Court Opinion

ID: 8927778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 06:49:49.572174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:26.736397
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
My brother Higginbotham in his opinion for the Court correctly points out in footnote 10 that the issue of liability to the commercial fishermen who were financially injured because of this ship collision and resultant spillage is not before us and is an undecided issue in this Circuit.
I am not in serious disagreement with the Court’s approach on this issue as set out in the footnote. I write for purposes of emphasis more than to differ. My concern is that I have considerable doubt that commercial fishermen can establish a proprietary interest in the right to fish in their fishing waters. Certainly the common legal synonym for “proprietary interest” is “ownership”, as legal lexicons attest. Yet the bright line rule of the Court’s opinion places emphasis upon a requisite proprietary interest.
It would be preferable, in my view, to have the rule include a clear recognition that the rights of commercial fishermen were more accurately defined by the Court in Union Oil Co. v. Oppen, 501 F.2d 558 (9th Cir.1974), one of the cases discussed by Judge Higginbotham. The Court agreed that ordinarily there is no recovery for economic losses unaccompanied by physical damage. It found, however, that commercial fishermen were foreseeable plaintiffs whose interests the oil company had a duty to protect when conducting its operations which resulted in the spillage. The rule that should prevail was effectively stated by Judge Sneed in that case in the quotation set out in Judge Higginbotham’s opinion. I repeat it here for emphasis:
Nothing said in this opinion is intended to suggest, for example, that every decline in the general commercial activity of every business in the Santa Barbara area following the occurrences of 1969 constitutes a legally cognizable injury for which the defendants may be responsible. The plaintiffs in the present action lawfully and directly make use of a resource of the sea, viz, its fish, in the ordinary course of their business. This type of use is entitled to protection from negligent conduct by the defendants in their drilling operations. Both the plaintiffs and defendants conduct their business operations away from land and in, on and under the sea. Both must carry on their commercial enterprises in a reasonably prudent manner. Neither should be permitted negligently to inflict commercial injury on the other. We decide no more than this. (Emphasis added.) 501 F.2d at 570.
The commercial fishermen properly recover because their livelihood comes from a “resource” of the water which was polluted. Yet, physical property owned by them was not damaged and it is doubtful that a proprietary interest could have been shown.
I recognize that the Court’s opinion in footnote 10 accepted Union Oil as a possible alternative analysis as to the rights of the commercial fishermen. I write to give it greater emphasis than is to be found in the footnote reference and to stress it as the more realistic alternative than a proprietary interest analysis. I would prefer that the rule be stated with enough additional breadth to allow recovery for those who are damaged because they make their living out of a “resource” of the water.
I concur fully in the result in this case because I am in full agreement with the decision of the Court as to all the claimants who are before us. But I have the reservation expressed above as to the rule of law which is stated in the Court’s opinion.