SAPNA TANDON and ROBERT DOOHAN, III, as owners and/or owners pro hac vice of a 2005 39’ Outer Limits motor vessel, Petitioners-Appellants, —v.— CAPTAIN‘S COVE MARINA OF BRIDGEPORT, INC., JILL WILLIAMS, KAYE ANTHONY WILLIAMS, BRUCE WILLIAMS, THE RESTAURANT AT CAPTAIN‘S COVE INC., AKA RESTAURANT AT CAPTAIN‘S COVE, and RYAN ULBRICK, Claimants-Appellees, FRANK GENNA, DONNA GENNA, MICHAEL HERMANN, and ROBERT BARBIERI, Third-Party Defendants–Appellees.
Docket No. 13-461
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
Decided: May 19, 2014
August Term, 2013 (Argued: January 13, 2014)
Appeal from a judgment entered on January 7, 2013, by the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Hall, J.) pursuant to a decision and order entered by that court on December 21, 2012, dismissing the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We hold that federal admiralty jurisdiction does not extend to tort claims arising from a physical altercation among recreational visitors on and around a permanent dock surrounded by navigable water, because such an altercation does not have a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce. Accordingly, the district court‘s judgment is AFFIRMED.
JAMES E. MERCANTE (Keith A. Brady, on the brief), Rubin Fiorella & Friedman LLP, New York, NY, for Petitioners-Appellants.
LAWRENCE B. BRENNAN (Andrea C. Sisca and Samuel I. Reich, on the brief), Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, Stamford, CT, for Claimant-Appellee Ryan Ulbrick.
** The Honorable Andrew L. Carter, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
This case calls upon us to determine whether federal admiralty jurisdiction extends to tort claims arising from a physical altercation among recreational visitors on and around a permanent dock surrounded by navigable water. We hold that federal admiralty jurisdiction does not reach the claims at issue here, because this type of incident does not have a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce.
Petitioners-Appellants Sapna Tandon and Robert Doohan, III, are the owners of the Up and Over, a thirty-nine-foot fiberglass powerboat designed for recreational purposes. On May 28, 2010, visitors on the Up and Over were involved in a fistfight on a floating dock operated by Claimant-Appellee Captain‘s Cove Marina of Bridgeport, Inc. (“Captain‘s Cove“). At least one person was seriously injured in the fight. Tandon and Doohan subsequently filed a petition for limitation of liability1 in the United States District Court for the
BACKGROUND
A. Factual Background
Captain‘s Cove operates a marina in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the waters of Black Rock Harbor and Cedar Creek, which open onto Long Island Sound. The marina facilities include a dockside restaurant, several docks extending from the dry land into the harbor, and a floating dock (the “South Dock“) accessible only by water. A water taxi runs from the South Dock to the restaurant and other facilities.
At about the same time, Third-Party Defendant–Appellee Frank Genna and two companions also made a social visit to Captain‘s Cove. They arrived in a boat owned by one of Genna‘s companions, moored at the South Dock, and then took a water taxi to the marina restaurant. Genna and his companions were not previously acquainted with Tandon, Doohan, or their companions.
Both parties left the restaurant at about the same time. As Tandon, Doohan, and their passengers were boarding the Up and Over, one of those passengers fell
At that point, the parties’ accounts diverge somewhat. According to an affidavit filed by Ulbrick, the water taxi headed slightly northeast, toward the north end of the South Dock, while the Up and Over headed southwest down the channel toward Long Island Sound. As the Up and Over was making its way down the channel, Tandon noticed that the passenger who fell while boarding the Up and Over was bleeding from a scalp wound. She therefore asked Doohan, who was piloting the boat, to pull over and moor so that she could examine the passenger‘s injuries. According to the state court complaint filed by Genna, on the other hand, the Up and Over followed in hot pursuit of the water taxi toward the South Dock. Meanwhile, its passengers yelled and screamed at Genna and his companions, and at one point threw a beer bottle at them.
The parties agree that both the Up and Over and the water taxi docked at the South Dock, where a fistfight broke out between Genna‘s party and the
B. Procedural Background
Genna and his wife Donna Genna (together, “the Gennas“) filed suit in Connecticut state court against Captain‘s Cove and several persons affiliated with it (together, “the Captain‘s Cove defendants“).3 They alleged that the Captain‘s Cove defendants were liable for Genna‘s injuries, and for Donna Genna‘s resulting loss of consortium, under theories of negligent supervision, negligence, and reckless dispensing of liquor, and also under the Connecticut
Tandon and Doohan proceeded to file a petition for limitation of liability in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, initiating the present case. That petition asked the district court to either exonerate Tandon and Doohan from liability for the incident at Captain‘s Cove, or else limit their liability to the value of the Up and Over (appraised at $285,000). In accordance with the normal rules governing limitation proceedings, the district court stayed
Ulbrick then moved to dismiss the petition under
DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
“When reviewing a district court‘s determination of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to [Rule] 12(b)(1), we review factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo.” Close v. New York, 125 F.3d 31, 35 (2d Cir. 1997). In resolving a motion to dismiss under
Under our Constitution, the federal judicial power extends “to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction.”
