Opinion ID: 21127
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exemption of Coast Guard Administrative Proceedings from the Limitation Act

Text: 11 The Coast Guard requires marine employers to test for drug and alcohol abuse all persons on board a vessel who are directly involved in a serious marine incident. 5 Petitioners do not contest the authority of the Coast Guard to require such testing and to require submission of the results of such testing to the Coast Guard. Petitioners focus instead on the determination of the proper forum in which these administrative requirements can and should be enforced: (1) a Limitation Act proceeding in district court, or (2) an administrative hearing in accordance with Coast Guard procedures under the aegis of the Administrative Procedures Act. Petitioners insist that the broad language of the Limitation Act and the protection it affords apply to enjoin all other proceedings in any other forum. They argue that this is the only way to protect an owner who is personally free from blame from damages that arise out of a marine incident. In diametric opposition, the Coast Guard insists that its proceedings are exempt from the Limitation Act. 12 There is a dearth of jurisprudence on this point. We find some guidance in the opinion of this court in University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston v. United States. 6 In that case, the United States spent some three million dollars to remove a wrecked vessel from the sea bottom. The vessel owner filed a limitation action and the United States sought exclusion. We determined that the Wreck Act, part of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, 7 which governs allocation of costs incurred in removing a wrecked vessel, creates a statutory duty to remove the vessel. This in turn results in the owner's bearing the cost of removal, regardless of limitation. Reasoning that the government should not be penalized for promptly removing the wreck, we allowed the government to recover its costs unfettered by the constraints of a limitation proceeding. 13 We find the implications of that case instructive. Congress has granted authority to the Coast Guard to enforce mandated drug and alcohol regulations. Even though the government filed a civil suit under the Wreck Act in University of Texas Medical Branch and, in contrast, instituted administrative proceedings for fines and penalties in the instant case, both claims arose from statutory authority creating an independent statutory duty on the part of the shipowner. To subject either claim to limitation would thwart the expressed intent of Congress ---- removal of sunken vessels that are hazards to navigation in the one instance and promotion of safety on the high seas in the other. To allow shipowners to limit their liability in such cases could reduce their incentive to comply with important regulations. 14 We find inapposite the cases cited by Petitioners to support their argument that the term forfeiture used in the Limitation Act encompasses penalties that result from the Coast Guard proceedings. We do not read the Limitation Act to embody an intention to protect against fines and forfeitures in the form of civil regulatory penalties. The history of application of the Limitation Act reflects thelimiting of liabilities arising out of damage to cargo or goods, injuries or damages resulting from collision, salvage claims, fires, personal injury suits by seamen, and damages to structures or persons on land. 8 The Limitation Act applies for the most part to limit tort ability, so penalties of the nature the Coast Guard seeks to recover in this case do not appear to be among the kinds of maritime misfortune that are subject to the Limitation Act. We agree with the district court's analysis and holding on this issue. 15