Subscribe to RSS FeedWhat the hell is going on? That's pretty much the gist of a comment raising a good question as to why admiralty jurisdiction was found in connection with a vessel arrest and seizure on the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Here's why I think the Court got it right.
To set the stage, there's some older case law that declines to find admiralty jurisdiction on the Lake of the Ozarks because it's not presently navigable. (We'll assume that statement is accurate today, but it might not be. In other words, maybe the Court determined that the Lake is currently navigable which would likely give rise to admiralty jurisdiction.)
Ok, so what we know is that a lawsuit seeking a vessel's arrest was brought by a bank claiming an interest in a vessel probably arising from a financing agreement; perhaps, a Preferred Ship Mortgage. As a purely off-the-cuff deduction, the Court may have determined that a maritime contract was at issue which may have given it traction to invoke admiralty jurisdiction. In broad speak, when it comes to contracts and admiralty jurisdiction things aren't always so tightly linked to locality. In fact, just last year the Eighth Circuit (the Court of Appeals for this Lake's locale) reached a similar conclusion in connection with a policy of marine insurance.
At any rate, that's the best response and only idea I have at the moment. What I'm going to do is poke around some on the Court's docket (it's currently down for maintenance) and I'll see if I can't better understand the Court's reasoning. Like a Pan-Pan broadcast, keep listening for a further update and my thanks to Captain Charlie Meyer for raising the question. You can read Capt. Meyer's blog entry regarding the case here.
Underway and making way.
--- JKF
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