The Search for Moby Dick: The Role of State Law in Maritime Tort Cases

John E. Holloway authored an article titled "The Search for Moby Dick: The Role of State Law in Maritime Tort Cases" which appeared in Volume 83 Issue 6 of the Washington & Lee Law Review Online. View the full article below.

Abstract

In 1917, the United States Supreme Court held in Southern Pacific v. Jensen that a state statute is invalid if it “interferes with the proper harmony and uniformity of [the general maritime law].” Over a century after Jensen, we still do not know the limits of this “uniformity principle.” Just two years ago, the United States Supreme Court found that this question—what is the role of state law in maritime cases?—remains “one of the most perplexing in the law.”

This Article tracks the Court’s struggle to make sense of the Uniformity principle. It surveys the Court’s inconsistent rulings and criticisms of the Court’s jurisprudence levied by the Court, individual Justices, and other critics. Although the Court’s ruling in Executive Jet v. Cleveland (1972)—linking admiralty jurisdiction and choice of law—might have clarified choice of law in maritime tort cases, the Court has not followed its precedent. In 1995, the Court rejected the idea that it should do what it did in Executive Jet—“synchronize the jurisdictional enquiry with the test for determining the applicable substantive law”—because that would “discard a fundamental feature of admiralty law, that the federal admiralty courts sometimes do apply state law.” The issue remains “perplexing.”

The Author argues that if confusing perplexities are a “fundamental feature” of maritime law, a change is in order. He argues that the Court should follow its precedent in Executive Jet. If a tort case falls within admiralty jurisdiction because its subject has traditionally been governed by maritime law, then all the substantive (as opposed to procedural) issues in the case should be governed by maritime law, subject to a few well-defined exceptions.