Opinion ID: 63267
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The United States has sufficiently alleged a claim against Southern Scrap upon which relief can be granted under the Wreck Act.

Text: The Rivers and Harbors Act, an assertion of the sovereign power of the United States over its navigable waterways pursuant to Article I, § 8 of the Constitution, was obviously intended to prevent obstructions in the Nation's waterways. Wyandotte Transp. Co. v. United States, 389 U.S. 191, 201, 88 S.Ct. 379, 19 L.Ed.2d 407 (1967). The Supreme Court has consistently found [the Rivers and Harbors Act's] coverage to be broad, and it has found that a principal beneficiary of the Act, if not the principal beneficiary, is the Government itself. Id. at 201, 88 S.Ct. 379. The Wreck Act, which is comprised of certain provisions of the Rivers and Harbors Act, viz., 33 U.S.C. §§ 409, 411, 412, 414 and 415, addresses the problem of obstructions caused by sunken vessels. Univ. of Texas Med. Branch at Galveston v. United States, 557 F.2d 438, 444 (5th Cir.1977). Its purpose is the protection of other vessels plying the same waters as the sunken vessels. United States v. Raven, 500 F.2d 728, 732 (5th Cir.1974). Congress sought to ensure that navigable waterways remained free of obstructions, including sunken vessels. Univ. of Texas Med. Branch at Galveston, 557 F.2d at 441. Three sections of the Wreck Act are relevant to this case: 33 U.S.C. § 409; 33 U.S.C. § 414; and 33 U.S.C. § 415. Section 409 specifically addresses the problem of obstructions to navigable waterways caused by sunken vessels. [4] The Supreme Court and this Court have construed § 409 as having three separately operative clauses. [5] The first clause prohibits the sinking, or permitting or causing the sinking, of vessels or other craft in navigable channels. The second clause provides that the owner, lessee, or operator of a vessel sunken in a navigable channel must mark it with a buoy or beacon by day and a light at night. The third clause provides that the owner, lessee, or operator of a vessel sunken in a navigable channel shall commence the immediate removal of the vessel and prosecute the removal diligently, or else be considered as having abandoned the vessel, subjecting it to removal by the United States as provided for in 33 U.S.C. §§ 414 and 415, inter alios. [6] Sections 414 [7] and 415 [8] expressly authorize the government to remove vessels sunken in navigable waterways and to recover removal costs when the owner, lessee, or operator fails to prosecute immediate removal diligently as required by the third clause of § 409. Section 414(a) provides that whenever a navigable waterway has been obstructed by a sunken vessel for more than 30 days, or when the abandonment of the obstruction is legally established, the Secretary of the Army may have the obstructing vessel broken up, removed, sold, or otherwise disposed of. Section 415(a) is similar to § 414(a), except that it authorizes the United States through the Secretary of the Army, in an emergency, to take immediate possession of a sunken vessel that stops, seriously interferes with, or specially endangers navigation in any navigable waterway of the United States, and to remove or destroy such sunken vessel so as to eliminate the obstruction. Section 414(b) provides that the owner, lessee, or operator of a sunken vessel removed from a navigable waterway pursuant to § 414(a) by the government shall be liable to the United States for the cost of removal or destruction and disposal of the vessel as provided for in § 414(a). Section 415(c) [9] similarly provides that the owner, lessee, or operator of a sunken vessel shall be liable to the government for the costs of removal on an emergency basis under § 415(a), except that in such case the removal costs shall include administrative expenses. Applying the foregoing statutory provisions to the facts alleged by the United States in this case, we conclude that the government can state a claim upon which relief may be granted to it under the third clause of § 409 when read together with § 414(a) & (b) (or § 415(a) & (c)). Specifically, the United States alleges that Southern Scrap was the owner and operator of a drydock that, by virtue of its being swept away and sunken by Hurricane Katrina, became a significant hazard to navigation in the Industrial Canal, one of the country's navigable waterways, and that the drydock was a sunken vessel, which under federal law had to be removed from the Industrial Canal in order to eliminate its hazard to navigation. The United States further alleges that, upon contacting representatives of Southern Scrap less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck, it was advised that Southern Scrap was unable to remove its drydock from the Industrial Canal in a timely manner. Moreover, the United States alleges that, in the opinion of the Corps the drydock's obstruction stopped, seriously interfered with, or specially endangered navigation; and