In this case, Tandon and Doohan invoked the district court‘s admiralty jurisdiction by filing a petition for exoneration from or limitation of liability. That petition is a form of action peculiar to the admiralty and maritime context. It seeks the protection of the Limitation of Liability Act, first enacted by Congress in 1851 “to encourage ship-building and to induce capitalists to invest money in this branch of industry.” Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc., 531 U.S. 438, 446 (2001) (quoting Norwich Co. v. Wright, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 104, 121 (1872)). Under the present version of this statute, “the liability of the owner of a vessel for any claim, debt, or liability [covered by the Act] shall not exceed the value of the vessel and
To take advantage of this statute, “[t]he owner of a vessel may bring a civil action in a district court of the United States for limitation of liability.”
Although the Limitation of Liability Act provides a federal cause of action for a vessel owner seeking exoneration or limitation, it “does not provide an independent foundation for federal admiralty jurisdiction.” MLC Fishing, 667 F.3d at 143. That is, the fact that a vessel owner may file a petition for limitation does not mean the district court necessarily has jurisdiction to hear it. Instead, the district court will only have admiralty jurisdiction to hear a petition for limitation if it already has admiralty jurisdiction over the underlying claims that the petition seeks to limit. See id. at 143–44. We therefore ask whether the underlying claims raise a “civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction” that the district court could hear under
1. Legal Standard
“The traditional test for admiralty tort jurisdiction asked only whether the tort occurred on navigable waters. If it did, admiralty jurisdiction followed; if it did not, admiralty jurisdiction did not exist.” Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527, 531–32 (1995). The location of the tort normally depended on where the plaintiff was harmed—or to use a more lawyerly phrase, where “the substance and consummation of the injury” took place. The Plymouth, 70 U.S. (3 Wall.) 20, 33 (1866). This could occasionally lead to odd results. For instance, the Supreme Court held on multiple occasions that when negligently piloted ships rammed structures on the land, the resulting claims were outside the law of admiralty, because the structures harmed were on the land and not in the water. See, e.g., Martin v. West, 222 U.S. 191, 195–97 (1911) (collision between a steamship and the pier of a drawbridge); Cleveland Terminal & Valley R.R. Co. v. Cleveland S.S. Co., 208 U.S. 316, 319–21 (1908) (collision involving multiple vessels and causing damage to a shore dock, bridge, protection piling, and pier); Johnson
These ship-to-shore collision cases were superseded in 1948 by the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, which extended admiralty jurisdiction to all “cases of injury or damage, to person or property, caused by a vessel on navigable waters, even though the injury or damage is done or consummated on land.”
The Supreme Court first turned away from the traditional location-based rule in Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249 (1972). Executive Jet involved an airplane that took off from a Cleveland, Ohio airport bound for
The Court declined to decide whether the alleged tort was consummated when the plane hit the birds (over land) or when it hit the water. Id. at 266–67. Instead, it held that the location of the tort alone was not enough to give rise to admiralty jurisdiction. At least in the aviation context, the Court declared, admiralty jurisdiction also required that the underlying incident bear a “significant relationship” to “traditional maritime activity involving navigation and commerce on navigable waters.” Id. at 272. The Court held that a flight between two airports in the continental United States had no such significant relationship to traditional maritime activity, and therefore found no admiralty jurisdiction over the case. Id. at 272–74.
In Foremost Insurance Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668 (1982), the Court clarified that the “significant relationship” or “connection” requirement announced in Executive Jet was a general rule of admiralty jurisdiction, not
The Court next considered the scope of admiralty tort jurisdiction in Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358 (1990). In that case, a vessel owner filed a petition for limitation of liability after a fire broke out on his pleasure yacht while it was docked at a marina on Lake Michigan. The fire destroyed the yacht and damaged several nearby vessels, but no commercial vessels were affected. Id. at 360, 363.
