Source: http://openjurist.org/513/us/527
Timestamp: 2014-12-26 17:17:03
Document Index: 537648252

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 740', '§ 181', '§ 183', '§ 1367', '§ 740', '§ 1333', '§ 740', '§ 740']

513 US 527 Jerome Grubart Inc v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company City of Chicago | OpenJurist
513 U.S. 527 - Jerome Grubart Inc v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company City of Chicago	Home513 us 527 jerome grubart inc v. great lakes dredge & dock company city of chicago
513 US 527 Jerome Grubart Inc v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company City of Chicago 513 U.S. 527115 S.Ct. 1043130 L.Ed.2d 1024
JEROME B. GRUBART, INC., Petitioner,v.GREAT LAKES DREDGE & DOCK COMPANY et al. CITY OF CHICAGO, Petitioner, v. GREAT LAKES DREDGE & DOCK COMPANY et al.
Nos. 93-762, 93-1094.
Held: The District Court has federal admiralty jurisdiction over Great Lakes's Limitation Act suit. Pp. __.
(a) A party seeking to invoke such jurisdiction over a tort claim must satisfy conditions of both location and connection with maritime activity. In applying the location test, a court must determine whether the tort occurred on navigable water or whether injury suffered on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. 46 U.S.C.App. § 740. In applying the connection test, a court first must assess the "general features of the type of incident involved" to determine if the incident has "a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce." Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 363, 364, n. 2, 110 S.Ct. 2892, 2896, 2896 n. 2, 111 L.Ed.2d 292. If so, the court must determine whether the character of the activity giving rise to the incident shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Id., at 365, 364, and n. 2, 110 S.Ct., at 2897, 2897-2898, and n. 2. Pp. 3-6.
(b) The location test is readily satisfied here. The alleged tort was committed on a navigable river, and petitioners do not seriously dispute that Great Lakes's barge is a "vessel" for admiralty tort purposes. There is no need or justification for imposing an additional jurisdictional requirement that the damage done must be close in time and space to the activity that caused it. A nonremoteness requirement is not supported by the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act's language, and the phrase "caused by" used in that Act indicates that the proper standard is proximate cause. Gutierrez v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 210, 83 S.Ct. 1185, 1188, 10 L.Ed.2d 297, distinguished. Pp. 6-10.
(c) The maritime connection test is also satisfied here. The incident's "general features" may be described as damage by a vessel in navigable water to an underwater structure. There is little question that this is the kind of incident that has "a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce." Damaging the structure could lead to a disruption in the water course itself and, as actually happened here, could lead to restrictions on navigational use during repairs. There is also no question that the activity giving rise to the incident—repair or maintenance work on a navigable waterway performed from a vessel—shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Even the assertion that the city's alleged failure to properly maintain and operate the tunnel system was a proximate cause of the flood damage does not take this case out of admiralty. Under Sisson, the substantial relationship test is satisfied when at least one alleged tortfeasor was engaging in activity substantially related to traditional maritime activity and such activity is claimed to have been a proximate cause of the incident. There is no merit to the argument that the activity should be characterized at a hypergeneralized level, such as "repair and maintenance," to eliminate any hint of maritime connection, or to the argument that Sisson is being given too expansive a reading. Pp. 10-16.
(d) There are theoretical, as well as practical, reasons to reject the city's proposed multifactor test for admiralty jurisdiction where most of the victims, and one of the tortfeasors, are land based. The Sisson tests are directed at the same objectives invoked to support a multifactor test, the elimination of admiralty jurisdiction where the rationale for the jurisdiction does not support it. In the Extension Act, Congress has already made a judgment that a land-based victim may properly be subject to admiralty jurisdiction; surely a land-based joint tortfeasor has no claim to supposedly more favorable treatment. Moreover, contrary to the city's position, exercise of admiralty jurisdiction does not result in automatic displacement of state law. A multifactor test would also be hard to apply, jettisoning relative predictability for the open-ended rough-and-tumble of factors, inviting complex argument in a trial court and a virtually inevitable appeal. Pp. 16-21.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a concurring opinion. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SCALIA, J., joined. STEVENS and BREYER, JJ., took no part in the decision of the case.
Ben Barnow, for petitioner in No. 93-762.
Lawrence Rosenthal, for petitioner in No. 93-1094.
John G. Roberts, Jr., for respondents.
