Cite as: 513 U. S. 527 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
were considered, the city submits, its failure to resemble any traditional maritime activity would take this suit out of admiralty.
The city misreads Sisson, however, which did not consider the activities of the washer/dryer manufacturer, who was possibly an additional tortfeasor, and whose activities were hardly maritime; the activities of Sisson, the boat owner, supplied the necessary substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity. Likewise, in Foremost, we said that "[b]ecause the 'wrong' here involves the negligent operation of a vessel on navigable waters, we believe that it has a sufficient nexus to traditional maritime activity to sustain admiralty jurisdiction . . . ." 457 U. S., at 674. By using the word "involves," we made it clear that we need to look only to whether one of the arguably proximate causes of the incident originated in the maritime activity of a tortfeasor: as long as one of the putative tortfeasors was engaged in traditional maritime activity the allegedly wrongful activity will "involve" such traditional maritime activity and will meet the second nexus prong. Thus, even if we were to identify the "activity giving rise to the incident" as including the acts of the city as well as Great Lakes, admiralty jurisdiction would nevertheless attach. That result would be true to Sisson's requirement of a "substantial relationship" between the "activity giving rise to the incident" and traditional maritime activity. Sisson did not require, as the city in effect asserts, that there be a complete identity between the two. 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.
Petitioners also argue that we might get a different result simply by characterizing the "activity" in question at a different level of generality, perhaps as "repair and maintenance," or as "pile driving near a bridge." The city is, of course, correct that a tortfeasor's activity can be described
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