Federal Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction Part 4: Torts and Maritime Contracts or Services
Legal Sidebari
Federal Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction
Part 4: Torts and Maritime Contracts or
Services
September 20, 2022
This Legal Sidebar post is the fourth in a five-part series that discusses the bases and scope of U.S.
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Last year, a supply-chain bottleneck arose at the nation’s ports with
as many as 101 container ships waiting for berths at the nation’s Los Angeles and Long Beach ports in the
weeks before Christmas. These delays added to the time it took to deliver the goods to market and
increased the costs of transporting them. Claims for breaches of maritime contracts related to shipping
delays may fall within U.S. admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. As a result, Congress may be interested
in how this area of law operates. Additional information on this topic can be found at the Constitution
Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
In the modern era, most cases that fall within the courts’ admiralty jurisdiction involve one of two
subjects: torts committed on the high seas or other navigable waters; or maritime contracts or services,
which often relate to shipping on navigable waters. State courts may have concurrent jurisdiction over
maritime contract or tort claims that fall within federal admiralty jurisdiction when the defendant brings a
personal action against a defendant, but generally only federal admiralty courts may exercise jurisdiction
over cases in which the plaintiff seeks remedies against property in rem.
Congress has also granted federal district courts sitting in admiralty exclusive and original jurisdiction
over prize and seizure cases. Historically, prize cases have involved property (e.g., a ship) used by an
enemy, captured during wartime, and brought into the United States. The court’s jurisdiction extends to
proceedings in which a party seeks to acquire title legally to property taken as a prize. Cases involving the
seizure and forfeiture of vessels for violating federal law or another nation’s laws also fall within the
exclusive admiralty jurisdiction of federal courts. Vessels may be seized for engaging in activities such as
conducting prohibited trade or violating the revenue laws. Federal courts also have exclusive jurisdiction
over criminal cases against U.S. persons or vessels that arise within the United States’ special maritime
and territorial jurisdiction, which generally encompasses navigable waters within U.S. territory but
outside of any particular state’s jurisdiction.
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Torts Committed on Navigable Waters
Maritime torts include injuries to persons, damages to property arising out of collisions or other negligent
acts, product liability suits, and violent dispossession of property. Cases involving tort claims fall within
admiralty jurisdiction when two requirements are met: (1) the commission or consummation of the act
that gives rise to the claim occurs on navigable waters; and (2) the tort bears a significant relationship to
traditional maritime activity.
The first requirement for admiralty jurisdiction, which is based on the location of the incident, is satisfied
if the tort arises on the high seas or on other navigable waters of the United States. Prior to Congress’s
enactment of the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act of 1948, the Supreme Court had held that some
claims arising from injury or damage to property caused by a vessel on navigable waters did not fall
within admiralty jurisdiction when they were consummated on land (e.g., collision of a ship with a
bridge). In the Extension Act, Congress enlarged admiralty jurisdiction to encompass many of these
claims. The Court implicitly upheld that expansion of admiralty jurisdiction as within constitutional limits
when determining that the jurisdiction encompassed a tort that arose when a longshoreman slipped on
loose beans that spilled from negligently packed cargo on a dock during a vessel’s unloading.
In addition to Congress’s expansion of admiralty jurisdiction, the Court has maintained a few historical
exceptions to a strict situs test for maritime jurisdiction. However, even with such congressional and
judicial guidance, it may occasionally be difficult to distinguish maritime torts from land-based torts. For
example, the Court held that admiralty jurisdiction did not extend to an injury caused by defective pier-
based equipment that a dock worker suffered when unloading a vessel; thus, the worker had to resort to
state law for a remedy.
The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the second factor, which asks whether the tort bears a significant
relationship to a traditional maritime activity, may also raise complex interpretive questions. For example,
in Executive Jet Aviation v. City of Cleveland, a jet aircraft departing a Cleveland airport collided with
seagulls, crashed, and sank into the navigable state territorial waters of Lake Erie. The aircraft’s owners
sued a federal air traffic controller and others for negligence, seeking to invoke the federal courts’
admiralty jurisdiction. The Court held that, in addition to establishing that the commission or
consummation of the wrongful act took place on navigable waters, the plaintiffs had to show that the tort
bore a “significant relationship to traditional maritime activity.” Because a land-based aircraft’s flight
between two locations within the United States’ continental boundaries did not possess such a
relationship, the Court held that federal courts could not exercise admiralty jurisdiction. The Court’s
opinion in Executive Jet suggests, however, that Congress may have some flexibility to expand admiralty
jurisdiction to encompass claims like those at issue in the case by enacting laws that, for example, enlarge
the concept of a “traditional maritime activity.”
In other cases, the Supreme Court has determined that admiralty jurisdiction exists because a case
involves a traditional maritime activity. For example, the Court upheld the exercise of admiralty
jurisdiction over a collision between two private pleasure boats on navigable waters—even though
pleasure boating was not exclusively a commercial activity—because such a collision could impact
maritime commerce. For similar reasons, the Court held that a dredging company’s vessel was engaged in
a traditional maritime activity when it damaged an underwater freight tunnel while performing
maintenance work.
Maritime Contracts or Services
In contract cases, the subject matter of the contract, claim, or service controls whether a claim falls within
admiralty jurisdiction. The Court has held that contracts “purely maritime, and touching rights and duties
appertaining to commerce and navigation, are cognizable in the admiralty.” The Supreme Court has not
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established a clear test for when a transaction is a maritime contract. Instead, the Court has declared that
the “boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts” are “conceptual rather than spatial” and “have
always been difficult to draw.” The Court has examined “precedent and usage” when determining whether
a contract is essentially maritime.
Contract cases that fall within federal admiralty jurisdiction include actions for pilotage charges or
towage; actions for repair of a vessel already used in navigation; actions on bottomry or respondentia
bonds; agreements of consortship between the masters of two vessels engaged in wrecking; cases arising
under marine insurance policies; charter parties; compensation for temporary wharfage; contracts for
loading or unloading vessels; contracts for transportation of passengers or merchandise by ship, which
includes contracts of affreightment; contracts with materialmen for the repair or supply of a foreign ship;
salvage services; suits by seamen for wages; and surveys of damaged vessels.
Author Information
Brandon J. Murrill
Legislative Attorney
Disclaimer
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to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of
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