Source: http://www.admiraltylawguide.com/circt/5thinrebarnacle.html
Timestamp: 2018-10-18 03:47:29
Document Index: 287404766

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 408', '§ 411', '§ 408', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 411', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 412', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 411', '§ 412', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 409', '§ 408', '§ 408', '§ 181', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 409', '§ 939', '§ 409']

In re Barnacle Management (5th Cir. 2000)
REVISED - December 18, 2000
BARNACLE MARINE MANAGEMENT, INCORPORATED; INGRAM BARGE COMPANY,
Before WOOD(1), DAVIS and BARKSDALE, Circuit Judges.
In 1997, Barnacle and Ingram each filed separate complaints under the Limitation Act(2) seeking exoneration from and/or limitation of liability for damages caused by the March 1997 allision. The district court issued separate orders that enjoined all other pending actions against Barnacle and Ingram and established deadlines for filing claims.
Section 408 makes it unlawful for any person to damage or otherwise interfere with a public work built by the United States to aid navigation or prevent floods.(3) The remedies Congress expressly provided for violations of 33 U.S.C. §§ 408 and 409 are found in 33 U.S.C. §§ 411 and 412, which are also part of the Rivers and Harbors Act. Section 411 provides for criminal fines and imprisonment for violations of § 408. Section 412 provides, in pertinent part:
The United States argues that a companion section of the Rivers and Harbors Act, 33 U.S.C. § 409, along with judicial decisions allowing the United States to maintain an in personam action under § 409, should apply by analogy to this case. This argument requires us to examine § 409 and the decisions under § 409. Section 409 makes it unlawful for a vessel owner, operator, or lessor to sink or cause any vessel to be sunk in a navigable channel.(4) The owner, operator, or lessor has a duty under § 409 to immediately remove such a wreck. Criminal sanctions for violations of § 409 are provided by § 411, including both fines and imprisonment.(5) Civil remedies for violations of § 409 (as well as § 408) are provided by § 412. As discussed above, this gives the United States an in rem remedy against the offending vessel.
The United States, relying on Wyandotte Transp. Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191 (1967), argues that we should imply an in personam remedy in favor of the United States and against the vessel owners in this case. In Wyandotte, the Supreme Court interpreted § 409 to include an implied in personam remedy in favor of the United States against the owner of a negligently(6) sunk vessel for expenses incurred in removing that vessel. The United States argues that the Court's reasoning in Wyandotte should lead us to conclude that an in personam remedy also exists for violations of § 408.
In Wyandotte, the Court considered two consolidated cases.(7) In the first case, the United States sought a declaratory judgment, declaring negligent parties who sank a vessel in an inland waterway responsible for "removing the impediment to navigation thus created." Wyandotte, 389 U.S. at 193. In the other consolidated case, the United States had itself removed a sunken vessel that it claimed had been negligently sunk. It sought in personam reimbursement for the costs of this removal under § 409.
Id. at 204-05 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted) (citations
Second, the United States argues that Wyandotte requires us to give § 408 an expansive interpretation. In Wyandotte, the Court stated that "[d]espite some difficulties with the wording of the [Rivers and Harbors] Act, we have consistently found its coverage to be broad. And we have found that a principal beneficiary of the Act, if not the principal beneficiary, is the Government itself." Id. at 201 (citations omitted).
Section 409 imposes a duty on the owner, operator, or lessee of a vessel sunk in a navigable channel to mark and remove the vessel. Section 408 makes it illegal for any person to damage or impair a public work used in aid of navigation, but it does not impose a duty upon any person to repair the public work. From these differences in the duty imposed on a shipowner under the two statutes, Barnacle and Ingram argue that Congress intended different remedies to flow to the United States under § 408 and § 409. More specifically, Barnacle and Ingram contend that the terms of § 409 led the Wyandotte Court to conclude that the United States could obtain a declaratory judgment declaring the vessel owner responsible for removing the sunken vessel.(8) Section 408 has no similar language that would permit the United States to obtain a declaratory order under § 408 declaring that the person who damaged a public work is responsible for repairing that work.
