Title: Matthews v. Virginia Dept. of Transportation
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 961140
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: February 28, 1997

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, and 
Koontz, JJ., and Whiting, Senior Justice 
 
BRENDA MATTHEWS 
 
OPINION BY JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v.  Record No. 961140                 February 28, 1997 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, 
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NEWPORT NEWS 
 
Randolph T. West, Judge 
 
 
This is an action for personal injuries suffered by a 
passenger who slipped and fell while aboard a ferryboat sailing 
in navigable waters.  The sole question we consider is whether 
the trial court erred in ruling that the action is not a maritime 
tort to be decided under federal admiralty law. 
 
Just before dawn on December 2, 1993, plaintiff Brenda 
Bullock, now Brenda Matthews, drove her motor vehicle aboard the 
state-owned ferryboat Williamsburg while it was docked in the 
navigable waters of the James River at Jamestown.  She boarded to 
take breakfast to her boyfriend, the ferryboat's captain.   
 
As the ferryboat neared completion of the 2.2-mile, 17-
minute trip across the James to the dock at Scotland in Surry 
County, the plaintiff was injured.  She slipped and fell as she 
was walking across the boat's deck returning to her vehicle from 
her visit with the captain. 
 
Subsequently, she filed a motion for judgment against 
defendant Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Transportation, 
seeking recovery in damages.  She alleged that she was a paying 
passenger aboard the defendant's vessel and that she was injured 
as the result of the defendant's employees' negligence in failing 
 
 
 
 
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"to keep the deck of the ferry safe for passengers to walk upon." 
 Responding, the defendant denied the allegations of negligence, 
and asserted the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence 
and assumption of the risk.  
 
At the beginning of a March 1996 jury trial, the plaintiff 
asked the trial court to rule that the case would be tried "under 
the rules of comparative rather than contributory negligence 
under maritime law."  The Attorney General, on behalf of the 
defendant, took the position that "the rules of admiralty do not 
apply to this case" because it "is a garden variety slip-and-fall 
case that could have happened as well on land as on sea."  After 
argument of the motion, the court denied it, ruling that the 
court would "follow the regular tort law," not admiralty law.  
 
The trial progressed.  The plaintiff sought to establish 
that she slipped on residue of a lubricant, which had been 
tracked across the boat's steel deck.  The evidence showed that 
the substance was used by the crew to lubricate the boat's safety 
gates installed at each end of the vessel.  The defendant 
presented evidence that its employees were not negligent and that 
the plaintiff did not know what caused her fall.   
 
Among the issues presented to the jury in the court's 
instructions were primary and contributory negligence.  The jury 
found in favor of the defendant, and the court entered judgment 
on the verdict.  The plaintiff appeals. 
 
The following assignment of error raises the dispositive 
 
 
 
 
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appellate issue:  "The trial court erred in applying the doctrine 
of contributory negligence to an admiralty case."   
 
The standards of maritime law provide that contributory 
negligence is to be considered only in mitigation of damages in a 
tort action.  Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 
U.S. 625, 629 (1959).  Thus, we must decide whether the rights 
and liabilities arising from the conduct of which the plaintiff 
complains are within the full reach of admiralty jurisdiction and 
measurable by the standards of maritime law, or whether the 
substantive law of the Commonwealth recognizing contributory 
negligence as a complete bar to recovery controls. 
 
To support a cause of action for a maritime tort that falls 
within admiralty jurisdiction, a party "must satisfy conditions 
both of location and of connection with maritime activity."  
Grubart v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527, ___, 115 
S.Ct. 1043, 1048 (1995).  The alleged negligence must occur on 
navigable water and the wrong must bear a significant 
relationship to traditional maritime activity.  Mizenko v. 
Electric Motor and Contracting Co., 244 Va. 152, 156, 419 S.E.2d 
637, 640 (1992) (citing East River Steamship Corp. v. 
Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 863-64 (1986)). 
 
In the present case, the Attorney General agrees that 
defendant's alleged tortious conduct took place on navigable 
water, that is, the locus requirement has been satisfied.  The 
Attorney General contends, however, that the conduct did not bear 
 
 
 
 
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a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity, that 
is, the nexus requirement has not been met. 
 
In order to decide whether an activity has a significant 
relationship to a traditional maritime activity, the court should 
"determine the potential impact of a given type of incident by 
examining its general character."  Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 
363 (1990).  Accord Mizenko, 244 Va. at 156, 419 S.E.2d at 640.  
The jurisdictional inquiry does not turn on the actual effects on 
maritime commerce of the particular facts of the incident.  
"Rather, a court must assess the general features of the type of 
incident involved to determine whether such an incident is likely 
to disrupt commercial activity."  Sisson, 497 U.S. at 363.  The 
inquiry should be "whether a tortfeasor's activity, commercial or 
noncommercial, on navigable waters is so closely related to 
activity traditionally subject to admiralty law that the reasons 
for applying special admiralty rules would apply in the case at 
hand."  Grubart, 513 U.S. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 1051.  See Price 
v. Price, 929 F.2d 131, 135-36 (4th Cir. 1991). 
 
Parenthetically, we note that the Attorney General relies on 
a four-factor nexus test articulated in Kelly v. Smith, 485 F.2d 
520, 525 (5th Cir. 1973).  The Supreme Court in Sisson expressly 
declined to adopt the Kelly test, 497 U.S. at 366 n.4, and we do 
not apply it here. 
 
The general activity that is the basis of the plaintiff's 
claim involves maintenance of the vessel's deck and of the safety 
 
 
 
 
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gates on either end of the ferryboat.  The plaintiff's evidence 
tended to show that the substance utilized to lubricate the 
safety gates collected in puddles on the steel deck and that 
vehicle tires tracked the lubricant across the deck causing the 
hazard that injured her. 
 
We are of opinion that, "given the broad perspective 
demanded" by the nexus test, Sisson, 497 U.S. at 367, maintaining 
a vessel's equipment and its deck under these circumstances is 
substantially related to traditional maritime activity.  Indeed, 
Sisson expressly holds that "storage and maintenance of a vessel 
at a marina on navigable waters" meets the test.  Id.  
Manifestly, failure to so maintain a vessel properly at the dock 
or underway is likely to disrupt the commercial activity central 
to the maritime purpose of a ferryboat, that is, transporting 
paying passengers safely across navigable water to their 
destination. 
 
Consequently, we hold that the trial court erred in 
instructing the jury on contributory negligence and in refusing 
to allow the case to proceed under the general maritime law of 
negligence.  Thus, the judgment in favor of the defendant will be 
reversed and the case will be remanded for further proceedings 
consistent with this opinion. 
 
Reversed and remanded.