The Court applied a two-part test in Sisson to determine whether the case before it had a significant connection to maritime affairs. First, the Court looked to whether the underlying incident had a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce. It described the underlying incident as “a fire on a vessel docked at a marina on navigable waters,” id. at 363, and held that such a fire has a potentially disruptive effect, because it “can spread to nearby commercial vessels or make the marina inaccessible to such vessels,” id. at 362. The Court explained, moreover, that this potential effect does not depend on “the particular facts of the incident in this case,” but on “the general features of the type of incident involved.” Id. at 363. The jurisdictional inquiry therefore turned on whether fires at marinas would generally disrupt maritime commerce, rather than on whether the particular fire at issue actually disrupted maritime commerce.
Second, the Sisson Court looked to whether there was a “substantial relationship between the activity giving rise to the incident and traditional maritime activity.” Id. at 364. Again, the Court emphasized that the relevant
Finally, the Court restated and formalized the current test for admiralty tort jurisdiction in Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527 (1995). That case involved a tort claim arising from construction work in the Chicago River. A construction company had used a crane sitting on a barge in the river to drive wooden pilings into the riverbed; it thereby (allegedly) cracked a freight tunnel running under the river, causing water to pour down into the tunnel and flood buildings in downtown Chicago. The flood victims filed a number of tort actions in state court; in response, the construction company filed a petition for limitation of liability in federal district court, invoking the court‘s admiralty jurisdiction. Id. at 529–31.
[A] party seeking to invoke federal admiralty jurisdiction pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1333(1) over a tort claim must satisfy conditions both of location and of connection with maritime activity. A court applying the location test must determine whether the tort occurred on navigable water or whether injury suffered on land was caused by a vessel on navigable water. The connection test raises two issues. A court, first, must assess the general features of the type of incident involved to determine whether the incident has a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce. Second, a court must determine whether the general character of the activity giving rise to the incident shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.
Id. at 534 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
The Court then proceeded to apply that analysis to the facts before it. It held that the location test was met because the alleged injury, though occurring on land, was proximately caused by a vessel on navigable water; the location of the tort was therefore within the bounds of admiralty as defined by the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act. Id. at 534–37; see
In assessing whether this type of incident had a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce, the Court explained that the type of incident should be described “at an intermediate level of possible generality,” neither too general to distinguish different cases nor too specific to the unique facts of the particular case. Id. at 538-39. It thus characterized the type of incident at issue in Grubart as “damage by a vessel in navigable water to an underwater structure.” Id. at 539. The Court found this type of incident could easily have a disruptive effect on maritime commerce, by disrupting the course of the waterway itself or by restricting the use of the waterway during necessary repairs. Id.
In applying the second part of the connection test, the Court recognized that there was “inevitably some play in the joints in selecting the right level of generality” in describing the general character of the activity giving rise to the incident. Id. at 542. But that “inevitable imprecision,” it warned, “is not an excuse for whimsy.” Id. The Court therefore rejected the idea that the relevant activity could be described as simply “repair and maintenance” or “pile driving,” since
Instead, the Court described the activity giving rise to the incident as “repair or maintenance work on a navigable waterway performed from a vessel.” Id. at 540. It found that this activity did bear a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity, since barges and similar vessels have traditionally been used to engage in similar repair work. Id. (citing cases involving repair work carried out from barges). The Court clarified that although other non-maritime activities might have contributed to the ultimate injury—for instance, the city of Chicago‘s alleged failure to maintain and operate the tunnel system—the substantial relationship test requires only that “one of the arguably proximate causes of the incident originate[] in the maritime activity of a tortfeasor.” Id. at 541. Consequently, as the location test and both parts of the connection test were met, the Court held that there was federal admiralty jurisdiction over the petition for limitation of liability arising from the incident.
The test established in Grubart remains the current test for admiralty jurisdiction over claims sounding in tort. See MLC Fishing, 667 F.3d at 142; Vasquez, 582 F.3d at 298. To restate: First, we ask whether the alleged tort meets
2. Analysis
We begin our analysis with the location test, evaluating whether the underlying torts at issue in this case occurred on land or on navigable water. But the facts here present one of those “perverse and casuistic borderline situations,” Executive Jet, 409 U.S. at 255, that have always bedeviled the traditional location test. The fistfight at issue took place on and around a floating dock surrounded by navigable water, and so one might think the tort occurred on navigable water. That dock, however, was connected by pilings to the harbor floor, making it “technically land, through a connection at the bottom of the sea.” The Blackheath, 195 U.S. 361, 367 (1904). It also remained permanently situated in its existing
Like the Supreme Court in Executive Jet, we see no reason to resolve the difficult question of where the underlying tort (or torts) here occurred. Even assuming arguendo that the location test is met, admiralty jurisdiction cannot attach because the connection test is not met. In particular, we conclude that the
a. Potential Effect on Maritime Commerce
In assessing the potential effect of this type of incident on maritime commerce, we begin by describing the incident “at an intermediate level of possible generality.” Grubart, 513 U.S. at 538. Our description should be general enough to capture the possible effects of similar incidents on maritime commerce, but specific enough to exclude irrelevant cases. We then determine whether that type of incident is “likely to disrupt [maritime] commercial activity.” Id. (quoting Sisson, 497 U.S. at 363). In so doing, we look not to the particular facts of the case before us—i.e., whether maritime commerce was actually disrupted here—but to whether similar occurrences are likely to be disruptive. The overall purpose of the exercise is to determine “whether the incident could be seen within a class of incidents that pose[] more than a fanciful risk to commercial shipping.” Id. at 539.
