 899 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (holding that when a threejudge panel is faced with intervening precedent from a higher

court that is “clearly irreconcilable” with a prior holding of

this court, it is bound by the intervening authority). The Court

held in Grubart that

we need to look only to whether one of the arguably

proximate causes of the incident originated in the

maritime activity of a tortfeasor: as long as one of

the putative tortfeasors was engaged in traditional

maritime activity the allegedly wrongful activity will

“involve” such traditional maritime activity and will

meet the second nexus prong. 

513 U.S. at 541. The activity at issue, then, is not merely the

event immediately surrounding the injury; it is the behavior of

any “putative tortfeasor[ ]” (here, the Coast Guard) that is an

“arguably proximate cause[ ]” of the injury. In this case, then,

the relevant question is whether the Coast Guard’s searchand-rescue operation shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. 

3458 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
[11] It assuredly does. See Berg v. Chevron U.S.A., 759

F.2d 1425, 1429 (9th Cir. 1985) (“The law of admiralty has

always sought to encourage and induce men of the sea to go

to the aid of life and property in distress.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); Kelly v. United States, 531

F.2d 1144, 1147 (2d Cir. 1976) (“[R]escue operations of the

Coast Guard conducted on navigable waters do in fact bear a

significant relationship to traditional maritime activities for

purposes of admiralty jurisdiction.”); see also Sisson, 497

U.S. at 367 (“The need for uniform rules of maritime conduct

and liability is not limited to navigation, but extends at least

to any other activities traditionally undertaken by vessels,

commercial or noncommercial.”). The Supreme Court emphasized in Grubart that the nexus test is not meant to exclude

broad swathes of activity; it wrote approvingly of the notion

that “virtually every activity involving a vessel on navigable

waters would be a traditional maritime activity sufficient to

invoke maritime jurisdiction.” 513 U.S. at 542. 

[12] Thus, the locality test and both subprongs of the nexus

test are satisfied in this case. It follows that all of the survivors’ claims fall within federal admiralty jurisdiction.

B

We must next decide whether the survivors’ claims can be

brought under the FTCA despite their maritime nature. We

consider their two claims separately. Because the negligentsearch claim involves a public vessel within the meaning of

the PVA, it must be analyzed under that statute. The failureto-communicate claim, on the other hand, does not involve a

public vessel, and so only the SAA will be relevant to its analysis. 

1

The PVA provides:

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3459
A libel in personam in admiralty may be brought

against the United States, or a petition impleading

the United States, for damages caused by a public

vessel of the United States . . . . 

46 U.S.C. App. § 781. The reference to “damages caused by

a public vessel” is not limited to damages physically caused

by the ship itself. Rather, it includes “cases where the negligence of the personnel of a public vessel in the operation of

the vessel causes damage.” Canadian Aviator, Ltd. v. United

States, 324 U.S. 215, 224-25 (1945). 

[13] The parties do not dispute that the Coast Guard cutter

involved in the search for Nahid and Monazzami is a public

vessel within the meaning of the Act.8 The survivors’

negligent-search claim thus falls within the scope of the PVA.9

Two of the survivors are citizens of Iran, however.10 As the

8

Indeed, every reported opinion we have found that has considered the

matter has concluded that Coast Guard vessels are public vessels. See Pascua v. Astrocielo Neptunea Armandora, S.A., 614 F. Supp. 984, 985 (D.C.

Tex. 1985) (“A Coast Guard vessel is a public vessel within the meaning

of the Act.”); Helgesen v. United States, 275 F. Supp. 789, 790 (S.D.N.Y.

1966) (holding that “Coast Guard vessels are public vessels”); Page v.

United States, 105 F. Supp. 99, 102 (E.D. La. 1952) (“Damages attributed

to negligence of Coast Guard vessels and personnel may be recovered

under this act.”); Olympia Sauna Compania Naviera, S.A. v. United States,

604 F. Supp. 1297, 1301 (D.C. Or. 1984) (assuming without discussion

that a Coast Guard cutter is a public vessel); Cornell Steamboat Co. v.

United States, 138 F. Supp. 16, 17 (S.D.N.Y. 1956) (same); Ladd v.

United States, 97 F. Supp. 80 (D.C. Va. 1951) (same). These decisions

comport with the definition of a public vessel as a “vessel owned and used

by a nation or government for its public service, whether in its navy, its

revenue service, or otherwise.” Black’s Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004). 

9

It is possible that the negligent-search claim falls outside the PVA to

the extent that it involves the negligence of officials in the Coast Guard

office on land rather than the crew of the Kiska. We need not limn the precise contours of the PVA, however, because the claims will turn out to be

barred whether they arise under the PVA or not. See infra. 

10We are aware of no reported decision squarely addressing the citizenship of a foreign decedent’s estate under the PVA. Cf. Blanco v. United

3460 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
survivors allege and the United States does not dispute, Iran’s

courts would not permit U.S. citizens to bring suit under similar circumstances. Thus, because of the PVA’s reciprocity

provision, the two non-citizen survivors cannot bring suit

under the PVA. 

[14] Nor may they bring the claim under the SAA. A literal

reading of the SAA might permit such a suit, since the statute

itself contains no reciprocity requirement and its language is

broad:

In cases where if [a vessel owned by the U.S.] were

privately owned or operated, or if [cargo owned or

possessed by the U.S.] were privately owned or possessed, or if a private person or property were

involved, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained, any appropriate nonjury proceeding in personam may be brought against the United States . . . .

46 U.S.C. App. § 742. The Supreme Court, however, held in

United States v. United Continental Tuna Corp., 425 U.S. 164

(1976), that a plaintiff whose claim falls within the scope of

the PVA may not escape the PVA’s reciprocity requirement

by suing under the SAA. Id. at 181. The Court emphasized

that to permit such a claim would “render nugatory the provisions of the Public Vessels Act.” Id. at 178. 

