Source: http://www.admiraltylawguide.com/circt/11thschultz.html
Timestamp: 2017-10-19 05:22:51
Document Index: 163871437

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183', '§ 183']

Schultz v. Florida Keys Dive Center (11th Cir. 2000)
Plaintiff Blaine Shultz sued Florida Keys Dive Center, Inc. ("Dive Center") and its employees Gregory Hessinger and John Brady and owners Pamela Timmerman and Thomas Timmerman for the wrongful death of his wife, Patricia Shultz, who died of an apparent drowning while scuba diving on a trip conducted by the Dive Center. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, relying on a release of liability signed by Patricia Shultz, which the court determined to be valid under Florida law. We affirm the judgment, concluding that the district court correctly held that the liability release is not invalidated by an admiralty statute, 46 U.S.C. app. § 183c(a) (1994). Further, we conclude that it is not invalidated by the admiralty common law.
Unless the liability release signed by Patricia Shultz is invalidated under either 46 U.S.C. app. § 183c(a) or admiralty common law, the release is unquestionably valid and bars plaintiff's claim. 46 U.S.C. app. § 183c(a) provides:
In affirming the district court's decision that § 183c(a) does not invalidate a scuba diving release otherwise valid under state law, we follow the consistent lead of the few cases addressing the release issue under facts similar to this one. There are no federal appellate cases. In addition to this case, every district court and state court presented with the issue, however, has upheld such releases in recreational scuba diving cases such as this one, based on either the lack of application of § 183c(a) or based on a lack of admiralty jurisdiction.
The release was upheld as not meeting the requirements of § 183c(a) in the case at bar and in Cutchin v. Habitat Curacao, 1999 AMC 1377, 1380-81 (S.D.Fla.1999) and in Thompson v. ITT Sheraton Corp., No. 97-10080, at 4-7 (S.D.Fla. Feb. 2, 1999). The one case holding that § 183c(a) did apply to invalidate a scuba diving liability release involved a scuba diver who was struck by the propeller of another boat. See Courtney v. Pacific Adventures, Inc., 5 F.Supp.2d 874, 878-80 (D.Haw.1998). The application of § 183c(a) to the release in Pacific Adventures has been criticized. See Jeffrey T. Woodruff, Please Release Me--The Erroneous Application of 46 U.S.C.App. § 183c to Scuba Diving Releases in Courtney v. Pacific Adventures, Inc., 23 Tul. Mar. L.J. 473 (1999). Even in Pacific Adventures, however, the court apparently would have upheld the release in this case based on a lack of admiralty jurisdiction. The court reasoned that the allegations "involve[d] the operation of a vessel," 5 F.Supp.2d at 878, but then opined that if plaintiff's injuries "were related solely to scuba diving and had no relationship to the operation or maintenance of a vessel, then there would be no admiralty jurisdiction." 5 F.Supp.2d at 880 n. 5.
The district court in the case at bar relied on two other cases, which it cited as Keith v. Knopick, CL 95-3845 AF, Palm Beach County, Florida (March 18, 1997) and Mudry v. Captain Nemo, Case No. 94-0265(1), 2nd Cir. Hawaii (February 13, 1996), stating that they determined § 183c(a) or a similar state law statute to be inapplicable to a scuba diving liability release. Those two cases, however, are unpublished, and have not been made available to us.
These cases are fact-specific. We have been cited to no case with facts similar to this one--where the injury, an apparent drowning, resulted strictly from a recreational scuba diving accident-that held a release such as the one here to be invalid under § 183c(a). The Goody III served only as a dive boat: it departed the port of Tavernier in the Florida Keys, brought the divers to the location of the dive, and after the dive returned them to Tavernier. It was not a "vessel transporting passengers between ports of the United States or between any such port and a foreign port." 46 U.S.C. app. § 183c(a).
The legislative history supports the interpretation by these cases that the statute does not cover the liability release signed by Patricia Shultz. Congress enacted § 183c(a) in 1936 to "put a stop to" practices like "providing on the reverse side of steamship tickets that in the event of damage or injury caused by the negligence or fault of the owner or his servants, the liability of the owner shall be limited." H.R.Rep. No. 74-2517, at 6-7 (1936); S.Rep. No. 74-2061, at 6-7 (1936). That "practice" that Congress intended to outlaw was much different than the practice here-requiring a signed liability release to participate in the recreational and inherently risky activity of scuba diving.
The other case upholding a release under similar circumstances relied on a lack of admiralty jurisdiction. Although state courts have jurisdiction over admiralty cases, Borden v. Phillips, 752 So.2d 69, 72-73 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2000) concluded that admiralty jurisdiction did not exist and upheld a release under Florida law. In Borden, the diver surfaced and waived his hand in distress, but the captain misinterpreted the signal as an "o.k." signal and detached the emergency "tag line"--a floating rope enabling divers to pull themselves to the boat. See 752 So.2d at 71. The court held that admiralty jurisdiction was lacking over the wrongful death claim, because the activity at issue was scuba diving, not boating:
Based on admiralty jurisdiction of the tort claim, plaintiff makes the additional argument on appeal that the liability release is invalid under admiralty common law. The district court did not address this argument, in which plaintiff relies on our statement in Kornberg v. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc., 741 F.2d 1332, 1335 (11th Cir.1984), that "[a] sea carrier's ability to disclaim its responsibilities is not unlimited." The vessels in Kornberg and in the other cases cited by plaintiff, however, were common carriers--e.g., ferries, ocean liners, or cruise ships. See Kornberg, 741 F.2d at 1333; Liverpool and Great W. Steam Co. v. Phenix Ins. Co., 129 U.S. 397, 437, 9 S.Ct. 469, 32 L.Ed. 788 (1889); The Arabic, 50 F.2d 96, 97-99 (2d Cir.1931); The Oregon, 133 F. 609, 610 (9th Cir.1904); Lawlor v. Incres Nassau Steamship Line, Inc., 161 F.Supp. 764, 765 (D.Mass.1958); Beane v. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Inc., No. CIV. A. 91-565 (E.D.La. May 22, 1992). Plaintiff does not contend that the Dive Center was a common carrier. The Dive Center's business was scuba diving, not general transportation. No court, as far as we have been informed, has ever relied upon federal common law to invalidate a liability release for scuba diving, even where the scuba diving involved the use of a dive boat. The federal common law's limitation on common carrier liability releases does not extend to the liability release signed by Patricia Shultz.