Opinion ID: 1722847
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Langnes and Ex Parte Green

Text: In Langnes , the injured party elected to commence suit seeking damages in state court instead of federal court under the savings to suitors clause of Section 1333. Two days before the trial, the vessel owner commenced its own Section 185 petition in federal court which, in turn, issued an order restraining further prosecution of the state court action. Langnes, 282 U.S. at 532-34, 51 S.Ct. at 244. The U.S. Supreme Court first observed that under the savings to suitors clause, the injured party had a right to proceed in state court because he was seeking a common law remedy, money damages. Id. at 538-40, 51 S.Ct. at 246. At the same time though, Section 185 gave the vessel owner the right to seek limitation of liability in federal court. Id. [5] Given these competing legal interests, the Court cast the case in the following terms: Upon the face of the record, the state court, whose jurisdiction already had attached, was competent to afford relief to the petitioner. The difference in the effect of adopting one or the other of the two alternatives presented to the district court was obvious. To entertain the cause [in federal court] would be to preserve the right of the ship owner, but to destroy the right of the suitor in the state court to a common law remedy; to remit the case to the state court would be to preserve the rights of both parties. Id. at 541, 51 S.Ct. at 247. Recognizing that the need for a concursus was nonexistent in the context of a single claimant dispute, the Court dissolved the restraining order retaining, as a matter of precaution, the petition for a limitation of liability to be dealt with in the possible but ... unlikely event that the right of the [ship owner] to a limited liability might be brought into question ... or the case otherwise assume such form as to bring it within the exclusive power of [the federal court]. Id. In analyzing the case, the Supreme Court observed that had the vessel owner elected to do so, he could have pleaded the Section 183 limitation defense in the state court action and obtained a complete resolution of that defense there: [T]his Court has accepted the view that in a state court, when there is only one possible claimant and one owner, the advantage of [Section 183] may be obtained by proper pleading. (Citations omitted). Upon the present record, the necessary result of this holding is that the state court, in the action there pending and in the due course of the exercise of its common law powers, was competent to entertain the claim of a ship owner for a limitation of liability and afford him appropriate relief under the statute dealing with that subject. (Citations omitted). Id. at 540, 51 S.Ct. at 247. The Court added that the ship owner was not required to raise the Section 183 limitation defense in the state court action, but could opt for the other procedural means of doing so by filing a Section 185 petition in federal court and then pleading Section 183 there. Id. Shortly after the Langnes decision, the Court was called upon in Ex Parte Green to write a short follow-up to Langnes because the injured party challenged, in the state court, the vessel owner's knowledge and privity. Ex Parte Green, 286 U.S. at 438-40, 52 S.Ct. at 603. The Court, in Ex Parte Green , reiterated most of what it said in Langnes and held that the case was properly before the federal court for resolution. Id. Significantly, the Court in Langnes and Ex Parte Green did not hold that where, as in the instant case, the vessel owner elects to proceed with its limitation defense as an affirmative defense in the state court action instead of filing a Section 185 petition in federal court, the state court does not have subject matter jurisdiction. Read together, Langnes and Ex Parte Green hold only that when the injured party sues in state court and the vessel owner responds by filing a Section 185 petition in federal court, the federal court has jurisdiction. The difference between Langnes and Ex Parte Green and the instant case is that Memphis Barge did not file a Section 185 petition in federal court  unlike the vessel owner in Langnes and Ex Parte Green . As discussed below, this difference is dispositive.