Court Opinion

ID: 9432113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:34:14.561541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:31.858490
License: Public Domain

*368Justice Scalia,
with whom Justice White joins, concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the District Court has jurisdiction over this case under 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1),1 but I do not agree with the test the Court applies to conclude that this is so. Prior to Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U. S. 668 (1982), our clear case law extended admiralty jurisdiction to all torts involving vessels on navigable waters. Foremost recited as applicable to such torts the test of “significant relationship to traditional maritime activity,” which had been devised 10 years earlier for torts not involving vessels, see Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U. S. 249, 268 (1972). In my view that test does not add any new substantive requirement for vessel-related torts, but merely explains why all vessel-related torts (which ipso facto have such a “significant relationship”), but only some non-vessel-related torts, come within § 1333(1). The Court’s description of how one goes about determining whether a vessel-related tort meets the “significant relationship” test threatens to sow confusion in what had been, except at the margins, a settled area of the law.
In The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 36 (1866), we stated that “[ejvery species of tort, however occurring, and whether on board a vessel or not, if upon the high seas or navigable waters, is of admiralty cognizance.” Despite that passage, however, we held in Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, supra, that a tort action involving the crash of a jet aircraft in Lake Erie was not a “civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction” within the meaning of § 1333(1), even assuming the accident could be regarded as having “occurred” on navigable waters. We acknowledged the tradi*369tional rule as set forth in The Plymouth, but thought it significant that this “strict locality” test “was established and grew up in an era when it was difficult to conceive of a tor-tious occurrence on navigable waters other than in connection with a waterborne vessel.” 409 U. S., at 254. Whereas where vessels were involved the test tended properly to capture only those cases that had been the traditional business of the admiralty courts, in other contexts it had produced “perverse and casuistic borderline situations” in which “the invocation of admiralty jurisdiction seem[ed] almost absurd.” Id., at 255.
“If a swimmer at a public beach is injured by another swimmer or by a submerged object on the bottom, or if a piece of machinery sustains water damage from being dropped into a harbor by a land-based crane, a literal application of the locality test invokes not only the jurisdiction of the federal courts, but the full panoply of the substantive admiralty law as well. In cases such as these, some courts have adhered to a mechanical application of the strict locality rule and have sustained admiralty jurisdiction despite the lack of any connection between the wrong and traditional forms of maritime commerce and navigation.” Id., at 255-256.
We noted the general criticism of these cases, and pointed out the particular difficulties that had arisen from efforts to apply a “locality-alone” test to cases involving airplane crashes. Accordingly, we interpreted § 1333(1) to require, in the case of torts involving aircraft, not only that the Plymouth “locality” requirement be met, but also that “the wrong bear a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity,” Executive Jet, 409 U. S., at 268. We concluded that wrongs in connection with “flights by land-based aircraft between points within the continental United States,” id., at 274, did not meet this test.
Our decision in Executive Jet could be understood as resting on the quite simple ground that the tort did not involve a *370vessel, which had traditionally been thought required by the leading scholars in the field (notwithstanding the contrary dictum in The Plymouth). See E. Benedict, American Admiralty: Its Jurisdiction and Practice 173 (1850); G. Robinson, Handbook of Admiralty Law in the United States 42, 56, 88 (1939); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty 23-24 (2d ed. 1975). At the very least, the opinion conveyed the strong implication that a case involving a tort occurring “in connection with a waterborne vessel,” 409 U. S., at 254, would be deemed within the admiralty jurisdiction without further inquiry.
In Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson, supra, however, a case involving the collision of two pleasure boats on what we presumed to be navigable waters, we read Executive Jet for the broader proposition that a “significant relationship to traditional maritime activity” is required even for torts involving vessels. “Because the 'wrong’ here,” we said, “involves the negligent operation of a vessel on navigable waters, we believe that it has a sufficient nexus to traditional maritime activity to sustain admiralty jurisdiction in the District Court.” 457 U. S., at 674. We then proceeded to consider and reject the petitioner’s argument that outside the strictly commercial context “the need for uniform rules to govern conduct and liability disappears, and ‘federalism’ concerns dictate that these torts, be litigated in the state courts.” Ibid. To the contrary, we concluded, traditional admiralty concerns arise whenever the rules of navigation are implicated in a particular suit; a pleasure boat’s failure to follow the “uniform rules of conduct” that govern navigation on navigable waters could have a “potential disruptive impact” on maritime commerce just as surely as could a similar transgression by a commercial vessel. Id., at 675.
This discussion in Foremost has caused many lower courts to read the opinion as not only requiring a “significant relationship to traditional maritime activity” in all cases, i. e., even when a vessel is involved, but as requiring more specifi*371cally a particularized showing that the activity engaged in at the time of the alleged tort, if generally engaged in to some indeterminate extent, would have an actual effect on maritime commerce. See ante, at 365-366, n. 4 (collecting cases). In my view the reading that imputes the latter requirement is in error. We referred to “the potential disruptive impact of a collision” merely to rebut the petitioner’s argument that jurisdiction in that particular case would not further the general purposes of admiralty jurisdiction, since navigation by pleasure craft could not affect maritime commerce. It was enough in that case to answer that it could. But that response cannot reasonably be converted into a holding that in every case such an answer must be available — that no single instance of admiralty tort jurisdiction can exist where there is no potentially disruptive impact upon maritime commerce. No jurisdictional rule susceptible of ready and general application (and therefore no practical jurisdictional rule) can be so precise as to pass such an “overbreadth” test. One can afford, and perhaps cannot avoid, such case-by-case analysis for the few cases lying at the margins — when, for example, a plane falls into a lake — but it is folly to apply it to the generality of cases involving vessels.2 Today’s opinion, by engaging in an extended discussion of the degree to which fire (the instrumentality by which the damage in this particular case was caused) might disrupt commercial maritime activity, ante, at 362-364, reinforces this erroneous reading of Foremost.
