Court Opinion

ID: 9428854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:59.576327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.608248
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Rehnquist, and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
No trend of decisions by this Court has been stronger — for two decades or more — than that toward expanding federal jurisdiction at the expense of state interests and state-court jurisdiction. Of course, Congress also has moved steadily and expansively to exercise its Commerce Clause and preemptive power to displace state and local authority. Often decisions of this Court and congressional enactments have been necessary in the national interest. The effect, never*678theless, has been the erosion of federalism — a basic principle of the Constitution and our federal Union.
Today’s Court decision, an example of this trend, is not necessary to further any federal interest. On its face, it is inexplicable. The issue is whether the federal law of admiralty, rather than traditional state tort law, should apply to an accident on the Amite River in Louisiana between two small boats. “One was an eighteen foot pleasure boat powered by a 185 h.p. Johnson outboard motor that was being used for water skiing purposes at the time of the accident. The other was a sixteen foot ‘bass boat’ powered by an outboard motor that was used exclusively for pleasure fishing.” 470 F. Supp. 699, 700 (MD La. 1979). It also is undisputed that both boats were used “exclusively for pleasure”; that neither had ever been used in any “commercial maritime activity”; that none of the persons aboard the boats had ever been engaged in any such activity; and that neither of the boats was used for hire. Ibid. The Court of Appeals conceded that “the place where the accident occurred is seldom, if ever, used for commercial activity.” 641 F. 2d 314, 316 (CA5 1981).
The absence of “commercial activity” on this waterway was held by the Court of Appeals to be immaterial. While recognizing that there was substantial authority to the contrary, the court held that federal admiralty law applied to this accident. This Court now affirms in a decision holding that “all operators of vessels on navigable waters are subject to uniform [federal] rules of conduct,” conferring federal admiralty jurisdiction over all accidents. Ante, at 675 (emphasis deleted). In my view there is no substantial federal interest that justifies a rule extending admiralty jurisdiction to the edge of absurdity. I dissent.
l — l
Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U. S. 249 (1972), established that admiralty jurisdiction does *679not extend to every accident on navigable waters. The Court today misconstrues Executive Jet. We emphasized in that case that it is “consistent with the history and purpose of admiralty to require . . . that the wrong bear a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity.” Id., at 268 (emphasis added). We acknowledged that “in a literal sense there may be some similarities between the problems posed for a plane downed on water and those faced by a sinking ship.” Id., at 269. But, recalling that “[t]he law of admiralty has evolved over many centuries,” ibid., we noted that admiralty was “concerned with [matters such as] maritime liens, the general average,[1] captures and prizes, limitation of liability, cargo damage, and claims for salvage.” Id., at 270. “It is clear, therefore, that neither the fact that a plane goes down on navigable waters nor the fact that the negligence ‘occurs’ while a plane is flying over such waters is enough to create such a relationship to traditional maritime activity as to justify the invocation of admiralty jurisdiction.” Id., at 270-271 (emphasis added).
Executive Jet’s, recognition that “[t]he law of admiralty has evolved over many centuries,” id., at 269, provides the appropriate understanding of that case’s “traditional maritime activity” test. Admiralty is a specialized area of law that, since its ancient inception, has been concerned with the problems of seafaring commercial activity.2 As Professor Stolz *680has demonstrated, “[t]here can be no doubt that historically the civil jurisdiction of admiralty was exclusively concerned with matters arising from maritime commerce. ” Stolz, Pleasure Boating and Admiralty: Erie at Sea, 51 Calif. L. Rev. 661, 667 (1963). “The only valid criterion of the admiralty jurisdiction is the relation of the matter — whether it be tor-tious or contractual in nature — to maritime commerce.” 7A J. Moore & A. Pelaez, Federal Practice, Admiralty ¶.325[5], p. 3606 (2d ed. 1982) (emphasis in original).3
This case involves only pleasure craft. Neither of these boats had ever been used in any commercial activity. There is, therefore, no connection with any historic federal admiralty interest. In centuries past — long before modem means of transportion by land and air existed — rivers and oceans were the basic means of commerce, and the vessels that used the waterways were limited primarily to commercial and naval purposes.4 “Pleasure boating is basically a *681new phenomenon, the product of a technology that can produce small boats at modest cost and of an economy that puts such craft within the means of almost everyone.”5 Stolz, supra, at 661. Thus, the “traditional” connection emphasized in Executive Jet is absent where pleasure boats are concerned. Moreover, even the Court today is hard put to identify an arguably substantial federal admiralty interest of any kind. I now comment briefly on the Court’s reasoning.
*682M-i H=H