We conclude that the incident at issue in this case is best described as a physical altercation among recreational visitors on and around a permanent dock surrounded by navigable water. This description accurately captures the nature of the event giving rise to this suit, and the type of risks that the incident could
We conclude that this type of incident does not realistically pose a threat to maritime commerce. First, a fistfight on and around a dock cannot immediately disrupt navigation. Unlike a sinking plane (as in Executive Jet), a collision between vessels (as in Foremost), or a collision between a vessel and an underwater structure (as in Grubart), it does not create any obstruction to the free passage of commercial ships along navigable waterways. Nor can it lead to a disruption in the course of the waterway itself. See Grubart, 513 U.S. at 539.
Second, a fistfight on a dock cannot immediately damage nearby commercial vessels. The fire considered in Sisson threatened the safety of all other boats nearby; a fistfight threatens only its participants. As the district court correctly pointed out, “[a] fight is unlikely to spread the entire length of a dock, as a fire would, and, therefore, there is little risk that a fight would make the marina inaccessible or impact other boats.” J.A. 130.
Third, the class of incidents we consider here includes only fights on permanent docks—that is, docks that are connected in a permanent fashion to the land underneath or beside navigable water, and that do not move relative to the shore (except perhaps by rising and falling with the tide). This type of incident does not pose the same risks to maritime commerce as a fistfight occurring on a vessel on navigable water. A fight on a vessel may distract the crew from their duties, endangering the safety of the vessel and risking collision with others on the same waterway. If a fight injures someone on a vessel that is at sea, moreover, that vessel may be forced to divert from its course to obtain medical care for the injured person. By contrast, a fistfight on a permanent dock does not endanger the safety of the dock itself or risk a collision between that dock and nearby vessels. And it obviously cannot require the dock to move or change course.
Fourth, the class of incidents we consider here involves only physical altercations among recreational visitors, not persons engaged in maritime employment. This type of incident therefore cannot have a potential effect on maritime commerce by injuring those who are employed in maritime commerce. Cf. Vasquez, 582 F.3d at 300 (holding there is “little question” that “the death of persons repairing and refitting a vessel” can potentially disrupt maritime commerce); Gruver v. Lesman Fisheries Inc., 489 F.3d 978, 982-83 (9th Cir. 2007) (finding a potential effect on maritime commerce from “an assault on a seaman by his former maritime employer aboard a vessel in navigable waters“); Coats v. Penrod Drilling Corp., 61 F.3d 1113, 1119 (5th Cir. 1995) (“Without a doubt, worker injuries, particularly to those involved in repair and maintenance, can have a disruptive impact on maritime commerce by stalling or delaying the primary activity of the vessel.“).7
We therefore conclude that the type of incident involved here—a physical altercation among recreational visitors on and around a permanent dock surrounded by navigable water—presents no realistic threat to maritime commerce.
b. Counterarguments
Tandon and Doohan raise several counterarguments, none of which we find persuasive. First, they claim that the “type of incident” involved should include the actions leading up to the fistfight—including their alleged negligence in piloting the Up and Over in hot pursuit of the water taxi. That argument confuses the first and second parts of the connection test. The first part of the connection test looks to the nature of the incident that immediately caused the underlying injury; the second part, by contrast, looks to the nature of the broader activity giving rise to that incident. To take a few concrete examples: the type of incident at issue in Executive Jet was an airplane crash in navigable water, while the nature of the activity giving rise to that incident was air travel generally. See Sisson, 497 U.S. at 363-64 (describing Executive Jet). The type of incident at issue in
Tandon and Doohan next emphasize that the fight took place not only on the dock itself, but also in the water beside the dock. We agree that in considering the type of incident involved, the location of the incident may be relevant. And we agree that on the facts found by the district court, it appears some harm was
But we are not convinced by the conclusion Tandon and Doohan seek to draw: that because the incident involved some harm suffered on navigable water, it necessarily had a potential effect on maritime commerce. Not all torts that happen on or over navigable water have the potential to disrupt commercial shipping. Otherwise, there would be no need for the potential effect test at all; we could simply apply the location test in its place. Cf. Foremost, 457 U.S. at 675 n.5 (noting that the substantial relationship test is necessary because “[n]ot every accident in navigable waters that might disrupt maritime commerce will support federal admiralty jurisdiction“).
