Tandon v. Captain's Cove Marina of Bridgeport, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 May 2014
• Docket Number: Docket No. 13–461.
• Citation: 752 F.3d 239
• Parties: Sapna TANDON and Robert Doohan, III, as owners and/or owners pro hac vice of a 2005 39' Outer Limits motor vessel, Petitioners–Appellants, v. CAPTAIN'S COVE MARINA OF BRIDGEPORT, INC., Jill Williams, Kaye Anthony Williams, Bruce Williams, The Restaurant at Captain's Cove Inc., aka Restaurant at Captain's Cove, and Ryan Ulbrick, Claimants–Appellees, Frank Genna, Donna Genna, Michael Hermann, and Robert Barbieri, Third–Party Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

752 F.3d 239

Sapna TANDON and Robert Doohan, III, as owners and/or owners pro hac vice of a 2005 39' Outer Limits motor vessel, Petitioners–Appellants,

v. CAPTAIN'S COVE MARINA OF BRIDGEPORT, INC., Jill Williams, Kaye Anthony Williams, Bruce Williams, The Restaurant at Captain's Cove Inc., aka Restaurant at Captain's Cove, and Ryan Ulbrick, Claimants–Appellees,Frank Genna, Donna Genna, Michael Hermann, and Robert Barbieri, Third–Party Defendants–Appellees.^*

Docket No. 13–461.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: Jan. 13, 2014.

Decided: May 19, 2014.

James E. Mercante (Keith A. Brady, on the brief), Rubin Fiorella & Friedman LLP, New York, N.Y., for Petitioners–Appellants.

Lawrence B. Brennan (Andrea C. Sisca and Samuel I. Reich, on the brief), Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, Stamford, CT, for Claimant–Appellee Ryan Ulbrick.

Before: KATZMANN, Chief Judge, LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge, and CARTER, District Judge.^**

KATZMANN, Chief Judge:

This case calls upon us to determine whether federal admiralty jurisdiction extends to tort claims arising from a physical altercation among recreational visitors on and around a permanent dock surrounded by navigable water. We hold that federal admiralty jurisdiction does not reach the claims at issue here, because this type of incident does not have a potentially disruptive effect on maritime commerce.

Petitioners–Appellants Sapna Tandon and Robert Doohan, III, are the owners of the Up and Over, a thirty-nine-foot fiberglass powerboat designed for recreational purposes. On May 28, 2010, visitors on the Up and Over were involved in a fistfight on a floating dock operated by Claimant–Appellee Captain's Cove Marina of Bridgeport, Inc. (“Captain's Cove”). At least one person was seriously injured in the fight. Tandon and Doohan subsequently filed a petition for limitation of liability ¹ in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Hall, J.), seeking to limit their tort liability for the incident. The district court dismissed their petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that this case falls outside the general grant of admiralty jurisdiction in 28 U.S.C. § 1333. We now affirm.

BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

Captain's Cove operates a marina in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on the waters of Black Rock Harbor and Cedar Creek, which open onto Long Island Sound. The marina facilities include a dockside restaurant, several docks extending from the dry land into the harbor, and a floating dock (the “South Dock”) accessible only by water. A water taxi runs from the South Dock to the restaurant and other facilities.

On May 28, 2010, Tandon and Doohan took several passengers ² on the Up and Over on a social trip to Captain's Cove. They docked the Up and Over by the marina restaurant, and proceeded inside for food and drinks. Claimant–Appellee Ryan Ulbrick, who had also been invited along, arrived at Captain's Cove by car and met the others there.

At about the same time, Third–Party Defendant–Appellee Frank Genna and two companions also made a social visit to Captain's Cove. They arrived in a boat owned by one of Genna's companions, moored at the South Dock, and then took a water taxi to the marina restaurant. Genna and his companions were not previously acquainted with Tandon, Doohan, or their companions.

Both parties left the restaurant at about the same time. As Tandon, Doohan, and their passengers were boarding the Up and Over, one of those passengers fell into the water and injured himself. Genna and his companions laughed at the mishap, leading the passengers on the Up and Over to yell unspecified but presumably unfriendly comments in response. Genna and his companions then boarded the water taxi to return to the South Dock, and both the Up and Over and the water taxi left the main docks.