What today’s opinion achieves for admiralty torts is reminiscent of the state of the law with respect to admiralty contracts. The general test, of course, must be whether the *372contract “touch[es] rights and duties appertaining to commerce and navigation,” 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 528 (1833). But instead of adopting, for contracts as we had (until today) for torts, a general rule that matters directly related to vessels were covered, we sought to draw the line more finely, case by case. That body of law has long been the object of criticism. The impossibility of drawing a principled line with respect to what, in addition to the fact that the contract relates to a vessel (which is by nature maritime) is needed in order to make the contract itself “maritime,” has brought ridicule upon the enterprise. As one scholar noted in 1924, “[t]he rules as to building and repairing vessels” — the former having been deemed nonmaritime, see People’s Ferry Co. of Boston v. Beers, 20 How. 393 (1858), and the latter maritime, see New Bedford Dry Dock Co. v. Purdy, 258 U. S. 96 (1922) — “and the results obtained therefrom, are so humorous that they deserve insertion in the laws of Gerolstein.” Hough, Admiralty Jurisdiction — Of Late Years, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 529, 534 (1924).3 There is perhaps more justification for this approach with respect to contracts, since in that field the “vessel” test would not be further limited by the “locality” test, as it is for torts. And I am not suggesting an abandonment of our approach in that other field, which by now has developed some rules, however irrational they may be.4 But there is no reason for expanding that approach to the tort field. I agree with, and apply to today’s opinion, the com*373mentary on an earlier judicial effort to do so: “The decision . . . seems . . . unfortunate as increasing complication and uncertainty in the law without, apparently, securing any practical gain to compensate for these disadvantages.” Note, Admiralty Jurisdiction Over Torts, 16 Harv. L. Rev. 210, 211 (1903), discussing Campbell v. H. Hackfield & Co., Ltd. (D. Haw., Oct 21, 1902), aff’d, 125 F. 696 (CA9 1903).
The sensible rule to be drawn from our cases, including Executive Jet and Foremost, is that a tort occurring on a vessel conducting normal maritime activities in navigable waters — that is, as a practical matter, every tort occurring on a vessel in navigable waters —falls within the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts. Foremost is very clear that the Executive Jet requirement that the wrong bear a “significant relationship to traditional maritime activity” applies across the board. But it is not conclusive as to what is required to establish such a relationship in the case of torts aboard vessels. The “wrong” in Foremost not only occurred on a vessel while it was engaged in traditional maritime activity (navigating), but also consisted precisely of conducting that activity in a tortious fashion — and the discussion emphasized the latter reality. But the holding of the case did not establish (and could not, since the facts did not present the question) that the former alone would not suffice. In the case of a vessel it traditionally had sufficed, and Foremost gave no indication that it was revolutionizing admiralty jurisdiction. It is noteworthy, moreover, that a later case, Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U. S. 207 (1986), described the Executive Jet “relationship” requirement not with reference to the cause of the injury, but with reference to the activity that was being engaged in when the injury occurred: “[AJdmiralty jurisdiction is appropriately invoked here under traditional principles because the accident occurred on the high seas and in furtherance of an activity [transporting workers to a drilling platform at sea] bearing a significant relationship to a traditional maritime activity.” 477 U. S., at 218-219. I would *374hold that a wrong which "occurs (1) in navigable waters, (2) on a vessel, and (3) while that vessel is engaged in a traditional maritime activity, bears a significant relationship to a traditional maritime activity. A vessel engages in traditional maritime activity for these purposes when it navigates, as in Foremost, when it lies in dock, as in the present case, and when it does anything else (e. g., dropping anchor) that vessels normally do in navigable waters. It would be more straightforward to jettison the “traditional maritime activity” analysis entirely, and to return (for vessels) to the simple locality test — which in that context, as we observed in Executive Jet, “worked quite satisfactorily,” 409 U. S., at 254. But that would eliminate what Foremost evidently sought to achieve — the elegance of a general test applicable to all torts. That test will produce sensible results if interpreted in the manner I have suggested.
This approach might leave within admiralty jurisdiction a few unusual actions such as defamation for “a libel published and circulated exclusively on shipboard,” Hough, supra, at 531,5 but there seems to me little difference in principle between bringing such an issue to the federal courts and bringing a slip-and-fall case. In any event, exotic actions appear more frequently in the theoretical musings of the “thoroughbred admiralty men,” ibid., than in the federal reports. The time expended on such rare freakish cases will be saved many *375times over by a clear jurisdictional rule that makes it unnecessary to decide, in hundreds of other cases, what particular activities aboard a vessel are “traditionally maritime” in nature, and what effect a particular tort will have on maritime commerce. The latter tests produce the sort of vague boundary that is to be avoided in the area of subject-matter jurisdiction wherever possible.
“The boundary between judicial power and nullity should ... , if possible, be a bright line, so that very little thought is required to enable judges to keep inside it. If, on the contrary, that boundary is vague and obscure, raising ‘questions of penumbra, of shadowy marches,’ two bad consequences will ensue similar to those on the traffic artery. Sometimes judges will be misled into trying lengthy cases and laboriously reaching decisions which do not bind anybody. At other times, judges will be so fearful of exceeding the uncertain limits of their powers that they will cautiously throw out disputes which they really have capacity to settle, and thus justice which badly needs to be done will be completely denied. Furthermore, an enormous amount of expensive legal ability will be used up on jurisdictional issues when it could be much better spent upon elucidating the merits of cases. In short, a trial judge ought to be able to tell easily and fast what belongs in his court and what has no business there.” Z. Chafee, The Thomas M. Cooley Lectures, Some Problems of Equity 312 (1950) (quoting Hanover Star Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 240 U. S. 403, 426 (1916) (Holmes, J., concurring)).
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment.