* The complaint, together with affidavits subject to no objection, alleges the following facts. In 1990, Great Lakes bid on a contract with the petitioner city of Chicago to replace wooden pilings clustered around the piers of several bridges spanning the Chicago River, a navigable waterway within the meaning of The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557, 563, 19 L.Ed. 999 (1871). See Escanaba Co. v. Chicago, 107 U.S. 678, 683, 2 S.Ct. 185, 188-189, 27 L.Ed. 442 (1883). The pilings (called dolphins) keep ships from bumping into the piers and so protect both. After winning the contract, Great Lakes carried out the work with two barges towed by a tug. One barge carried pilings; the other carried a crane that pulled out old pilings and helped drive in new ones.
After the flood, many of the victims brought actions in state court against Great Lakes and the city of Chicago, claiming that in the course of replacing the pilings Great Lakes had negligently weakened the tunnel structure, which Chicago (its owner) had not properly maintained. Great Lakes then brought this lawsuit in the United States District Court, invoking federal admiralty jurisdiction. Count I of the complaint seeks the protection of the Limitation of Vessel Owner's Liability Act (Limitation Act), 46 U.S.C.App. § 181 et seq., a statute that would, in effect, permit the admiralty court to decide whether Great Lakes committed a tort and, if so, to limit Great Lakes's liability to the value of the vessels (the tug and two barges) involved if the tort was committed "without the privity or knowledge" of the vessels' owner, 46 U.S.C.App. § 183(a). Counts II and III of Great Lakes's complaint ask for indemnity and contribution from the city for any resulting loss to Great Lakes.
The city, joined by petitioner Jerome B. Grubart, Inc., one of the state-court plaintiffs, filed a motion to dismiss this suit for lack of admiralty jurisdiction. Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 12(b)(1). The District Court granted the motion, the Seventh Circuit reversed, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Chicago, 3 F.3d 225 (1993), and we granted certiorari, 510 U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1047, 127 L.Ed.2d 370 (1994). We now affirm.
The parties do not dispute the Seventh Circuit's conclusion that jurisdiction as to Counts II and III (indemnity and contribution) hinges on jurisdiction over the Count I claim. See 3 F.3d, at 231, n. 9; see also 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (1988 ed., Supp. V) (supplemental jurisdiction); Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. 14(a) and (c) (impleader of third parties). Thus, the issue is simply whether or not a federal admiralty court has jurisdiction over claims that Great Lakes's faulty replacement work caused the flood damage.
The traditional test for admiralty tort jurisdiction asked only whether the tort occurred on navigable waters. If it did, admiralty jurisdiction followed; if it did not, admiralty jurisdiction did not exist. See, e.g., Thomas v. Lane, 23 F.Cas. 957, 960 (No. 13902) (CC Me. 1813) (Story, J., on Circuit). This ostensibly simple locality test was complicated by the rule that the injury had to be "wholly" sustained on navigable waters for the tort to be within admiralty. The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 34, 18 L.Ed. 125 (1866) (no jurisdiction over tort action brought by the owner of warehouse destroyed in a fire that started on board a ship docked nearby). Thus, admiralty courts lacked jurisdiction over, say, a claim following a ship's collision with a pier insofar as it injured the pier, for admiralty law treated the pier as an extension of the land. Martin v. West, 222 U.S. 191, 197, 32 S.Ct. 42, 43, 56 L.Ed. 159 (1911); Cleveland T. & V.R. Co. v. Cleveland S.S. Co., 208 U.S. 316, 319, 28 S.Ct. 414, 415, 52 L.Ed. 508 (1908).
"[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." 46 U.S.C.App. § 740.
The purpose of the Act was to end concern over the sometimes confusing line between land and water, by investing admiralty with jurisdiction over "all cases" where the injury was caused by a ship or other vessel on navigable water, even if such injury occurred on land. See, e.g., Gutierrez v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 209-210, 83 S.Ct. 1185, 1187-1188, 10 L.Ed.2d 297 (1963); Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 260, 93 S.Ct. 493, 500-501, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (1972).
After this congressional modification to gather the odd case into admiralty, the jurisdictional rule was qualified again in three decisions of this Court aimed at keeping a different class of odd cases out. In the first case, Executive Jet, supra, tort claims arose out of the wreck of an airplane that collided with a flock of birds just after take-off on a domestic flight and fell into the navigable waters of Lake Erie. We held that admiralty lacked jurisdiction to consider the claims. We wrote that "a purely mechanical application of the locality test" was not always "sensible" or "consonant with the purposes of maritime law," id., at 261, 93 S.Ct., at 501, as when (for example) the literal and universal application of the locality rule would require admiralty courts to adjudicate tort disputes between colliding swimmers, id., at 255, 93 S.Ct., at 498. We held that "claims arising from airplane accidents are not cognizable in admiralty" despite the location of the harm, unless "the wrong bear[s] a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity." Id., at 268, 93 S.Ct., at 504.
