Belk v. Entergy La.
| Decision Date | 17 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 22-1443 |
| Parties | BAILEY BELK v. ENTERGY LOUISIANA, LLC |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
ORDER AND REASONS
The following motion is before the Court: Motion to Dismiss (Rec. Doc. 6) filed by Defendant Entergy Louisiana LLC (“Entergy”). Plaintiff opposes the motion. The motion, submitted for consideration on August 17 2022, is before the Court on the briefs without oral argument.
The Plaintiff filed this action to recover for alleged injuries sustained from a boating accident near the Tangipahoa River in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The boat, a homemade flat-bottomed vessel with a 40-hp surface driven engine, crashed into a partially submerged steel I-beam that was owned and operated by Entergy. Entergy's I-beam was located underneath a strip of power lines on a flooded tract of land adjacent to the Tangipahoa River. The vessel struck the I-beam at a high rate of speed (approximately 3040 miles per hour), ejecting Plaintiff and allegedly causing his injuries. The Plaintiff alleges that the Defendant was negligent in placing the I-Beam in the middle of a navigable waterway. The Plaintiff and two other passengers on the vessel were fishing in the Tangipahoa River when they decided to explore the area underneath the power lines operated by Entergy. The Plaintiff alleges that Entergy failed to produce any signage warning of the partially submerged I-beam, and there was nothing blocking the crash site from the river itself. The crash site was described by many witnesses as having an approximate depth of two feet with exposed grass blades topping the water line. The crash site, when flooded and explorable for ingress and egress by water vessel, was described by witnesses as merely a hundred yards from the mouth of the Tangipahoa River.
Entergy moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the claim has prescribed according to Louisiana Law before the Defendant was properly served, and that the Plaintiff failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted because Entergy is immune under the Recreational Use Immunity Statute. Plaintiffs filed their reply in opposition on September 28, 2022, arguing that the crash site was a navigable waterway, therefore this Court has jurisdiction. At the heart of two of the three grounds for dismissal is the classification of the water in which the collision occurred.
The Defendant moved for dismissal on the grounds that this Court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the claims the Plaintiff has alleged in this accident. The Defendant argues the location where the boating accident occurred was not a navigable body of water according to the rules of admiralty law, therefore 28 U.S.C. § 1333 does not apply and this claim should be dismissed. The Court finds that this argument of the Defendant's motion takes priority over the remaining two arguments because the lack of subject matter jurisdiction would be dispositive of the entire lawsuit.
Federal Courts are Courts of limited jurisdiction. In re FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Prod. Liab. Litig., 668 F.3d 281 286 (5th Cir. 2012). Unless conferred by statute, Federal Courts lack the jurisdiction necessary to adjudicate claims. Id. A motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is analyzed under a standard that seeks to determine whether a complaint contains sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1). Signal Mut Indem. Assn Ltd. v. Asbestos Corp., Ltd., 373 F.Supp.3d 679 (M.D. La. 2017). There is a presumption against subject matter jurisdiction that must be rebutted by the party bringing an action to federal court.” Roby v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 464 F.Supp.2d 572, 575 (E.D.La.2006). It is the plaintiff's burden to establish that subject matter jurisdiction exists. See Paterson v. Weinberger, 644 F.2d 521, 523 (5th Cir.1981). For this Court to have subject matter jurisdiction, it must find that admiralty law applies.
To establish admiralty jurisdiction and the proper subject matter jurisdiction in this Court, the Court is tasked with making a factual and legal determination of classifying the crash site. For a body of water to be deemed navigable, the Plaintiff must prove (a) the type of incident involved has the potential to disrupt maritime commerce and (b) the general activity involved bears a substantial relationship to a traditional maritime activity. Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U.S. 358, 110 S.Ct. 2892, 111 L.Ed.2d 292 (1990). There is no requirement that a body of water sustain actual commerce in order to meet the test of navigability. United States v. Diamond, 5 Cir. 1975, 512 F.2d 157, 160, cert. den. 1975, 423 U.S. 928, 96 S.Ct. 275, 46 L.Ed.2d 255. Weiszmann v. Dist. Eng'r, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 526 F.2d 1302, 1305 (5th Cir. 1976). Generally, this Court has been reluctant to describe inland marshes as navigable waters. Strother v. Bren Lynn Corp., 671 F.Supp. 1118, 1119 (W.D. La. June 16, 1987); see also Duplantis v. Petroleum Helicopters, Inc., 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12855, at *4 (E.D. La. Sept. 10, 1993) (inland marsh ranging three to five feet in depth, but containing vegetation that would make navigation “difficult” was not navigable); Dardar v. LaFourche Realty Co., 55 F.3d 1082, 1085 (5th Cir. 1995) ( to ascribe navigable water status to several shallow bayous clogged with vegetation and terminating in marsh); In re Destiny Drilling (USA), Inc., 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 40609, (5th Cir. 1999) () Frickey v. Shell Pipeline Co., L.P., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156919 (E.D. La. Nov. 14, 2016) (shallow drainage canal strewn with rocks and debris was not a navigable waterway). However, this does not explicitly exclude marshes or otherwise low-laying bodies of water from becoming navigable. According to Louisiana law, a body of water does not have to be navigable perpetually to be navigable in a particular case. Dunaway v. Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Comm'n, 2008-1494 (La.App. 1 Cir. 2/13/09), 6 So.3d 228. Further, for purposes of determining if a waterway is navigable, the distinction between natural and man-made bodies of water is immaterial. Sanders v. Placid Oil Co., 861 F.2d 1374, 1377 (5th Cir.1988).
According to the Plaintiff's Complaint and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (“LDWF”) Boating Incident Report, the Plaintiff's boat struck a steel I-beam adjacent to an Entergy power pole referred to as “STR-69”. (Rec. Doc. 1 & Rec. Doc. 6-1). The power pole and I-beam were located on an area of land just adjacent to the Tangipahoa River. The tract of land is incapable of private ownership and was under the care and custody of Entergy through a predial servitude granted to Entergy by the state of Louisiana. This servitude canal was described by the LDWF Report as having thick vegetation and a depth of nearly two feet of water, however the center of the canal has a clear path that is devoid of all vegetation. The Tangipahoa River serves as the only means of ingress and egress for the canal, and the canal can be traversed at a high rate of speed coming directly from the river. (Rec. Doc. 12-1). Further, the area of the canal was not landlocked. Id. The Plaintiff decided to traverse the canal after fishing on the Tangipahoa River for a couple of hours. After making his way past the power lines, he turned back to return to the Tangipahoa River when the Plaintiff's boat made contact with the submerged I-beam.
The Court finds that the area of the crash site was a functional tributary of the Tangipahoa River. The canal had no signage indicating or describing the use of the property and if there were any known or unknown hazards. This is relevant to the Court's analysis because the entrance to the canal seems to have connected to the heart of the Tangipahoa River to the point where the Plaintiff and his associates could traverse the canal without any special maneuvering or with little notice to the dangers that laid therein. Further, the existence of the path down the center of the canal leads the Court to believe that the type of...
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