Tandon and Doohan speculate that when a fight occurs partly in navigable water, the struggling bodies could themselves pose a navigational hazard. Because the class of incidents we are considering is limited to fights on and around permanent docks, however, we do not worry that the combatants might present an obstacle to commercial navigation in open sea lanes. Unlike the “collision between two pleasure boats in navigable waters” considered in
At worst, an incident of this sort might temporarily prevent commercial vessels from mooring at the permanent dock around which the fight occurred. Cf. Sisson, 497 U.S. at 362 (noting that a fire on a boat at a marina can “make the marina inaccessible to [commercial] vessels“). But the potential impact of such a temporary disruption is simply too meager to support jurisdiction. The fire considered in Sisson might have damaged a marina enough to close it for days or weeks, or even permanently; a fistfight presents no similar danger. At worst, it might prevent commercial ships from using part of a dock for a few hours. We do not think that this slight possibility of a temporary inconvenience is the “potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce” envisioned by the Supreme Court‘s test. Grubart, 513 U.S. at 538.
Alternatively, Tandon and Doohan suggest that a fight on a dock surrounded by navigable water may require emergency responders to come to the dock by boat and leave by boat, potentially snarling naval traffic in nearby waters. We recognize that other courts have found the potentially disruptive impact of a maritime emergency response enough to satisfy the first part of the connection test in some cases. See, e.g., In re Mission Bay Jet Sports, LLC, 570 F.3d 1124, 1129 (9th Cir. 2009); Ayers v. United States, 277 F.3d 821, 827-28 (6th Cir. 2002); Sinclair v. Soniform, Inc., 935 F.2d 599, 602 (3d Cir. 1991). Those cases, however, have generally dealt with incidents occurring either aboard a vessel or else in open water. See, e.g., Mission Bay, 570 F.3d at 1129 (considering “harm by a vessel in navigable waters to a passenger“); Ayers, 277 F.3d at 827 (considering “a drowning which occurred a short distance downstream from a lock on navigable waters“). Where such an incident takes place on a vessel or in open water far from the shore, the potential danger to commercial shipping posed by a maritime emergency response may be more significant. Cf. Roane v. Greenwich Swim Comm., 330 F. Supp. 2d 306, 315 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) (“[T]hose on board a boat . . . giving their full attention to the saving of the life of a swimmer in difficulty may well be
But the type of incident at issue in this case is a fight on and around a permanent dock, not a fight on a vessel or in open water. The risks to maritime commerce posed by a rescue operation at a dock are substantially lower than the risks to maritime commerce posed by a rescue operation at sea. Emergency responders may have to travel by boat to reach persons injured near a permanent dock, but they will never have to travel far. And once the emergency responders arrive at the scene, they can moor their vessel at the permanent dock, rather than having to focus simultaneously on navigating their vessel and rescuing the injured. An emergency response to an incident on and around a floating dock is consequently much less likely to “ensnarl maritime traffic,” Mission Bay, 570 F.3d at 1129, than an emergency response to an incident on a vessel or an incident in open water.8
Because the type of incident at issue in this case poses only “a fanciful risk to commercial shipping,” Grubart, 513 U.S. at 539, it is outside the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction extended by
c. Coda
In the eloquent words of Justice Stewart:
The law of admiralty has evolved over many centuries, designed and molded to handle problems of vessels relegated to ply the waterways of the world, beyond whose shores they cannot go. That law deals with navigational rules—rules that govern the manner and direction those vessels may rightly move upon the waters. . . . Through long experience, the law of the sea knows how to determine whether a particular ship is seaworthy, and it knows the nature of maintenance and cure. It is concerned with maritime liens, the general average, captures and prizes, limitation of liability, cargo damage, and claims for salvage.
Executive Jet, 409 U.S. at 269-70. As that description shows, the scope of admiralty law has little or nothing to do with the issues that are likely to appear in cases like this one. On the contrary, state courts have long dealt with similar fistfights under state tort law, without any need for interference from federal courts sitting
CONCLUSION
For the reasons above, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.