American Waterways Operators, Inc. v. Askew

• Decision Date: 10 December 1971
• Docket Number: No. 71-156-Civ.-J.,71-156-Civ.-J.
• Parties: The AMERICAN WATERWAYS OPERATORS, INC., etc., et al., Plaintiffs, and Suwannee Steamship Company, etc., et al., Intervening Plaintiffs, v. Reubin O'D. ASKEW, as Governor of the State of Florida, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

335 F. Supp. 1241

The AMERICAN WATERWAYS OPERATORS, INC., etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Suwannee Steamship Company, etc., et al., Intervening Plaintiffs, v. Reubin O'D. ASKEW, as Governor of the State of Florida, et al., Defendants.

No. 71-156-Civ.-J.

United States District Court, M. D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

December 10, 1971.

Healy & Baillie, Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens, New York City, Fowler, White, Gillen, Humkey, Kinney & Boggs, Tampa, Fla., Kurz, Toole, Taylor, Moseley & Gabel, Rogers, Towers, Bailey, Jones & Gay, Jacksonville, Fla., for plaintiffs.

Daniel S. Dearing, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants.

Before RONEY, Circuit Judge, and SCOTT and TJOFLAT, District Judges.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND FINAL JUDGMENT

TJOFLAT, District Judge:

During the 1970 session the Florida Legislature passed the "Oil Spill Prevention and Pollution Control Act"¹ (hereinafter called the "Florida Act") in an attempt to prevent pollution by the shipping industry of waters within the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Florida. The Act imposes unlimited liability without fault upon virtually any vessel which discharges oil or any other pollutant while destined for or leaving any Florida port.² Onshore and offshore terminal facilities are subject to the same liability.³ The Act requires every owner or operator of a vessel using a Florida port or a terminal facility to pay whatever cleanup costs or damages may result from the discharge of pollutants⁴ and to maintain satisfactory evidence of financial responsibility to satisfy such liability.⁵ The Department of Natural Resources is empowered to require any vessel transporting a pollutant in state waters to be equipped with specified containment gear and a crew trained in its use.⁶ Prior to entering a Florida port, every vessel is subject to inspection by the port manager to determine the presence of the required containment gear and the seaworthiness of the ship.⁷ He is required to notify all other ports in the state of any vessel refused entry to his port.⁸

Plaintiffs and intervenors include merchant shippers whose vessels use Florida ports in the course of transporting goods in foreign and interstate commerce; world shipping associations who insure three-fourths of the ocean-going tonnage against, among other things, liability for oil spillage; a substantial portion of the barge and towing industry operating along the Florida coast; and owners of oil terminal facilities located in Florida ports. They have challenged the validity of the Florida Act on several federal constitutional grounds. Plaintiffs' initial contention is that Florida has sought to legislate substantive maritime law which, under the United States Constitution, is exclusively within the federal domain. Secondly, they contend that the Act violates the Commerce Clause, since it seeks to regulate foreign and interstate commerce. Certain provisions of the Act are under piecemeal attack on Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection grounds. The resolution of the first of these contentions dictates the decision in this case, and the others will not be discussed.

The maritime law of the United States has evolved under Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution which extends the judicial power of the United States "to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction." In a territorial sense that jurisdiction covers all waters navigable in interstate or foreign commerce, including state waters.⁹ Maritime law governs virtually every facet of the shipping industry from the design and construction of vessels to the regulation of their day to day operations and the transactions in which they engage. It comprises traditional admiralty rules and concepts found initially in the European authorities. These rules and concepts have been augmented from time to time by the federal judiciary to accommodate needs distinctive to this nation. Further changes in the corpus of maritime law have been effected by a variety of congressional enactments and administrative regulations.¹⁰ One of these congressional enactments is the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970¹¹ (hereinafter called "W.Q.I.A.") which became law a few months prior to the effective date of the Florida Act. W.Q. I.A. provides plaintiffs with tangible evidence that the Florida Act is an unconstitutional intrusion into the federal maritime domain.

