Opinion ID: 1722847
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas

Text: Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas , both cited by Mapco as authority that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the Section 183 limitation defense, involved essentially the same facts. In both cases, the injured party filed suit in state court and the vessel owner plead the limitation defense under Section 183. Thereafter, the vessel owners commenced Section 185 proceedings in federal court, but did so after the 6 month time period contained in Section 185 had expired. Thus, the narrow issue presented to the Fifth and Sixth Circuits in Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas was whether a vessel owner, by asserting the Section 183 limitation defense as an affirmative defense in state court, tolled the time bar applicable to Section 185 for purposes of commencing limitation proceedings in federal court. In both cases, the court concluded that the Section 185 proceedings were not timely filed and dismissed the limitation petitions. In support of its position in the instant case, Mapco points to various statements in Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas to the effect that [w]hen the right to limited liability is contested it becomes impossible to dispose of all issues in a single proceeding in a state court. Cincinnati Gas, 533 F.2d at 1004. Also, [t]he state court lost jurisdiction of the limitation of liability issue when the claimant contested the owner's right to avail itself of limitation and only an admiralty court had jurisdiction to decide the issue. Id. at 1005. These statements in Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas were made in the context of a vessel owner ultimately electing to proceed by way of Section 185 in federal court and have the limitation defense of Section 183 heard in that proceeding. Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas are unlike the present case where the vessel owner, Memphis Barge, elected to plead its Section 183 defense in the state court proceeding instead of a Section 185 petition in federal court. In other words, neither Vatican Shrimp or Cincinnati Gas addressed the precise issue before this Court which is whether a state court has jurisdiction to hear a Section 183 limitation defense when the vessel owner, instead of filing a Section 185 petition in federal court, elects to have the defense heard in state court by affirmatively pleading it. Rather, Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas both address the question of whether a Section 185 petition, which by its express terms must be filed in federal court within 6 months, was filed timely, even though the vessel owner plead the Section 183 limitation defense in state court within the 6 months. Moreover, Langnes and Ex Parte Green , relied upon by Vatican Shrimp and Cincinnati Gas , must be viewed in a procedural posture distinct from the present case. In Ex Parte Green , the follow-up to Langnes , the vessel owner, unlike Memphis Barge, had filed a Section 185 concursus proceeding in federal court  an action which, by the express terms of Section 185, specifically conferred exclusive jurisdiction on the federal court thereby removing the issue from the state court's jurisdiction. The vessel owner had invoked Section 185's statutory divestiture of concurrent subject matter jurisdiction. Memphis Barge has not.