Opinion ID: 6216611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Spill

Text: We start at the beginning—with an oil spill in the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a manmade system of canals, locks, and dams linking the Tennessee River in Mississippi with the Tombigbee River in Alabama. Here’s a map of the Waterway: On September 8, 2019, the M/V SAVAGE VOYAGER was pushing two tank barges along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. 1 Our Plaintiffs—Savage Services Corp. and Savage Inland 1 Tank barges are non-self-propelled vessels that carry liquids—including oil. USCA11 Case: 21-10745 Date Filed: 02/08/2022 Page: 5 of 50 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 5 Marine LLC—owned the vessel. 2 Along its journey, the vessel approached the Jamie Whitten Lock, a boat lift operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the “Army Corps”). Things quickly devolved from there. On Savage’s account, when the barge entered the lock, the lock master “began de-watering the lock chamber without notice or warning to the crew” and without “confirm[ing] the tug and tow were within the miter walls.” At that point, the vessel’s crew noticed that the “rake end” of one of the barges was caught on the north miter wall. The crew immediately relayed this information to the lock master. But, by then, it was too late. The lock chamber descended nearly sixty feet—and, as the water in the chamber fell, the barge rose out of the water until the angle became so steep that the barge fell off the miter wall. The weight of the barge caused the rake end of the barge to bend upward. According to Savage, the distorted rake “punctured a cargo tank . . . , resulting in a release of crude oil into the lock chamber.” In the end, the barge looked like this: 2 For simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to Savage Services Corp. and Savage Inland Marine LLC (collectively) as “Savage.” USCA11 Case: 21-10745 Date Filed: 02/08/2022 Page: 6 of 50 6 Opinion of the Court 21-10745 Savage alleges that the Army Corps was “solely responsible” for the accident and that “[t]here was nothing the SAVAGE VOYAGER could have done to avoid the accident.” Savage also says that, as a result of the Army Corps’s sole negligence, Savage suffered $4 million in damages—mostly due to the time-consuming process of removing oil from the Waterway. Hoping to recover these costs, Savage sued the United States in admiralty, relying in large measure on the Suits in Admiralty Act of 1920. In the SAA, the United States waived its sovereign immunity for most admiralty claims. See 46 U.S.C. § 30903(a) (“In a case in which, . . . if a private person or property were involved, a civil action in admiralty could be maintained, a civil action in admiralty in personam may be brought against the United States or a federally-owned corporation.”). USCA11 Case: 21-10745 Date Filed: 02/08/2022 Page: 7 of 50 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 7