that the Secretary duly exercised his discretion to have the sunken vessel removed from the channel. Consequently, the United States avers, the Corps proceeded to have the sunken drydock removed for a cost of over $7 million, which greatly exceeds the value of the wrecked drydock. Accordingly, the United States alleges, Southern Scrap, as owner of the removed vessel, is liable to the United States for the cost of the sunken vessel's removal or destruction and disposal. The foregoing facts alleged by the United States are sufficient to state the essential elements of a claim under § 409 of the Wreck Act, viz., that Southern Scrap's vessel was wrecked and sunk in a navigable channel; that it was Southern Scrap's duty as its owner to commence the immediate removal of the same; that Southern Scrap failed to do so and thereby abandoned the craft and subjected it to removal by the United States as provided for in §§ 414 and 415 of the Wreck Act; that the government removed the sunken drydock from the navigable channel in accordance with these statutory provisions; and that Southern Scrap as owner and operator of the sunken drydock is liable to the United States for the cost of removal or destruction and disposal of that vessel. Contrary to our interpretation of the foregoing statutory provisions, however, Southern Scrap contends that the Wreck Act affords the government the right to recover removal costs only in the event the owner, lessee, or operator of a vessel negligently causes it to sink in a navigable waterway. This follows, Southern Scrap argues, because the object of the 1986 amendments was merely to codify the Supreme Court's decision in Wyandotte Transp. Co. v. United States holding vessel owners liable for the government's costs in removing their negligently caused wrecks, not to enable the United States to recover its full expenses of wreck removal from non-negligent vessel owners, lessees, and operators. We cannot agree. Southern Scrap's interpretation of the current statute cannot be squared with the plain words of the 1986 amendments, the evident objects of the amendments, and the basic structure and scheme of the Wreck Act left intact by them. As originally enacted, the first clause of § 409 of the Wreck Act prohibited voluntarily or carelessly sinking a vessel in a navigable channel. Based on that language, the Supreme Court in Wyandotte held that the United States could recover its costs of removing such wrecks from those channels from persons who negligently sank them. If Congress in the 1986 amendments had intended merely to codify Wyandotte and restrict the United States to that negligence cause of action, it would have preserved the terms voluntarily or carelessly and probably would have elaborated upon the negligence theory in the first clause of § 409 or elsewhere in the statute. The 1986 amendments, however, took a tack away from negligence theory by deleting the words voluntarily or carelessly from the first clause of § 409 and by amending and affecting other provisions of the Wreck Act so as to expand the potential for vessel owners' liability without fault for governmental wreck removal costs. The third clause of § 409, unlike the first clause, has always imposed a direct duty on non-negligent owners whose vessels sank in navigable channels to remove them or else risk the consequence of having the government remove them as provided for in §§ 414 and 415 of the Wreck Act. [10] Originally, §§ 414 and 415 only imposed upon such owners in rem liability for the government's removal costs up to the value of the wrecked vessel and its cargo. But in the 1986 legislation, §§ 414 and 415 were amended to provide that the owners, lessees, and operators of vessels sunken in navigable channels shall be liable to the United States for its costs in removing such sunken vessels that exceed the in rem value of the wreck. In other words, the 1986 legislation, in essence, amended §§ 414 and 415 of the Wreck Act to provide that, in addition to a sunken vessel owner's former in rem liability under those sections, an owner, lessee, and operator shall also be liable to the United States for the actual cost of a wreck removal which exceeds the in rem value of the wreck. For these reasons, we conclude that the 1986 amendments to the Wreck Act were not designed to codify Wyandotte or the negligence cause of action it discovered in the Act as Southern Scrap contends, but were intended to grant the United States the substantive statutory right to hold vessel owners, lessees, and operators personally liable for the government's removal costs when they fail to comply with their duty to remove sunken vessels from navigable waters under § 409 of the Act. [11] Accordingly, we also conclude that the United States can state a personal liability claim against Southern Scrap under the Wreck Act for the recovery of its actual cost of removing the drydock from the Industrial Canal without alleging that the vessel owner negligently caused the sinking.