ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME LAW

    The Admiralty and Maritime Law Guide includes over 1,500 annotated links to admiralty law resources on the Internet and a growing database of admiralty case digests, opinions and international maritime conventions.
 

Recent Additions

OceanPortal (Reference)
A UNESCO sponsored site that is a comprehensive directory of ocean related and maritime web sites, with an objective of helping scientists and other ocean experts locate relevant information on the Internet.
Hong Kong Maritime Law Association (Associations)
The Hong Kong Maritime Law Association was established in 1978. Its membership includes maritime lawyers, shipowners, P&I clubs and other persons and organisations who have an interest in maritime law. The site includes a detailed page containing links to the relevant maritime ordinances and cases.

Recent Circuit Court Admiralty Opinions

     The following are digests of recent United States Circuit Court Admiralty decisions, with links to the full opinions.  For past digests and opinions organized by date and subject, see the Circuit Court Admiralty Opinions page, where it is also possible to search the database of Circuit Court opinions.
Arthur v. Maersk, Inc.
Third Circuit Court of Appeals
January 13, 2006
Suits in Admiralty Act/Procedure: Where Plaintiff seaman amended his complaint to name the United States as defendant in his Jones Act action, although the claim was past the two year Suits in Admiralty Act statute of limitations, the amended claim nonetheless related back to the original complaint under Rule 15 and was not time barred because: (1) the claim in the amended pleading arose out of the “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” set forth in the original pleading; (2) within 120 days of institution of the action, the party to be brought in by amendment had received “such notice of the . . . action that the party will not be prejudiced in maintaining a defense on the merits”; and, (3) within 120 days of institution of the action, the party to be brought in by amendment knew or should have known that, “but for a mistake concerning the identity of the proper party,” the action would have been brought against that party.
Paparo v. M/V ETERNITY
First Circuit Court of Appeals
January 5, 2006
Longshore & Harbor Workers' Act/Procedure: The Court reversed the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the vessel and against the plaintiff longshoreman. The material facts were in dispute and the longshoreman was entitled to have a jury decide whether he had proven his case that the vessel was negligent, causing his injury. Plaintiff contended that the accident occurred when someone on board the ETERNITY prematurely used the ship's winch to haul a line he was holding back in, thus jerking the line out of his grip, causing him to fall. The facts surrounding this allegation were in dispute such that the District Court was in error to have accepted the theory of the vessel's expert witness that the winch would have pulled the line back too slowly and gradually to create the yanking motion that Plaintiff alleged.
Stevedoring Services of America v. Price
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
January 5, 2006
Longshore & Harbor Workers' Act: Although 33 U.S.C. § 928(a) authorizes district courts to award fees “in the successful prosecution” of a Longshore & Harbor Workers' claim, § 928(c) states that a court “may approve an attorney’s fee for the work done before it by the attorney for the claimant.” In view of this language, the district court lacked jurisdiction to award fees to claimant, because the work undertaken in successfully opposing his employer’s certiorari petition to the United States Supreme Court was not work done “before” the district court.

Recent Supreme Court Admiralty Opinions

Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Lines
June 6, 2005
Government Regulation: Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U. S. C. §12181 et seq., is applicable to foreign-flag cruise ships in U. S. waters, except insofar as that Title regulates a vessel’s internal affairs.
Stewart v. Dutra Construction
February 22, 2005
Jones Act: The Super Scoop, a floating platform with a bucket that removes silt from the ocean floor and dumps it onto adjacent scows, was a vessel for purposes of determining seaman status under the Jones Act since the definition of a "vessel" under sections 1 and 3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 "includes every description of watercraft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.” Section 3 requires only that a watercraft be “used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water,” not that it be used primarily for that purpose. The Super Scoop was not only “capable of being used” to transport equipment and passengers over water—it was so used. (See the underlying decisions in Stewart v. Dutra Construction (1st Cir. 2003) and Stewart v. Dutra Construction (1st Cir. 2000).)
     For links to earlier Supreme Court opinions and to search the database of opinions at this site, see the Supreme Court Admiralty Opinions page.

Pending Maritime Legislation & Regulation

     For a summary of pending maritime legislation and federal regulation, see the Transportation Institute's Pending Legislative Matters page and its report on Pending Regulatory Matters.
     The THOMAS site of the Library of Congress and the GPO Access site can be used to track legislation and regulation directly. THOMAS provides a browsable list of pending legislation introduced in the latest Congress and a list of the latest enacted Public Laws.  GPO Access provides the Federal Register online where it is possible to search the Proposed Rules section.