 Like the Court, because I conclude that the claims sought to be pursued against petitioner are maritime in nature, I do not reach the question whether, if jurisdiction did not exist on that basis, there would exist an independent basis for jurisdiction under the provisions of the Limited Liability Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 181 et seq. (1982 ed., Supp. V).

The Court describes this point as a “demand for tidy rules.” Ante, at 364, n. 2. I think it is rather an aversion to chaos — of the sort represented by the conflicting lower court decisions that the Court painstakingly describes, ante, at 365-366, n. 4, but makes no effort to alleviate. The Court’s statement that “the formula initially suggested by Executive Jet and more fully refined in Foremost and in this case provides appropriate and sufficient guidance,” ante, at 366, n. 4, is neither an accurate description of the past nor a plausible prediction for the future.

 Those music lovers are better than I who immediately recognize Gérol-stein as the fictitious European principality that is the setting of Offenbach’s once-popular operetta, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein.

 As Professor Black has put it, in the field of maritime contracts “[t]he attempt to project some ‘principle’ is best left alone. There is about as much ‘principle’ as there is in a list of irregular verbs. Fortunately, the contracts involved tend to fall into a not-too-great number of stereotypes, the proper placing of which can be learned, like irregular verbs, and errors in grammar thus avoided.” Black, Admiralty Jurisdiction: Critique and Suggestions, 50 Colum. L. Rev. 259, 264 (1950) (footnote omitted).

 It should not be thought that this approach will bring within admiralty jurisdiction torts occurring in navigable waters aboard any craft designed to carry people or cargo and to float. For a discussion of what constitutes a “vessel,” see generally G. Robinson, Handbook of Admiralty Law in the United States §8, pp. 42-50 (1939). The definition is not necessarily static. “The modern law of England and America rules out of the admiralty jurisdiction all vessels propelled by oars simply because they are the smallest class and beneath the dignity of the court of admiralty; but long within the historic period, and for at least seven hundred years, the triremes and quadriremes of the Greek and Roman navies were the largest and most powerful vessels afloat.” The Robert W. Parsons, 191 U. S. 17, 32-33 (1903).