Sanders v. Placid Oil Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 85-4704,85-4704
• Citation: 861 F.2d 1374
• Parties: Richard SANDERS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PLACID OIL COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant. Summary Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1374

861 F.2d 1374

1989 A.M.C. 912

Richard SANDERS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PLACID OIL COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 85-4704

Summary Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Dec. 22, 1988.

John P. Napolitani, Jr., Laurence E. Best, Abbott, Webb, Best & Meeks, New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellant.

James J. Brady, Gravel & Brady, Alexandria, La., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before CLARK, Chief Judge, JOHNSON and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, we consider whether Catahoula Lake, located in Louisiana, is a navigable water of the United States for purposes of federal admiralty jurisdiction. Because we find that Catahoula Lake is navigable as a matter of law, and that the district court did not err in limiting admissibility of evidence or granting summary judgment, we affirm.

I

On a gray January 1, 1983, Richard Sanders and Michael Wilder were cruising in a fifteen-foot outboard-motorboat, happily hunting ducks on Catahoula Lake in LaSalle Parish, Louisiana. They were contentedly boating on the Big Bend area of the lake when their boat suddenly struck a fourteen-inch submerged pipe that had been driven into the lake bottom by the appellant, Placid Oil Company (Placid). The pipe was unmarked, and its unwelcome presence could not have been discovered or anticipated. At impact, Sanders was catapulted into Catahoula's chilly waters, and the boat quickly sank. Wilder swam to get assistance, while Sanders held onto the pipe and just yelled to anyone and to no one in particular. After about an hour in the wintry water, the hoarse Sanders was retrieved from his solitary distress by a boat that had already rescued Wilder. Sanders' leg was badly swollen and eventually required surgery. After surgery, Sanders was left with a four-inch scar, a five-percent disability in the right knee, and residual discomfort which, we are told, has "retarded his exuberant lifestyle."

On July 20, 1983, Wilder filed a complaint against Placid that was consolidated in September with one filed by Sanders. The actions in federal court were based on admiralty jurisdiction. In April 1985, Placid moved for summary judgment, alleging that Catahoula Lake is not navigable and therefore federal admiralty jurisdiction was improper. On May 24, 1985, Sanders and Wilder moved for summary judgment on the issue of admiralty jurisdiction, claiming that Catahoula Lake is navigable. The district court found that admiralty jurisdiction existed. 611 F.Supp. 841. Wilder and Placid reached a settlement on the day of the trial, and, following trial, the judge found for Sanders, awarding him approximately $33,000 in damages. Placid filed a motion for a new trial or to alter the judgment, which the trial court substantially denied. Placid filed a timely notice of appeal.

II

Placid raises numerous issues on appeal. As most of these issues are without merit, we dispose of them summarily. ¹ Placid's final contention, which we discuss at length, is that the district court erred because Catahoula Lake is nonnavigable as a matter of law.

III

A.

Placid contends that the federal courts lack federal admiralty jurisdiction over this action because Catahoula Lake is nonnavigable as a matter of law. Federal admiralty jurisdiction exists giving a court jurisdiction over a dispute if the tort occurs on navigable waters and the tort bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity. Foremost Insurance Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668, 102 S.Ct. 2654, 73 L.Ed.2d 300 (1982). In the instant case, there is no doubt but that the tort bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity. The question, then, is whether the district court properly found that Catahoula Lake is a navigable water of the United States. Placid argues that access into Catahoula Lake is gained over a weir constructed on the Little River at Archie, Louisiana. Placid contends that navigable access into Catahoula Lake over the Little River weir is so infrequent that reasonable minds must conclude that the lake is nonnavigable. Daily stage level charts indicate, Placid notes, that for the three years preceding the date of the injury, navigable access was possible only six percent of the time in 1982, not at all in 1981 and thirteen percent in 1980. Placid, however, ignores the facts that navigable access was possible twenty-five percent of the time in 1978, fifty-eight percent in 1979, sixty-six percent in 1983, and fifty percent in 1984. Thus, within a broader time frame than the one offered by Placid, the waters were navigable for a significant portion of time.

B.

To the extent Placid is arguing that seasonal nonnavigability is sufficient to render waters nonnavigable as a matter of law, we reject this argument. As the district court noted, both the upper Mississippi River and Saint Lawrence Seaway are navigable waters that are impassable during winter months. Thus, the fact that during certain seasons the access to Catahoula Lake via the Little River weir is nonnavigable is not determinative of federal admiralty jurisdiction. See generally 1 E. Jhirad, A. Sann, B. Chase, M. Chynsky, Benedict on Admiralty, Sec. 143 (7th Ed.1985). Having rejected this reason advanced by Placid that the waters are nonnavigable, we are still left to determine whether the district court erred in finding Catahoula Lake a navigable water of the United States or whether the weir precludes navigability in interstate travel or commerce.

C.

The Supreme Court first enunciated the test for navigable waters when discussing rivers, and said:

Those rivers must be regarded as public navigable rivers in law which are navigable in fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are used, or are susceptible of being used, in their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water. And they constitute navigable waters of the United States within the meaning of the acts of Congress, in contradistinction from the navigable waters of the States, when they form in their ordinary condition by themselves, or by uniting with other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other States or foreign countries in which such commerce is conducted by water.

The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 557, 563, 19 L.Ed. 999 (1871). See also G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty Secs. 1-11. This test has subsequently been held to apply to all bodies of water, not just rivers, natural as well as artificial. Ex Parte Boyer, 109 U.S. 629, 632, 3 S.Ct. 434, 435, 27 L.Ed. 1056 (1884). In short, then, navigable waters of the United States are those waters capable, in fact, of navigation in interstate travel or commerce, and distinctions between natural and man-made bodies of water are immaterial. In order to determine whether the district court properly concluded that Catahoula Lake is navigable in fact, we must review the evidence upon which the district court relied.

D.

The evidence in the record supports the district court's finding that the Little River, which is formed by the meeting of the Dudgdemona River and Bayou Castor, flows in a southerly direction into the lowlands that become Catahoula Lake at high water. From Catahoula Lake the water is discharged through several tributaries and distributaries until the tributaries finally rejoin into one channel at Archie, Louisiana. In May 1972, engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a diversion canal over one of the distributaries that acts as a permanent dam structure, foreclosing navigation except during flood stages. In 1973, the Corps constructed a weir across the span of the Little River at Archie. Thus, the water level of...