The Court’s justification for extending federal admiralty jurisdiction to the use of millions6 of small pleasure boats on the countless rivers, streams, and inlets of our country is the need for “uniform rules of conduct.” Ante, at 675. I agree, of course, that standard codes should govern traffic on waterways, just as it is crucial that certain uniform rules of traffic prevail on neighborhood streets as well as interstate highways. But this is no reason for admiralty jurisdiction to be extended to all boating activity. Congress has provided some rules governing water traffic, just as it has done for some land traffic. See 23 U. S. C. § 154 (55 m.p.h. speed limit). Yet no one suggests that federal jurisdiction is needed to prevent chaos in automobile traffic, or that only federal courts are qualified to try accident cases.
State courts are duty bound to apply federal as well as local “uniform rules of conduct.” See Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947). The Court does not suggest that state courts lack competency to apply federal as well as state law to this type of water traffic. And this Court stands ready, if necessary, to review state decisions to ensure that important issues of federal law are resolved correctly. As Judge Thomberry said in dissent in this case, “the desire for certainty cannot alone justify the assumption of federal control over matters of purely local concern . . . .” 641 F. 2d, at 317. Consequently the Court’s premise that there is a need for uniform traffic rules fails to support its conclusion that federal jurisdiction must be extended to cover the type of activity that typically involves small pleasure craft.
In an effort to rescue its logic, the Court refers to the “potential disruptive impact of a collision between boats on navigable waters . . . .” Ante, at 675. Yet this reasoning is *683countered by Executive Jet — a decision that the Court acknowledges to be a key authority for this case. For if “potential disruptive impact” on traffic in navigable waters provides a sufficient connection with “traditional maritime activity,” then the crash of an airplane “in the navigable waters of Lake Erie,” 409 U. S., at 250, necessarily would support admiralty jurisdiction. The holding of Executive Jet is precisely to the contrary. The Court’s reasoning in essence resurrects the locality rule that Executive Jet rejected, for any accident “located” on navigable waters has a “potential disruptive impact” on traffic there.7
*684Oral argument in this case revealed the degree to which the Court’s decision displaces state authority. The Court posed a hypothetical in which children, for their own amusement, used rowboats to net crawfish from a stream. Two of the boats collide and sink near the water’s edge, forcing the children to wade ashore. Counsel for respondents replied that this accident would fall within the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts, provided that the waterway was navigable. Tr. of Oral Arg. 24. Today the Court agrees.
For me, however, this example illustrates the substantial — and purposeless — expansion of federal authority and federal-court jurisdiction accomplished by the Court’s holding. In this respect I agree with Chief Judge Haynsworth:
“The admiralty jurisdiction in England and in this country was bom of a felt need to protect the domestic shipping industry in its competition with foreign shipping, and to provide a uniform body of law for the governance of domestic and foreign shipping, engaged in the movement of commercial vessels from state to state and to and from foreign states. The operation of small pleasure craft on inland waters which happen to be navigable has no more apparent relationship to that kind of concern than the operation of the same kind of craft on artificial inland lakes which are not navigable waters.” Crosson v. Vance, 484 F. 2d 840 (CA4 1973).
*685In the rowboat example, as in the case at bar, the Federal Government has little or no genuine interest in the resolution of a garden variety tort case. “Only the burdening of the federal courts and the frustration of the purposes of state tort law would be thereby served.” Adams v. Montana Power Co., 528 F. 2d 437, 440-441 (CA9 1975).8
The Court’s opinion largely ignores the fact that expansions of federal admiralty jurisdiction are accompanied by application of substantive — and pre-empting — federal admiralty law. Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, 214-218 (1917); see Kossick v. United Fruit Co., 365 U. S. 731, 738-742 (1961).9 “The chief objection to application of admiralty law to pleasure boating is that it implicitly prohibits the exercise of state legislative power in an area in which local legislatures have generally been thought competent and in which Congress cannot be expected either to be interested or to be responsive to local needs.” Stolz, 51 Calif. L. Rev., at 664. For me, this federalism concern is the dominating issue in the case. I agree that “the law of pleasure boating will develop faster and more rationally if the creative capacities of the state courts and legislatures are freed of an imaginery [sic] federal concern with anything that floats on navigable waters.” Id., at 719.
Federal courts should not displace state responsibility and choke the federal judicial docket on the basis of federal con-*686cems that in truth are only “imaginary.” In accord with the teaching of Executive Jet, I would not extend federal admiralty jurisdiction beyond its traditional roots and reason for existence. I dissent from the Court’s decision to sever a historic doctrine from its historic justification.

