Court Opinion

ID: 9469952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:52:58.949588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:38.782424
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge,
with whom BROWN, RUBIN and JOLLY, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting from the denial of Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc:
With a certain deference, I dissent from the refusal of the court to accord en banc consideration to this appeal. Our refusal to do so leaves standing the panel opinion,1 one which deranges the apparent plan of the Federal Water Pollution and Control Act (FWPCA) and, taken in combination with our earlier decision in United States v. Dixie Carriers, Inc.,2 produces consequences sufficiently anomalous that I am in serious doubt the Congress could have intended them. As now construed by two panels of our court, operating separately, the FWPCA calls to mind nothing so much as the wag’s depiction of a camel: a horse designed by a committee. On this construction, actual dischargers of oil pollutants who are guilty of no more than simple negligence are protected by tonnage limitations on their cleanup liabilities, while third parties whose simple negligence is the cause of such spills are — as maritime tort-fea-sors — subject to being crushed by full and unlimited liability for the consequences.
I am in no sense certain that the panel opinion’s construction, founded as it is on the rock of a literal reading of the statute, is incorrect. It well may be that the strange result produced, having been configured by literal words of the Congress, must be endured by our maritime commerce until the Congress gets around to correcting it. But since neither I nor the panel can make out the faintest rhyme or reason for such an enactment, and since there are plausible arguments against according the act such an irrational construction, I think that these latter should have been addressed by the en banc court, which exists to — and alone can — harmonize panel decisions of our court short of a resort to the over-taxed higher authority.

*457
The FWPCA: A Comprehensive Compromise.

The 1970 amendments to the FWPCA represent Congress’ response to the nation’s increasing need for imported oil and to the consequent increased risk of environmental damage from oil spills. See United States v. Bear Marine Services, 509 F.Supp. 710, 713 (E.D.La.1980).3 As might have been expected, the final enactment was a compromise. In its original form, the Senate bill would have allowed the government an unlimited cleanup recovery upon proof of mere negligence, while the House proposal would, by contrast, have limited that recovery even in the case of a willful discharge. See United States v. Dixie Carriers, Inc., 627 F.2d 736, 739 (5th Cir.1980). “The final statute allowing only limited recovery under a strict liability theory and allowing an unlimited recovery only upon proof of willful conduct represents a compromise between the two proposed statutes.’^ Id. at 739.4

Discharger Liability according to Dixie Carriers.

The crucial subsections of the statute for our present purposes are 33 U.S.C. Sections 1321(f), (g) and (h). The first two, (f) and (g), are conceptionally and linguistically parallel, as we shall see.
Subsection (f), as pertinent here, provides that a discharger of pollutants is to be held strictly liable for a limited amount of cleanup costs unless he can prove himself into one or more of the four statutory exceptions, and is liable without limit if the government establishes that his discharge was a willful one. The four exceptions comprise discharges caused solely by acts of God or of war, negligence by the government, and the act (whether or not negligent) of a third party.5
Citing the apparent intent of Congress to enáct “a compromise bill that limits the government’s recovery for cleanup costs in all cases except those involving willful discharges” and so to “deter oil spills and recover cleanup costs in a manner that would protect most vessel owners from potential crushing liability,”6 our earlier panel rejected the contention of the United States that where it could establish simple negligence on the part of a discharger the maritime tort action was not preempted by the statutes and a full recovery might be had. Instead, it accepted the discharger’s argument that “the language, legislative history, and general statutory scheme of the FWPCA demonstrate Congress’ intent to provide an exclusive and comprehensive *458remedy for the government to clean up oil spills and to recover cleanup expenses.” Dixie Carriers, supra at 738. Judge-made theories of maritime tort were, in the view of the Dixie Carriers court, swept away by the FWPCA insofar as they intruded upon the Congress’ comprehensive scheme of limited absolute liability for negligent carrier-dischargers. With the instant panel decision, however, we learn that the congressional scheme was not comprehensive after all, since those same carriers (or others), should they find themselves the sole cause of another’s oil spill, remain subject to unlimited liability in maritime tort. And thus our committee construction of the FWPCA: limited liability if one negligently dumps his own oil; unlimited liability if one negligently causes another to dump his. A crazy-quilt indeed, one by which Mr. Bumble would have been pleased.

Third-Party Liability, according to Big Sam.

Subsection (g) governs the liability of third parties who solely cause oil spills. Taking up on subsection (f)’s third-party exception to discharger liability, that section provides the identical liability for such a third-party sole-causer to that of a dis-charger. Unless such a third-party causer can prove himself into the same exceptions to liability granted in subsection (f) to the discharger, his liability is substituted for that of the discharger.7
The instant panel has concluded that this is not so, that those whose simple negligence causes discharges by others are to be exposed to “potentially crushing liability,” supra, are meant by the Congress to incur it, rather than or in addition to the limited liability scheduled. Thus he who, carrying oil, solely and carelessly causes another to discharge it, is to be — in appropriate circumstances — crushed, while he who carried it and carelessly discharged it is to be shielded. Nor is this anomalous treatment limited to third parties who have engaged in oil carriage and reaped the benefit of the rates charged for such commerce; any third party will do as a sacrifice. It seems to me arguable that the Congress did not and could not have intended such an exercise in statutory Russian Roulette.

The Maritime Tort Exception.

