528
Syllabus
There is no need or justification for imposing an additional jurisdictional requirement that the damage done must be close in time and space to the activity that caused it. A nonremoteness requirement is not supported by the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act's language, and the phrase "caused by" used in that Act indicates that the proper standard is proximate cause. Gutierrez v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 373 U. S. 206, 210, distinguished. Pp. 534-538. (c) The maritime connection test is also satisfied here. The incident's "general features" may be described as damage by a vessel in navigable water to an underwater structure. There is little question that this is the kind of incident that has "a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce." Damaging the structure could lead to a disruption in the water course itself and, as actually happened here, could lead to restrictions on navigational use during repairs. There is also no question that the activity giving rise to the incident—repair or maintenance work on a navigable waterway performed from a vessel—shows a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Even the assertion that the city's alleged failure to properly maintain and operate the tunnel system was a proximate cause of the flood damage does not take this suit out of admiralty. Under Sisson, the substantial relationship test is satisfied when at least one alleged tortfeasor was engaging in activity substantially related to traditional maritime activity and such activity is claimed to have been a proximate cause of the incident. There is no merit to the argument that the activity should be characterized at a hypergeneralized level, such as "repair and maintenance," to eliminate any hint of maritime connection, or to the argument that Sisson is being given too expansive a reading. Pp. 538-543. (d) There are theoretical, as well as practical, reasons to reject the city's proposed multifactor test for admiralty jurisdiction where most of the victims, and one of the tortfeasors, are land based. The Sisson tests are directed at the same objectives invoked to support a multifactor test, the elimination of admiralty jurisdiction where the rationale for the jurisdiction does not support it. In the Extension Act, Congress has already made a judgment that a land-based victim may properly be subject to admiralty jurisdiction; surely a land-based joint tortfeasor has no claim to supposedly more favorable treatment. Moreover, contrary to the city's position, exercise of admiralty jurisdiction does not result in automatic displacement of state law. A multifactor test would also be hard to apply, jettisoning relative predictability for the open-ended rough-and-tumble of factors, inviting complex argument in a trial court and a virtually inevitable appeal. Pp. 543-548.
3 F. 3d 225, affirmed.
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