 The doctrine of general average refers to rules for dividing the loss suffered when cargo must be thrown overboard in order to lighten a ship. See generally G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty 244-271 (2d ed. 1975).

 “Maritime courts, differing somewhat in name and somewhat in jurisdiction, have been established in all civilized nations at various periods in their history. The dates of their establishment may be said, because of the circumstances which brought them into being, to afford a very fair test of the advancement in civilization of their respective nations.
“In every case their establishment has been due to the same cause, the necessities of commerce.” T. Etting, The Admiralty Jurisdiction in America 7-8 (1879) (emphasis added).

 See also Black, Admiralty Jurisdiction: Critique and Suggestions, 50 Colum. L. Rev. 259, 280 (1950) (“The main thing is that if the court of admiralty is to exist at all, it should exist because the business of river, lake, and ocean shipping calls for supervision by a tribunal enjoying a particular expertness in regard to the more complicated concerns of that business”) (emphasis added); Swaim, Yes, Virginia, There is an Admiralty: The Rodrigue Case, 16 Loyola L. Rev. 43, 44 (1970) (“Maritime commerce— and nothing more — is the raison d’etre for the courts and rules of admiralty”); Bridwell & Whitten, Admiralty Jurisdiction: The Outlook for the Doctrine of Executive Jet, 1974 Duke L. J. 757, 793; Comment, 12 Cal. Western L. Rev. 535, 558, n. 133 (1976) (“The historical justification for admiralty law and courts is commercial. Its law was designed to meet commercial needs and practice”); Note, 34 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 121, 139-MO (1977) (“Those pleasure craft torts occurring on commercially navigable waters must be considered in light of the historical design of admiralty jurisdiction to determine whether the exercise of jurisdiction furthers the commercial interests which admiralty courts were created to serve”).

 At the beginning of the 19th century, “the commerce of the country was almost entirely limited to the foreign and coasting trade. The only roads which existed led from the woods to the principal towns on navigable *681waters. There was but one connected route from North to South at the commencement of the Revolution, and this was true also when the Constitution was framed. Even in 1796 the only roads with which the States were much concerned were those which led to navigable waters; the care of ‘cross roads,’ as the roads leading from State to State were called by one who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention, the States were unwilling to assume. ‘Fifty miles back from the waters of the Atlantic the country was an unbroken jungle.’ In the vigorous phrase used by Henry Clay, ‘the country had scarcely any interior.’ Turnpike roads did not come into general use until the nineteenth century.” E. Prentice, The Federal Power over Carriers and Corporations 59-60 (1907) (footnotes omitted).