Subsection (h) preserves all rights that the government “may have against any third party whose actions may have in any way caused or contributed to the discharge .... ” (Emphasis supplied.)
The panel has held that by reason of the above, and despite Section (g), the government may recover without limit against a third-party sole-causer. Thus, we decree, he may be crushed, while an equal-fault discharger is to be shielded. By default, the court en banc agrees. From that de*459fault, I respectfully dissent: that Congress has said so in terms is persuasively arguable, perhaps plain; that its intent was to say so is, in my view, dubious — sufficiently so that I am satisfied our court has slighted its en banc function by refusing to face and resolve a fundamental conflict in principle between its panels, to adopt the approach of the Big Sam panel and limit or disapprove the reasoning of Dixie Carriers, or to consider the countervailing arguments for a construction of the Act consonant with our prior panel decision in Dixie Carriers. Among these are:
1. As noted above, our earlier Dixie Carriers opinion concluded that, since subsection (f)’s liability limitations apply in cases of simple negligence, the FWPCA preempts the general maritime tort remedy for such negligence. Though that decision concerned the liability of dischargers, the decision of the Big Sam panel that subsection (g) — textually and conceptually identical to and interlocking with subsection (f) — does not preempt the general maritime tort remedy for simple negligence of third-party causers of discharges conflicts in principle with Dixie Carriers and throws the general congressional scheme into irrational disarray.
2. By focussing exclusively on the literal language of subsection (h) preserving the government’s rights against third-party causers, the panel opinion saps the limitation of liability provided them by subsection (g) of vitality and all but reads it out of the statute.
3. The Big Sam panel adopts as to third-party causers the approach of the original Senate bill — unlimited recovery for simple negligence — that was squarely rejected by the Congress. Such an adoption of a rejected approach in the teeth of the legislative history conflicts with the strongest settled principles of statutory construction, both in this court and in the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U.S. 186, 95 S.Ct. 392, 42 L.Ed.2d 378 (1974).
These do not seem to me to be inconsiderable arguments, especially in view of the curious result to which a single-minded focus on the language of subsection (h) has led our panel in this case. Nevertheless, our court refuses even to consider them en banc.
So doing, it passes to an overburdened Supreme Court the task of relieving those within our jurisdiction from burdens of which it is probable the Congress meant to discharge them, preserves a clear conflict in principle in our decisions, and abdicates what I conceive to be its major function.

. Reported at 681 F.2d 432 (5th Cir.1982).

. 627 F.2d 736 (5th Cir.1980).

. Presently on appeal and awaiting final decision in this case.

. We also observed there, in responding to a government contention that it should be permitted to recover unlimited amounts on subsisting maritime tort theories, that “[e]very court that has considered this issue has held that the FWPCA provides the government’s exclusive remedy for recovering oil spill cleanup costs,” citing numerous authorities, including the district court decision reversed by the panel in the instant case. Id. at 738. Thus the reasoning of the panel is in patent conflict with the general view of the statute taken by the Dixie Carriers court.

. The apposite language of subsection (f) is:
Except where an owner or operator can prove that a discharge was caused solely by (A) an act of God, (B) an act of war, (C) negligence on the part of the United States Government, or (D) an act or omission of a third party without regard to whether any such act or omission was or was not negligent, or any combination of the foregoing clauses, such owner or operator of any vessel from which oil or a hazardous substance is discharged in violation of subsection (b)(3) of this section shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, be liable to the United States Government for the actual costs incurred under subsection (c) of this section for the removal of such oil or substance by the United States Government in an amount not to exceed, in the case of an inland oil barge $125 per gross ton of such barge, or $125,-000, whichever is greater, and in the case of any other vessel, $150 per gross ton of such vessel (or, for a vessel carrying oil or hazardous substances as cargo, $250,000), whichever is greater, except that where the United States can show that such discharge was the result of willful negligence or willful misconduct within the privity and knowledge of the owner, such owner or operator shall be liable to the United States Government for the full amount of such costs.

. Dixie Carriers, 627 F.2d at 739.

. The apposite language of Subsection (g) is:
In any case where an owner or operator of a vessel, of an onshore facility, or of an offshore facility, from which oil or a hazardous substance is discharged in violation of subsection (b)(3) of this section, proves that such discharge of oil or hazardous substance was caused solely by an act or omission of a third party, or was caused solely by such an act or omission in combination with an act of God, an act of war, or negligence on the part of the United States Government, such third party shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, be liable to the United States Government for the actual costs incurred under subsection (c) of this section for removal of such oil or substance by the United States Government, except where such third party can prove that such discharge was caused solely by (A) an act of God, (B) an act of war, (C) negligence on the part of the United States Government, or (D) an act or omission of another party without regard to whether such act or omission was or was not negligent, or any combination of the foregoing clauses. If such third party was the owner or operator of a vessel which caused the discharge of oil or a hazardous substance in violation of subsection (b)(3) of this section, the liability of such third party under this subsection shall not exceed, in the case of an inland oil barge $125 per gross ton of such barge, or $125,000, whichever is greater, and in the case of any other vessel, $150 per gross ton of such vessel (or, for a vessel carrying oil or hazardous substances as cargo, $250,000), whichever is greater. In any other case the liability of such third party shall not exceed the limitation which would have been applicable to the owner or operator of the vessel or the onshore or offshore facility from which the discharge actually occurred if such owner or operator were liable.