The W.Q.I.A. reinforces the national anti-water pollution policy. In this act Congress declared that there should be no discharge of oil into or upon the navigable waters and shorelines of the United States.¹² The owner or operator of a vessel or an onshore or offshore facility is subject to limited liability without fault for the costs expended by the government in cleaning up an oil Spill.¹³ Where the spillage results from willful negligence or misconduct, however, liability for such costs can be unlimited.¹⁴ Evidence of financial responsibility sufficient to cover its potential liability must be given by any vessel of 300 gross tons or more that uses the navigable waters of the United States.¹⁵ Additionally, the President is authorized to issue regulations requiring, among other things, that vessels maintain oil spill prevention equipment and be subject to boarding for inspection purposes at any time.¹⁶

In adopting W.Q.I.A. Congress anticipated that all hazardous substances, in addition to oil, capable of polluting navigable waters would be subject to similar legislative treatment.¹⁷ W.Q.I.A. required the President to promulgate regulations defining such hazardous substances and establishing methods and means for their removal.¹⁸ He was also required to report to Congress, by November 1, 1970, on the desirability of enacting legislation to establish liability for the cost of removing hazardous substances discharged from vessels and onshore and offshore facilities.¹⁹

That the Florida Act constitutes unlawful intrusion into the exclusive federal admiralty domain is apparent when one observes the extent to which that act would change substantive maritime law. The most obvious changes would be in the liability now imposed by W.Q. I.A. and maritime rules on shippers and the operators of onshore and offshore facilities.

While both W.Q.I.A. and the Florida Act subject vessels and onshore and offshore facilities to strict liability for cleanup costs, the latter imposes a far greater measure of responsibility. For example, W.Q.I.A. would excuse a shipper who demonstrates that the oil spill was caused by act of God, an act of war, or the act or omission of a third party.²⁰ The Florida Act recognizes none of these defenses to a claim by the state for cleanup costs. The state is entitled to judgment simply by pleading and proving "the fact of the prohibited discharge."²¹ Moreover, the amount of the recovery would be unlimited; whereas W.Q.I.A. would place a limit on exposure, as we have previously noted.²²

There is perhaps an even greater contrast between maritime law and the Florida Act in compensating state or private interests for property damage, as distinguished from cleanup costs. W.Q.I.A. creates responsibility for cleanup costs only and leaves undisturbed the remedies available under maritime law for private injury caused by oil spillage or other pollution. The federal courts have long considered oil pollution as a maritime tort for which damages may be awarded.²³ Compensation is recoverable for injury to property and allowances have even been made for consequential damages. In In re New Jersey Barging Corp.,²⁴ an oil spill case, the court approved the following language from the Commissioner's report:

In the light of the * * * authorities, it would seem to the Commissioner that he is authorized, and in fact required, to make award of compensation for such annoyance, inconvenience and discomfort suffered by particular claimants to the extent of and in an amount commensurate with the annoyance and discomfort proven.

The recovery of damages in such cases is predicated on proof of negligence or unseaworthiness. The owner of a seaworthy vessel would not be liable, for example, if he encountered an extraordinary peril which resulted in a non-deliberate and non-negligent pollution of the shoreline. Even if fault were established, the vessel owner's financial responsibility for property damage would be limited to the value of the vessel at the end of the voyage, plus the "freight then pending," unless the damage was caused with the owner's "privity or knowledge."²⁵

Under the Florida Act, however, liability without fault is the foundation for "damage incurred by the state and for damage resulting from injury to others," just as it is in the case of cleanup costs. By substituting absolute liability for proof of negligence or unseaworthiness as a condition to unlimited recovery, the Florida Act, if valid, would materially change the substantive maritime law governing the disposition of claims arising from the pollution of coastal waters.

It is well settled that state legislation is invalid where it is in contravention with general admiralty rules or congressional enactments in the maritime field. In the landmark Jensen case,²⁶ the Supreme Court, in holding that the New York State Workmen's Compensation Statute could not constitutionally be applied where an accidental death occurred on a vessel afloat in navigable waters within New York's boundaries, said:

And plainly, we think, no such legislation is valid if it contravenes the essential purpose expressed by act of Congress or works material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, or interferes with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations. This limitation, at the least, is essential to the effective operation of the fundamental purposes for which such law was incorporated into our national laws by the Constitution itself.²⁷

If New York can

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