At that point, the parties' accounts diverge somewhat. According to an affidavit filed by Ulbrick, the water taxi headed slightly northeast, toward the north end of the South Dock, while the Up and Over headed southwest down the channel toward Long Island Sound. As the Up and Over was making its way down the channel, Tandon noticed that the passenger who fell while boarding the Up and Over was bleeding from a scalp wound. She therefore asked Doohan, who was piloting the boat, to pull over and moor so that she could examine the passenger's injuries. According to the state court complaint filed by Genna, on the other hand, the Up and Over followed in hot pursuit of the water taxi toward the South Dock. Meanwhile, its passengers yelled and screamed at Genna and his companions, and at one point threw a beer bottle at them.

The parties agree that both the Up and Over and the water taxi docked at the South Dock, where a fistfight broke out between Genna's party and the passengers of the Up and Over. During the fight, one passenger from the Up and Over hit Genna, knocking him off of the South Dock into the water. According to Ulbrick, Genna landed face-down in the water and appeared unconscious; according to Genna, he was physically held underwater to the point of asphyxia. Genna claims that he suffered severe injuries from the lack of oxygen, including “cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, hypoxic encephalopathy resulting in permanent brain damage[,] and multi-organ failure.” J.A. 40.

B. Procedural Background

Genna and his wife Donna Genna (together, “the Gennas”) filed suit in Connecticut state court against Captain's Cove and several persons affiliated with it (together, “the Captain's Cove defendants”).³ They alleged that the Captain's Cove defendants were liable for Genna's injuries, and for Donna Genna's resulting loss of consortium, under theories of negligent supervision, negligence, and reckless dispensing of liquor, and also under the Connecticut Dram Shop Act.⁴ The Captain's Cove defendants responded by filing a third-party complaint against Tandon, Doohan, and their passengers on the Up and Over (including Ulbrick). In that third-party complaint, the Captain's Cove defendants sought contribution and indemnity for any damages they might be required to pay the Gennas. The Gennas then filed a second amended complaint adding Tandon, Doohan, and the passengers on the Up and Over as third-party defendants, and asserting claims against them for negligence, recklessness, assault and battery, and conspiracy.⁵

Tandon and Doohan proceeded to file a petition for limitation of liability in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, initiating the present case. That petition asked the district court to either exonerate Tandon and Doohan from liability for the incident at Captain's Cove, or else limit their liability to the value of the Up and Over (appraised at $285,000). In accordance with the normal rules governing limitation proceedings, the district court stayed the pending state court proceedings and ordered that notice be sent to all persons asserting claims with respect to the incident. The Gennas, the Captain's Cove defendants, and Ulbrick all filed claims in the limitation proceeding; two other passengers on the Up and Over, Michael Hermann and Robert Barbieri, also filed notices of potential claims.

Ulbrick then moved to dismiss the petition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), asserting that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The district court agreed. Applying the jurisdictional analysis laid out in Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U.S. 527, 115 S.Ct. 1043, 130 L.Ed.2d 1024 (1995), the district court held that the alleged torts at issue in this case failed both the “location” test and the “connection” test for federal admiralty jurisdiction. It held the location test was not met because the fight in which Genna was injured took place primarily on the South Dock, and this floating dock was properly considered an extension of land because it remained permanently in a fixed location. It also held that the connection test was not met because the type of incident involved—which the district court characterized as “[a] fight on a dock”—did not have a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce. J.A. 130. The district court therefore dismissed the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Tandon and Doohan then filed the present appeal. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and now affirm.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

“When reviewing a district court's determination of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to [Rule] 12(b)(1), we review factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo.” Close v. New York, 125 F.3d 31, 35 (2d Cir.1997). In resolving a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), the district court must take all uncontroverted facts in the complaint (or petition) as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the party asserting jurisdiction. See Amidax Trading Grp. v. S.W.I.F.T. SCRL, 671 F.3d 140, 145 (2d Cir.2011) (per curiam). But “[w]here jurisdictional facts are placed in dispute, the court has the power and obligation to decide issues of fact by reference to evidence outside the pleadings, such as affidavits.” APWU v. Potter, 343 F.3d 619, 627 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting LeBlanc v. Cleveland, 198 F.3d 353, 356 (2d Cir.1999)). In that case, the party asserting subject matter jurisdiction “has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it exists.” Makarova v. United States, 201 F.3d 110, 113 (2d Cir.2000).

B. Admiralty Jurisdiction

Under our Constitution, the federal judicial power extends “to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. Congress has codified that jurisdiction at 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1), which gives federal district courts original jurisdiction over “[a]ny civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction.” See Vasquez v. GMD Shipyard Corp., 582 F.3d 293, 298 (2d Cir.2009). “The primary purpose of federal admiralty...