United Continental Tuna, however, did not involve the

FTCA, and the survivors argue that they may still bring their

claims under that statute. The FTCA provides:

States, 464 F. Supp. 927, 933 (S.D.N.Y. 1979) (holding that when a personal representative brings suit not for the benefit of the estate, but as a

nominal plaintiff and trustee for the decedent’s survivors, the relevant citizenship is that of the survivors). We assume, as the parties and district

court have done, that Nahid’s estate takes the American citizenship of

Monazzami, its special administrator, for purposes of the PVA’s reciprocity provision. If, instead, the estate retains Nahid’s Iranian citizenship, our

analysis of the non-citizen survivors’ claim would apply to the estate as

well. Since its claim is barred in either case, we need not resolve the issue.

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3461
The United States shall be liable, respecting the provisions of this title relating to tort claims, in the same

manner and to the same extent as a private individual

under like circumstances . . . . 

28 U.S.C. § 2674. The FTCA provides for several exceptions

to this broad grant of liability, however, and one of them generally excludes claims remediable in admiralty:

The provisions of this chapter . . . shall not apply to—

. . .

(d) Any claim for which a remedy is provided by

sections 741-752 [the SAA], 781-790 [the PVA] of

Title 46, relating to claims or suits in admiralty

against the United States. 

28 U.S.C. § 2680. The United States argues that this provision

bars the non-citizen survivors’ claim. The non-citizen survivors contend that it does not, because as foreign nationals

who cannot show reciprocity they have no “remedy” under

the PVA or SAA. They argue, not unreasonably, that a literal

reading of the statute’s language would not bar their suit. The

parties thus address the question of the FTCA’s applicability

as if it were chiefly a matter of interpreting § 2680’s admiralty exception. But it does not matter who is correct, because

the survivors’ claim is barred for reasons unrelated to the

FTCA’s admiralty exception. The PVA of its own force bars

their claim. 

[15] The Supreme Court’s decision in United Continental

Tuna signaled that the PVA was not to be interpreted along

purely textualist lines in its interaction with other statutes. The

plain text of the PVA and the SAA, after all, would have

allowed the plaintiffs in that case to avoid the PVA’s reciprocity requirement by bringing their suit under the SAA. The

Court did not permit such an evasion. Rather, it read the PVA

3462 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES
to require that any claim within its scope (that is, involving a

public vessel) meet the reciprocity requirement, regardless of

whether some other statute seemed on its face to permit suit

without reciprocity. In United Continental Tuna, the other

statute in question was the SAA. In this case, the survivors

seek to use the FTCA for the same purpose. To permit them

to do so, however, would be entirely inconsistent with the

ratio decidendi if not the letter of United Continental Tuna,

because it would “effectively nullify specific policy judgments made by Congress when it enacted the Public Vessels

Act, by enabling litigants to bring suits previously subject to

the terms of the Public Vessels Act under” the Federal Tort

Claims Act. United Cont’l Tuna, 425 U.S. at 181. 

[16] Thus, the survivors go astray in framing the issue as

the interpretation of the FTCA’s admiralty exception. In fact,

even if that exception to the FTCA did not exist, the PVA

would still prevent claims within its scope from being

asserted under other statutes when the reciprocity requirement

is not satisfied. Hence, those of the non-citizens survivors’

claims which allege negligence relating to a Coast Guard vessel may not be brought under the FTCA or any other statute.11

11The plaintiffs who are U.S. citizens—Monazzami and, we assume,

Nahid’s estate, see supra note 10—cannot recover for the negligent-search

claim under either the PVA or the SAA because that claim is time-barred

by the statute of limitations for both statutes. The alleged negligence

occurred on March 18, 1999, but Monazzami and Nahid’s estate did not

assert a claim against the United States until the second amended complaint was filed on January 29, 2002. See 46 U.S.C. App. § 745 (requiring

claims under the SAA to be brought within two years); 46 U.S.C. App.

§ 782 (making the SAA’s procedural provisions applicable to the PVA);

Aliotti v. United States, 221 F.2d 598, 600 (9th Cir. 1955) (holding that

the SAA’s two-year statute of limitations applies to the PVA). Because the

PVA or the SAA supplied a remedy, Monazzami and Nahid’s estate may

not bring the negligence claim under the FTCA. See 28 U.S.C. § 2680(d).

TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES 3463
2

[17] We turn now to the claim by the survivors (both citizen and non-citizen) that the Coast Guard negligently failed

to communicate with local authorities who might have provided superior rescue equipment. The PVA does not apply to

this claim—since it does not involve a public vessel—and

therefore neither does the PVA’s reciprocity requirement. The

survivors thus had a remedy for their failure-to-communicate

claim under the SAA. (That remedy is no longer available

because the statute of limitations lapsed before they filed their

claim against the United States. See 46 U.S.C. App. § 745

(requiring claims under the SAA to be brought within two

years).) The failure-to-communicate claim thus falls squarely

within the FTCA’s exception for “claim[s] for which a remedy is provided by [the SAA]”—even on the literal reading of

this clause for which the survivors argue—and the district

court was correct to conclude that they cannot bring it under

the FTCA. See T.J. Falgout Boats, Inc. v. United States, 508

F.2d 855, 858 (9th Cir. 1974) (holding that a claim maintainable under the SAA but barred by the statute of limitations

cannot be brought under the FTCA). 

Since neither of the survivors’ claims is cognizable under

the FTCA, the district court was correct to grant summary

judgment for the government. 

AFFIRMED.

3464 TAGHADOMI v. UNITED STATES