Opinion ID: 389134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Beyond United Continental Tuna

Text: 28 Although the Supreme Court purported to confine its analysis to the amendment to § 742 deleting the merchant vessel proviso, id., 425 U.S. at 176-77, 96 S.Ct. at 1326-27, we think its analysis extends equally to the amendment adding the reference to private person or property. In United Continental Tuna the Supreme Court decided that a distinct admiralty remedy survived the enhancement of the SAA. In this case we must decide whether a distinct remedy at law retains any continuing vitality in the area of maritime torts. In a paraphrase of the Court's conclusion in United Continental Tuna, we must decide whether Congress expanded the scope of the SAA at the expense of the FTCA as well as the Tucker Act. We conclude that it did not. 29 Two problems derived from prior decisions confronted the 1960 drafters: First was the limitation of the § 742 remedy to cases where Government cargo was involved. Second was the limitation of the remedy to cases involving vessels employed as a merchant vessel. In both instances the statutory language had produced uncertainty and obscurity. S.Rep.No.1894, at 3586. Concerning the second of these problems, the requirement that the vessel be employed as a merchant vessel, earlier cases had reached inconsistent results as to when a vessel was so engaged. Id., and cases cited therein. This problem was aggravated by the fact that differences in the authorizing language of the SAA and PVA suggested that most contract claims against public vessels could be maintained only in the Court of Claims. If the vessel was a merchant vessel, suit was proper in the district court under the SAA (and in the Court of Claims as well, under the Tucker Act, if the suit was for less than $10,000); if the vessel was a public vessel, suit might be proper only in the Court of Claims. Id., at 3584-85; United Continental Tuna, 425 U.S. at 177-78, 180-81, 96 S.Ct. at 1327-28. 14 Congress' deletion of the 'employed as a merchant vessel' proviso was clearly intended to remove such uncertainty as to the proper forum by bringing within the Suits in Admiralty Act whatever category of claims involving public vessels was beyond the scope of the Public Vessels Act. Id., 425 U.S. at 180-81, 96 S.Ct. at 1328. 30 The problem with the language limiting the § 742 remedy to cases involving government cargo was more basic. 31 In Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. United States (175 F.2d 490 (2 Cir.)), it was held that, during the interval it was being trucked across the pier from a lighter to a Government vessel's tackle, cargo was only merchandise or property and not cargo within the statutory language so that the United States could not be sued under the Admiralty Claims Act. 32 S.Rep.No.1894, at 3586. The amendment to § 742 adding the language or if a private person or property were involved to the scope of the SAA remedy was intended to eliminate such distinctions: The inclusion of the word 'property' in the amendment to the bill will make it clear that suits against the Government in respect of such cargo may be brought in admiralty, and will avoid technical distinctions of whether 'merchandise' or 'cargo' is involved. Id. 15 33 That this was the purpose of the 1960 amendments, to clarify what was meant by vessel or cargo that would subject the Government to suit under the SAA but not to bring all maritime claims within the Act, is made clear by J. W. Petersen Coal & Oil Co., supra note 11: 34 The words or if a private person or property were involved were added not to bring all maritime torts by the Government into the statute's range but more likely merely to ... avoid the technical distinction of when goods owned by the Government to be carried on a vessel have ceased to be merchandise and have become cargo which was the point of decision in Ryan Stevedoring Co. .... 323 F.Supp. at 1204. 16 35 There are, in addition, passages in the legislative history of the amendments that cast considerable doubt on the conclusion that all maritime torts were intended to be confined to the admiralty side of the district courts, under either the SAA or PVA. In the first place, those recommending the changes to § 742 referred to the district court's jurisdiction under the FTCA as a part of that forum's jurisdictional basis which admiralty lawyers sometimes confused with the jurisdiction available in the Court of Claims. S.Rep.No.1894, at 3589. The Department of Commerce, which sponsored the amendments to § 742, nowhere suggests, beyond the suggestion inherent in the recommended statutory language addressing the jurisdictional conflict between the Court of Claims and the district court, that the latter court's jurisdiction under the FTCA was to be in any way diminished. Id., at 3589-90. 36 Moreover, in summarizing the purpose of the amendments to § 742, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported that they restate in brief and simple language the now existing exclusive jurisdiction conferred on the district courts, both on their admiralty and law sides, over cases against the United States which could be sued on in admiralty if private vessels, persons, or property were involved. Id., at 3583 (emphasis added). If this does not confirm the district court's continuing jurisdiction under the FTCA, over maritime torts that remain outside the scope of the amended § 742, it is hard to tell what the Senate Committee meant by reporting that the district courts would continue to have jurisdiction, on their law side, in cases against the United States which could be brought in admiralty if a private person were involved. The only other possible construction of the Report's phrase is as a reference to the district court's concurrent jurisdiction, with the Court of Claims, over maritime contract claims under the Tucker Act. But these are precisely the sort of claims that the amendments were designed to get out of the Court of Claims and into the district court, in admiralty, by way of the SAA. United Continental Tuna, 425 U.S. at 180-81, 96 S.Ct. at 1328. 17 And it is impossible to tell how or why the district courts should continue to have a Tucker Act basis for jurisdiction at law over maritime contract claims while maritime tort claims are all to be confined to admiralty under the SAA. Both types of maritime claims, contract and tort, are within the construction of the SAA argued for by the Government. In either type of case the SAA would apply and would require a proceeding in admiralty against the Government if, had a private person or property been involved, such a proceeding was available against the hypothetical defendant. The Senate Committee must have been aware of this when it reported that district courts would continue to have jurisdiction at law for claims against the Government that could be brought in admiralty if a private person or property were involved. It could only have referred to a proposition that all acknowledged at the time but which no one sought to change: that there are a class of maritime torts, not involving Government vessels, cargo, or shipping activity generally, that are outside the scope of the SAA and therefore within the scope of the FTCA.