WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When is a floating home not a vessel? The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday told a Florida city its argument did not hold water, and that an abode on water was nothing but a home.
In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that a gray, two-story home that its owner said was permanently moored to a Riviera Beach, Florida, marina was not a vessel, depriving the city of power under U.S. maritime law to seize and destroy it.
Justice Stephen Breyer said nothing about former Chicago trader and Marine pilot Fane Lozman's
home that would have led a "reasonable observer" to conclude it could
be used to transport people or things over water, but for the fact that
it floated.
"Not every floating structure is a 'vessel',"
Breyer wrote for the majority. "To state the obvious, a wooden washtub,
a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, a large fishing
net, a door taken off its hinges, or Pinocchio (when inside the whale)
are not 'vessels'."
Riviera Beach,
near Palm Beach, had seized Lozman's home after he resisted a court
order that he pay $3,040 in dockage fees, and destroyed it after being
unable to sell it.
Tuesday's decision
reversed a lower-court ruling upholding the fees, and clears the way for
Lozman to seek compensation.
Pamela Ryan, the city attorney for Riviera Beach, said in a statement she was disappointed with the ruling but accepts it, and that the city will revise its marina policies.
Lozman, 51, cheered
the decision. "I feel like I'm floating on a cloud," he said in a phone
interview. "I have been fighting this city for 6-1/2 years and it is
humbling to get a reversal."
He said he now lives in North Bay Village, a suburb of Miami, and owns a financial software display company.
The definition of "vessel"
is particularly important, given that admiralty law imposes different
obligations on owners with respect to such things as staffing and
taxation.
It is also a victory for the casino industry, which in
court papers argued that more than 60 riverboat casinos should not be
subject to U.S. maritime laws designed to protect seamen, on top of
state laws to license and regulate the gaming business.
The decision limits special rules and remedies of maritime law
to matters that "genuinely involve maritime commerce and
transportation," Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford University law professor who
represented Lozman, said in a phone interview. "That something floats
and might be towed from Point A to Point B does not mean those rules and
remedies should apply."
COURT SEEKS CONSISTENCY
Lozman bought the 60-by-12 foot home in 2002. Four years later, he towed it to a Riviera Beach marina, where he kept it docked.
Although he was able to move the home in this manner, Lozman said it should not be covered by maritime law
because it lacked the usual seafaring features such as a motor and GPS
device, and needed land-based sewer lines and an extension cord for
power.
The legal battle started after Lozman resisted new
rules governing houseboats at his marina and opposed a proposed $2.4
billion luxury redevelopment of the marina.In his opinion for the court, Breyer said the decision was consistent with the laws of California and Washington that also treat structures like Lozman's as land-based homes.
"Consistency of interpretation of related state and federal laws is a virtue" because it makes the law easier to understand and follow, Breyer said.
Joining Breyer's opinion were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy,
dissented, in the term's first dissenting votes from a full court
opinion. Sotomayor objected to the "reasonable observer" standard
adopted by the majority.
The case is Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 11-626.
(Editing by Howard Goller, Mohammad Zargham and Grant McCool)
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