Richards v. Blake Builders Supply Inc.
| Decision Date | 10 November 1975 |
| Docket Number | HARRIS--JOYNER,Nos. 74--2010,74--2302 and 74--2303,s. 74--2010 |
| Citation | 528 F.2d 745 |
| Parties | John A. RICHARDS, Appellee, v. BLAKE BUILDERS SUPPLY INC., and William C. Blake, Appellants. John B. KING, Jr., Ancillary Administrator of the Estate of John Thomas Turner, Deceased, and Raymond G. Turner, Sr., Administrator of the Estate of John Thomas Turner, Deceased, Appellants, v.COMPANY, a Foreign Corporation, and Thunderhawk, Ltd., Inc., a Foreign Corporation, Appellees. Arthur Thomas HAWKS and Marsha Kay Congleton Hawks, Appellants, v.CO., a North Carolina Corporation; and Thunderhawk, Ltd., Inc., a Foreign Corporation, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
John Richard Newton, Wilmington, N.C. (Rountree & Newton, Wilmington, N.C., on brief), for appellee in No. 74--2010.
Daniel Lee Brawley, Wilmington, N.C. (Lonnie B. Williams, Marshall, Williams, Gorham & Brawley and James L. Nelson, Wilmington, N.C., on brief), for appellants in No. 74--2010.
John B. King, Jr., Norfolk, Va. (Joseph A. Gawrys and Vandeventer, Black, Meredith & Martin, Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellants (Thorp & Etheridge, Rocky Mount, N.C., on brief for appellants in No. 74--2303), (Allsbrook, Benton, Knott, Allsbrook & Cranford, Roanoke Rapids, N.C., on brief for appellants in No. 74--2302).
Beverly L. Crump, Richmond, Va. (John E. McDonald Jr., and McDonald & Crump, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellee Thunderhawk, Ltd., Inc. in Nos. 74--2302 and 74--2303.
Henry H. McVey, III, Richmond, Va. (Guy W. Horsley, Jr., McGuire, Woods & Battle, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellee Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, and CRAVEN and WIDENER, Circuit Judges.
Harris-Joyner Co. in Nos. 74--2302 and 74--2303.
In Crosson v. Vance, 4th Cir., 484 F.2d 840, we observed that there was impressive argument for the elimination from admiralty jurisdiction of controversies involving only the operation of small pleasure craft. There we dealt with the claim of an injured water skier against the operator of the towing motorboat. We held that controversy to be not within the admiralty jurisdiction, but we specifically refrained from speculation about the effect of the Supreme Court's holding in Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 93 S.Ct. 493, 34 L.Ed.2d 454, on other controversies involving the operation of small pleasure craft. Now we are confronted with cases arising out of two separate incidents which compel us to address that question. We conclude that admiralty jurisdiction is present, though we think the jurisdiction should be limited to exclude such cases as these.
The King and Hawks cases arose out of the explosion of a motorboat while being operated on Lake Gaston, a man-made lake, partly in Virginia and partly in North Carolina, on the Roanoke River. The boat, eighteen feet long and powered by a 170 horsepower inboard-out-board gasoline engine, had been manufactured by Thunderhawk, Ltd. and had been sold to Raymond Turner by Harris-Joyner Company, a retail dealer.
On a summer's day, John Turner, son of Raymond, his wife and two friends, Arthur and Marsha Hawks, were using the boat for an outing on Lake Gaston in Virginia. Shortly after a stop for refueling, there was an explosion, causing the death of John Turner and injuries to Mr. and Mrs. Hawks. These actions were filed by the ancillary administrator for John Turner and by Mr. and Mrs. Hawks against the manufacturer and seller of the boat, alleging causes of action based upon negligence, breach of warranty and strict liability in tort on the part of the manufacturer and the vendor.
The district judge read our opinion in Crosson in light of Onley v. South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, 4th Cir., 488 F.2d 758 as indicating no intention to limit Crosson to its facts. He dismissed all of the actions for lack of admiralty jurisdiction.
On a Sunday morning in April, a group of friends left Southport, North Carolina at the mouth of the Cape Fear River to attend a fish fry on a bank of the river, apparently upstream from Wilmington. After the fish fry, they decided to go still farther upstream to the first lock and the dam. The plaintiff, John Richards, was one of the passengers in a twenty foot boat powered by two outboard motors which was owned by Blake Builders Supply, inc. and operated by William Blake. En route up the river from the fish fry, the boat suddenly swerved to port and crashed into the bank. John Richards was seriously injured. In his complaint, the plaintiff claimed negligence on the part of William Blake in the operation of the boat. He sought a large amount in damages. In its reply, Blake Builders Supply, Inc., the owner, sought a limitation of its liability to the value of the boat.
The district judge denied a motion to dismiss for want of admiralty jurisdiction.
Both of these occurrences were on navigable waters. Oceangoing vessels ply the Cape Fear River, at least as far as Wilmington. The record presently does not show the extent of commercial use of the river upstream from Wilmington, but the reference to the lock suggests there is some.
There is nothing to suggest that Lake Gaston, though navigable, supports any substantial commercial activity.
In each case the vessel involved was purely a pleasure craft and was being utilized for the pleasure and recreation of its occupants.
The admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts derived from the conviction of the members of the Constitutional Convention that there was a need for a uniform body of laws, in general harmony with the laws of other maritime nations, for the conduct of the shipping business. Thirteen separate bodies of law were thought quite unacceptable for the governance of international trade. Regulation of the shipping industry was close to the conduct of foreign affairs, and those engaged in the industry were thought to have a need of predictability for their rights and liabilities. 1 The admiralty jurisdiction was created to serve commercial shipping interests by providing a uniform body of law for the resolution of legal disputes arising among those engaged in it.
The great increase in the ownership and use of small pleasure craft is a modern phenomenon. Save for those in charter service, their owners and operators have no commercial interests to protect. Ships in foreign commerce or in the coastal trade move regularly from country to country or from state to state, but pleasure craft generally have a much narrower range. Those operated on lakes and waterways forming state boundaries may cross those boundaries with frequency, but many others will never be operated outside the state in which the owner resides. Their interstate contact, for the average pleasure craft, is not likely to be greater than that of the average privately owned automobile.
If there be a continuing need for a relatively uniform body of laws for the governance of the commercial shipping industry, there is no such apparent need for the regulation of the operation of private pleasure craft aside from the Rules of the Road, laws and regulations relating to lights and the provision and maintenance of lifesaving and safety equipment and similar matters. The Congress, by statute, and the Coast Guard, by regulation, can provide all of the uniform rules needed for the operation of small pleasure craft, but those can be interpreted and enforced by state courts as well as by federal judges.
Indeed, Professor Stolz views the operation of small pleasure craft as being so local in nature that a uniform body of laws is a positive detriment and that transfer of the jurisdiction to the states would be generally advantageous. He was particularly concerned with the inapplicability of state statutes and the inability of state legislatures and state courts to consider local needs in an area in which the Congress, with all of its other pressing concerns, may well be indifferent. He expected the great majority of cases arising out of the operation of such small craft to be brought in state court systems, under the saving to suitors clause, as probably they are, systems which are as capable of dealing with controversies arising out of a collision of two small motorboats as with controversies arising out of the collision of two automobiles on an interstate highway. He thought that state legislatures and state courts should be freed of the need of applying federal maritime law and that those controversies getting into federal courts by some means should be governed by state law.
As Professor Stolz, Professors Gilmore and Black recognize that the best reason for the admiralty jurisdiction is the need of a special court for the governance of the maritime industry and that controversies involving 'motorboat accidents on lakes substantially landlocked' have no business in that court. 2
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