Seasonal Navigability Presents Question of Fact for Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction

Seasonal Navigability Presents Question of Fact for Federal Admiralty Jurisdiction

By: Sarah Thompson

Edited by: Molly MacKenzie

Boudreaux v. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 2014 WL 4219446, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118333 (W.D. La., Aug. 22, 2014).

In March of 2009, Plaintiff Larry Boudreaux was piloting a skiff while conducting commercial crawfishing in the Atchafalaya Basin when a vessel owned and operated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (“LDWF”) approached him. The vessel approached so swiftly that it struck the Plaintiff’s boat, causing him to fall overboard and sustain injuries. Plaintiff initially asserted personal injury claims  invoking the admiralty jurisdiction of federal court and under general maritime law, as well as filing claims under Louisiana Civil Code art. 2315. The only claim that survived for review by the district court was Plaintiff’s negligence claim under general maritime law. The Defendant, however, maintained that the court lacked admiralty jurisdiction because the waterway was not within the “navigable waters of the United States,” and thus moved to dismiss.The relevant law can be found both at 28 U.S.C. § 1333 and in case precedent, and it dictates that "[f]ederal admiralty jurisdiction exists giving a court jurisdiction over a dispute if the tort occurs on navigable waters and the tort bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity." The Defendant’s exclusive argument was that the incident at issue did not occur on navigable waters and thus the court lacked jurisdiction.The district court, in defining “navigable waters” for the purposes of admiralty jurisdiction, applied the test from The Daniel Ball: “navigable waters of the United States are those waters capable, in fact, of navigation in interstate travel or commerce, and distinctions between natural and manmade bodies of water are immaterial." The district court held that even though the seasonal navigability of a waterway was a secondary, if not an immaterial, concern when making a navigable in fact determination, this factor need not be considered as the Plaintiff had submitted evidence showing there were genuine disputes as to whether 1) the area in question is navigable for a significant portion of time each year, and 2) that portion of time the area in question is navigable coincides with the commercial crawfishing season.The Defendants next attempted to claim that the waterway in question was not dredged until sometime between 1955 and 1959, long after Louisiana’s admittance to the Union in 1812, and thus was not naturally navigable. The district court found this argument unpersuasive and looked to the actual use of the water as a highway for commerce, ultimately finding that “based upon historical river stage data and historical actual use of the area ranging back to 1985,…the waters at issue are susceptible of commercial use by commercial skiffs for on the average, a minimum of 4 to 5 months out of any given year - those 4 to 5 months coinciding with commercial crawfishing season.”The Defendants challenged the navigability of the waterway once more, by claiming that logs and lilies found therein presented a significant obstruction to navigation. The district court, however, quickly dismissed this argument, noting that the Defendants’ own boat on the date of the accident was able to navigate to the site of the accident.Finally, the Defendants unsuccessfully attempted to make an alternative argument: “the tort claim asserted by Plaintiff in this case (personal injury resulting from an alleged collision) is of a ‘garden variety,’ with no compelling federal interest whatsoever and thus, the ‘maritime but local’ doctrine should apply.” The district court was not persuaded and found that the supporting case law presented by the Defendants was inapplicable. The court additionally found that policy reasons would dictate the application of admiralty law in this case: “[t]here is a wealth of admiralty law governing collisions between vessels, and there is a need for uniformity with regard to the rules governing navigation. Where there is ‘a perceived need for uniformity of maritime law,’ application of the ‘maritime but local’ doctrine is inappropriate.”Given that a genuine issue of fact as to the navigability of the waterway had been presented, under both the seasonal and navigable in fact standards, and because there were established applications of admiralty law to vessel collisions, the Defendants’ motion for summary judgment was denied.