 For this reason, the jurisdictional issue in this case is relatively new and, until today, has not been addressed by this Court. The Court’s contrary suggestion, ante, at 672, relies on irrelevant dicta from decisions of the last century that do not involve pleasure craft. E. g., The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 36 (1866) (holding admiralty jurisdiction does not include adjudication of a loss of packing-houses on a wharf that arose from fire on an adjacent merchant ship at anchor). The Court also cites cases apparently involving pleasure boats in which the jurisdictional question was not at issue. See Levinson v. Deupree, 345 U. S. 648, 651 (1953); Coryell v. Phipps, 317 U. S. 406 (1943); Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383 (1941). “[Wjhen questions of jurisdiction have been passed on in prior decisions sub silentio, this Court has never considered itself bound when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us.” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U. S. 528, 535, 3n. 5 (1974).
The jurisdictional issue has both a constitutional and a statutory element, since both Art. Ill and 28 U. S. C. § 1333 must support the exercise of jurisdiction in this case. The Court necessarily must find that both provisions are satisfied. Because construction of the statute is sufficient to support the result I would reach, I intimate no views on the constitutional extent of Art. Ill admiralty jurisdiction.

 There were 14.3 million pleasure boats in the United States in 1980. See U. S. Dept, of Transportation, U. S. Coast Guard, Boating Statistics 1980, p. 8 (1981).

 If a "potential disruptive effect” on interstate traffic in fact implicated a federal interest strong enough to support federal jurisdiction, then federal courts also should hear cases in which accidents disrupt similar land traffic. Cf. “71 Feared Dead as Plane Hits Bridge, Smashes Cars, Plunges Into Potomac,” Washington Post, Jan. 14, 1982, p. Al, col. 1.
According to the Court, the interest in expanding admiralty jurisdiction is supported by the difficulty of defining “pleasure boating.” Ante, at 675-676. In view of the myriad of definitional tasks performed regularly by state and federal courts, determining in a particular case whether the boating at issue is essentially for pleasure rather than commerce rarely would present a difficult problem for any court.
The Court also states that its action "is consistent with congressional activity in this area,” ante, at 676, citing a number of federal statutes. This point is of course wholly irrelevant to the constitutional extent of admiralty jurisdiction. Moreover, the only statute cited having any relation to jurisdictional matters is the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, 62 Stat. 496, 46 U. S. C. § 740. This Act provides:
“The admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States shall extend to and include all cases of damage or injury, to person or property, caused by a vessel on navigable water, notwithstanding that such damage or injury be done or consummated on land.
“In any such case suit may be brought in rem or in personam according to the principles of law and rules of practice obtaining in eases where the injury or damage has been done and consummated on navigable water” (emphasis added).
As its text makes plain, “[t]his Act was passed specifically to overrule cases, such as The Plymouth, supra, holding that admiralty does not provide a remedy for damage done to land structures by ships on navigable *684waters.” Executive Jet, 409 U. S., at 260. This purpose — and not any intent to expand or affect admiralty jurisdiction respecting pleasure boats— consistently appears in the Act’s legislative history. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 1593, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-6 (1948); H. R. Rep. No. 1523, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-6 (1948). See also Famum, Admiralty Jurisdiction and Amphibious Torts, 43 Yale L. J. 34, 44-45 (1933); Note, 63 Harv. L. Rev. 861, 868 (1950); Note, The Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction to Include Amphibious Torts, 37 Geo. L. J. 252 (1949); Note, Effects of Recent Legislation Upon the Admiralty Law, 17 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 353 (1949). And this Court has never sustained the constitutionality of this Act.
With respect, the Court’s statutory arguments must be regarded as makeweights.

 In construing the extent of 28 U. S. C. § 1333 admiralty jurisdiction, see n. 5, supra, I would prefer to leave to Congress an extension of federal authority of this magnitude. See n. 6, supra. Congress has the power to hold hearings and to weigh factors beyond the proper competency of a court.

 “It should be emphasized . . . that, in the law of admiralty, the term ‘jurisdiction’ denotes both the power of a court to hear and dispose of a certain controversy, and also the power to prescribe rules of decision to be applied by those courts considering the controversy. This is so because a court of admiralty sits solely to administer and apply the maritime law.” Swaim, supra n. 3, at 43 (footnotes and emphasis omitted).