The second decision, Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668, 102 S.Ct. 2654, 73 L.Ed.2d 300 (1982), dealt with tort claims arising out of the collision of two pleasure boats in a navigable river estuary. We held that admiralty courts had jurisdiction, id., at 677, 102 S.Ct., at 2659, even though jurisdiction existed only if "the wrong" had "a significant connection with traditional maritime activity," id., at 674, 102 S.Ct., at 2658. We conceded that pleasure boats themselves had little to do with the maritime commerce lying at the heart of the admiralty court's basic work, id., at 674-675, 102 S.Ct., at 2658-2659, but we nonetheless found the necessary relationship in
"[t]he potential disruptive impact [upon maritime commerce] of a collision between boats on navigable waters, when coupled with the traditional concern that admiralty law holds for navigation. . . ." Id., at 675, 102 S.Ct., at 2658.
In the most recent of the trilogy, Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 110 S.Ct. 2892, 111 L.Ed.2d 292 (1990), we held that a federal admiralty court had jurisdiction over tort claims arising when a fire, caused by a defective washer/dryer aboard a pleasure boat docked at a marina, burned the boat, other boats docked nearby, and the marina itself. Id., at 367, 110 S.Ct., at 2898. We elaborated on the enquiry exemplified in Executive Jet and Foremost by focusing on two points to determine the relationship of a claim to the objectives of admiralty jurisdiction. We noted, first, that the incident causing the harm, the burning of docked boats at a marina on navigable waters, was of a sort "likely to disrupt [maritime] commercial activity." Id., 497 U.S., at 363, 110 S.Ct., at 2896. Second, we found a "substantial relationship" with "traditional maritime activity" in the kind of activity from which the incident arose, "the storage and maintenance of a vessel . . . on navigable waters." Id., at 365-367, 110 S.Ct., at 2897-2898.
After Sisson, then, a party seeking to invoke federal admiralty jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) over a tort claim must satisfy conditions both of location and of connection with maritime activity. A court applying the location test must determine whether the tort occurred on navigable water or whether injury suffered on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. 46 U.S.C.App. § 740. The connection test raises two issues. A court, first, must "assess the general features of the type of incident involved," 497 U.S., at 363, 110 S.Ct., at 2896, to determine whether the incident has "a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce," id., at 364, n. 2, 110 S.Ct., at 2896, n. 2. 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." Id., at 365, 364, and n. 2, 110 S.Ct., at 2897, 2896, and n. 2. We now apply the tests to the facts of this case.
The location test is, of course, readily satisfied. If Great Lakes caused the flood, it must have done so by weakening the structure of the tunnel while it drove in new pilings or removed old ones around the bridge piers. The weakening presumably took place as Great Lakes's workers lifted and replaced the pilings with a crane that sat on a barge stationed in the Chicago River. The place in the river where the barge sat, and from which workers directed the crane, is in the "navigable waters of the United States." Escanaba Co., 107 U.S., at 683, 2 S.Ct., at 188-189. Thus, if Great Lakes committed a tort, it must have done it while on navigable waters.
It must also have done it "by a vessel." Even though the barge was fastened to the river bottom and was in use as a work platform at the times in question, at other times it was used for transportation. See 3 F.3d, at 229. Petitioners do not here seriously dispute the conclusion of each court below that the Great Lakes barge is, for admiralty tort purposes, a "vessel." The fact that the pile-driving was done with a crane makes no difference under the location test, given the maritime law that ordinarily treats an "appurtenance" attached to a vessel in navigable waters as part of the vessel itself. See, e.g., Victory Carriers, Inc. v. Law, 404 U.S. 202, 210-211, 92 S.Ct. 418, 424-425, 30 L.Ed.2d 383 (1971); Gutierrez, 373 U.S., at 209-210, 83 S.Ct., at 1187-1188.1
Because the injuries suffered by Grubart and the other flood victims were caused by a vessel on navigable water, the location enquiry would seem to be at an end, "notwithstanding that such damage or injury [have been] done or consummated on land." 46 U.S.C.App. § 740. Both Grubart and Chicago nonetheless ask us to subject the Extension Act to limitations not apparent from its text. While they concede that the Act refers to "all cases of damage or injury," they argue that "all" must not mean literally every such case, no matter how great the distance between the vessel's tortious activity and the resulting harm. They contend that, to be within the Act, the damage must be close in time and space to the activity that caused it: that it must occur "reasonably contemporaneously" with the negligent conduct and no "farther from navigable waters than the reach of the vessel, its appurtenances and cargo." For authority, they point to this Court's statement in Gutierrez, supra, that jurisdiction is present when the "impact" of the tortious activity "is felt ashore at a time and place not remote from the wr