A. Introduction

• Library: South Carolina Damages (SCBar) (2009 Ed.)

A. Introduction

1. scope of Chapter

This chapter is designed for the general practitioner not familiar with admiralty law. The chapter discusses only damages in admiralty for tortious injury to property. Closely related subjects such as maritime personal injuries,² cargo claims,³ general average,⁴salvage,⁵ or limitation-of-liability⁶ proceedings are beyond the scope of this chapter. Causation, amount, and the reasonableness of damages are not examined in this chapter. Common questions involving how much damage is attributable to a maritime tort and how much to a preexisting condition are not treated.⁷

The torts discussed in this chapter are maritime. The word maritime refers to the substantive nature of the claim. Admiralty jurisdiction is present when a two-pronged test is met: (1) the tort occurs on navigable waters and (2) the conduct involves "traditional maritime activity."⁸ In property damage claims involving pleasure boats, the substantive rules, remedies, and strategies may turn on whether admiralty jurisdiction exists. "Traditional maritime activity" in virtually every case means some action caused by a vessel in Navigable Waters of the United States or action which produces damage to such a vessel.⁹ A convenient definition of "vessel" is found in 1 U.S.C. § 2 (2000) and is broad enough to cover all manner of watercraft, including recreational vessels. Though the requirement of "traditional maritime activity" normally entails the involvement of a vessel, this requirement has been extended to cover aircraft that perform a transportation function over navigable waters that would have been performed by a vessel prior to the advent of aviation.¹⁰ The three parts of the Admiralty tort jurisdiction test are:

(1) The "locality" or place of occurrence of the tort must be on or over Navigable Waters of the United States,¹¹ and

(2) The activity of the defendant giving rise to the claim must have a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commercial activity,¹² and
(3) The subject matter of the lawsuit must involve "traditional maritime activities" (sometimes called the "maritime nexus" test).¹³

Stated another way, the resulting tort jurisdiction test is: That, where locality is satisfied, jurisdiction to adjudicate tort cases in admiralty may be asserted (i) in any case involving the commission of a tort by a maritime defendant (normally a vessel) or (ii) in the absence of (i), above, where a tort is committed against a maritime plaintiff (normally a vessel).¹⁴

Where a vessel is not involved, the cases have looked for a functional analog to a vessel, such as where an aircraft is performing a transportation function over water in situations where there is no all-land route between the termini of the transportation.¹⁵

The presence of a vessel of some kind, either as the proximately injured plaintiff or as the source of proximately caused harm to another party, is virtually always the sine qua non of the "traditional maritime activity" component of the admiralty subject matter jurisdiction test. The locality part of the admiralty tort jurisdiction test requires that the conduct causing the harm or the place where such conduct becomes operative and inflicts and injury be on or over Navigable Waters of the United States.

Controversies are typically between owners of vessels, between the owner of a vessel and the owner of a land-based structure, or between seamen and their employer or a third party. Many maritime damage concepts are familiar from "land" cases. in such instances, the treatment here is brief, the purpose being merely to illustrate the maritime rules.

Admiralty tortious damage cases come from both federal and state courts because the plaintiffs often have the choice of filing in state court, in federal court under diversity jurisdiction, or in federal court in admiralty. only a federal judge sitting without a jury on a maritime controversy sits "in admiralty." Because most maritime case law, including damages rules, was developed in the courts of admiralty, federal judicial opinions make up the bulk of the substantive maritime law of damages. Since their inception in 1790, the federal courts, particularly the district courts, have recognized and applied established legal principles that are found in a multi-national jurisprudence dealing with maritime matters.¹⁶

Actions for maritime property damage against product manufacturers are addressed only briefly in D.6.h.(2), infra. Products liability actions for economic losses based on...