Adams v. Montana Power Company

• Decision Date: 22 February 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 2115.
• Citation: 354 F. Supp. 1111
• Parties: Bertha K. ADAMS, as Administratrix of the Estate of George F. Adams, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. The MONTANA POWER COMPANY, a Montana corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Montana

354 F. Supp. 1111

Bertha K. ADAMS, as Administratrix of the Estate of George F. Adams, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. The MONTANA POWER COMPANY, a Montana corporation, Defendant.

Civ. No. 2115.

United States District Court, D. Montana, Helena Division.

February 22, 1973.

Charles A. Smith, Smith & Harper, and Robert T. Cummins, Helena, Mont., for plaintiff.

Gough, Booth, Shanahan & Johnson, Helena, Mont., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

RUSSELL E. SMITH, Chief Judge.

George F. Adams was drowned when a small boat in which he was riding capsized in the discharge from the Montana Power Company's Hauser dam in the Missouri River. Plaintiff urges that this action is within the admiralty jurisdiction of the court.

Congress¹ and the courts (Montana Power Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 316, 185 F.2d 491 (1950)) have declared the Missouri navigable, and I think it now beyond dispute that the river is navigable in the sense that the federal government has jurisdiction over it under the commerce clause (U.S.Const. art. I, § 8). The fact (judicially noted) is that Hauser dam and Holter dam are about 25 miles apart and that they completely obstruct the river. The commerce on this stretch of river is the commerce of any inland lake in Montana—small boats, fishermen, water skiers. The cargoes carried are fishing tackle and picnic baskets. The question is not whether there is federal jurisdiction over the Missouri as a navigable water but whether the law of admiralty should be held to govern all of the happenings on it.

Under the "locality rule," once rather generally accepted, if a tort occurred on what was a navigable water then admiralty jurisdiction automatically followed. When the Supreme Court refused to mechanically apply the locality rule to an aircraft crash on Lake Erie in Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 93 S.Ct. 493, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (Dec. 18, 1972), it diminished the binding force of the label "navigable water" and freed the courts to make a wider inquiry into the admiralty jurisdiction problem.

In Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. Cleveland, supra, the Court considered the origins and development of admiralty law:

. . . The law of admiralty has evolved over many centuries, designed and molded to handle problems of vessels relegated to ply the waterways of the world, beyond whose shores they cannot go. That law deals with navigational rules—rules that govern the manner and direction those vessels might rightly move upon the waters. When a collision occurs or a ship founders at sea, the law of admiralty looks to those rules to determine fault, liability, and all other questions that may arise from such a catastrophe. Through long experience, the law of the sea knows how to determine whether a particular ship is seaworthy, and it knows the nature of maintenance and cure. It is concerned with maritime liens, the general average, captures and prizes, limitation of liability, cargo damage, and claims for salvage.

It is clear that admiralty law developed out of the need of the commerce on the seas for a law which related to the needs of that commerce. At one time only waters affected by the ebb and flow of the tide were navigable for the purpose of admiralty jurisdiction. The Steam-Boat Thomas Jefferson, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 428, 6 L.Ed. 358 (1825); The Steam-Boat Orleans v. Phoebus, 36 U.S. (11 Pet.) 175, 9 L.Ed. 677 (1837). It is noteworthy that when the Supreme Court extended the admiralty jurisdiction to waters unaffected by the tide it did so because of the needs of the commerce on our inland waterways. Thus, in The Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 53 U.S. (12 How.) 443, 13 L.Ed. 1058 (1851), the court carefully explained that the rule confining the application of admiralty...