We agree with Barnacle and Ingram that we should not imply an in personam remedy in favor of the United States against the offending shipowner. First, the plain language of § 408, § 411, and § 412 does not give the United States a civil in personam remedy against a violator of § 408.(9) Second, Wyandotte does not control this § 408 case because the Wyandotte Court expressly relied on language peculiar to § 409 in implying an in personam remedy in favor of the United States against the vessel owner. The Court observed that § 409 created a duty on the owner of the sunken vessel to remove it. 389 U.S. at 206-07. This duty triggered the right of the United States to a declaratory judgment directing the vessel owner to remove the wreck. The Court stated that "[i]t is but a small step from declaratory relief to a civil action for the Government's expenses incurred in removing a negligently sunk vessel." Wyandotte, 389 U.S. at 204 (citing United States v. Perma Paving Co., 332 F.2d 754 (2nd Cir. 1964)).
Because § 408 does not give the United States the right to a declaratory order requiring the person responsible for damaging or impairing a public work to repair the work, Wyandotte's reasons for implying an in personam remedy under § 409 do not apply in this § 408 case. Our decision is consistent with a number of recent Supreme Court decisions holding that we should be reluctant to imply a remedy broader than Congress expressly provided. See e.g., Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S. 560, 99 S.Ct. 2479 (1979), California v. Sierra Club, 451 U.S. 287, 101 S.Ct. 1775 (1981), Karahalios v. National Fed'n of Fed. Employees, 489 U.S. 527, 109 S.Ct. 1282 (1989).
We realize this decision declining to imply an in personam remedy under § 408 puts us in conflict with the Sixth Circuit's decision in Hines, Inc. v. United States, 551 F.2d 717 (6th Cir. 1977). In Hines, the Sixth Circuit, with very little analysis, held that Wyandotte controlled. Seeid. at 720-23. For the reasons stated above, we respectfully disagree.
1. Circuit Judge of the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
2. 46 U.S.C. §§ 181-96.
3. Section 408 provides, in pertinent part, that: "[i]t shall not be lawful for any person or persons to . . . injure, . . . or in any manner whatever impair the usefulness of any . . . dike, levee, . . . or other work built by the United States . . . for the preservation and improvement of any of its navigable waters or to prevent floods . . . ."
4. Courts and commentators commonly refer to 33 U.S.C. § 409 as part of the Wreck Act. Section 409 provides, in pertinent part, that:
5. Section 411 provides, in pertinent part, that:
6. In 1986, nineteen years after Wyandotte, Congress changed § 409's standard for liability from negligence to strict liability. The section was amended in 1986 by substituting the words "or to sink" for "or to voluntarily or carelessly sink". Also, in addition to owners, the amendment made lessees and operators potential defendants under § 409. Pub.L. 99-662, Title IX, § 939(a), 100 Stat. 4199.
7. United States v. Cargill, Inc., and United States v. Wyandotte Transp. Co. were consolidated under the heading United States v. Cargill, Inc. in both the district court (see 1964 A.M.C. 1742), and the appellate court (see 367 F.2d 971 (5th Cir. 1966)). On appeal to the Supreme Court, the case came under the Wyandotte heading.
8. "[I]t shall be the duty of the owner, lessee, or operator of such sunken craft to commence the immediate removal of the same, and prosecute such removal diligently . . . ." 33 U.S.C. § 409.
9. "The starting point in every case involving construction of a statute is the language itself." Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U.S. 723, 756, 95 S.Ct. 1917, 1935, 44 L.Ed.2d 539 (1975) (POWELL, J., concurring). "When that language is plain we must abide by it; we may depart from its meaning only to avoid a result 'so bizarre that Congress could not have intended it.'" Uniroyal Chemical Co., Inc. v. Deltech Corp. 160 F.3d 238, 244 (5th Cir. 1998) (quoting Demarest v. Manspeaker, 498 U.S. 184, 191, 111 S.Ct. 599, 112 L.Ed.2d 608 (1991) (quotation omitted)).