Wilburn Boat Company v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Company/Concurrence Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

348 U.S. 310

Wilburn Boat Company  v.  Fireman's Fund Insurance Company

 Argued: Oct. 14 and 15, 1954. --- Decided: Feb 28, 1955

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, concurring in the result.

This case concerns a marine insurance policy covering a small houseboat yacht, inappropriately named The Wanderer, plying the waters of Lake Texoma, an artificial inland lake between Texas and Oklahoma. The coverage of the policy was specifically restricted to The Wanderer's trip to and use on that lake 'solely for private pleasure purposes.' After The Wanderer was destroyed by fire while lying idle on Lake Texoma, it was discovered that certain warranties of the insurance policy had been ignored by petitioner. Under a uniform rule of admiralty law governing breach of such warranties, petitioner probably would be unable to recover on the policy. Texas statute law, however, might excuse the breaches of warranty, although this is by no means clear. Our problem is whether this situation-involving a marine policy such as is the basis of litigation-calls for a uniform rule throughout the country applicable to breaches of warranty of all similar marine insurance contracts.

There is no doubt that as to some matters affecting maritime affairs the States are excluded from indulging in variant state policies. E.g., Chelentis v. Luckenbach S.S.C.o., 247 U.S. 372, 38 S.Ct. 501, 62 L.Ed. 1171, The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 22 L.Ed. 654. Equally, there is no doubt that some matters are so predominantly restricted in the range of their significance that a uniform admiralty rule need not be recognized or fashioned. E.g., Madruga v. Superior Court, 346 U.S. 556, 74 S.Ct. 298, 98 L.Ed. 290; C. J. Hendry Co. v. Moore, 318 U.S. 133, 63 S.Ct. 499, 87 L.Ed. 663; The Hamilton, 207 U.S. 398, 28 S.Ct. 133, 52 L.Ed. 264. Therefore the question, and the only question now to be decided, is whether the demands of uniformity relevant to maritime law require that marine insurance on a houseboat yacht brought to Lake Texoma for private recreation should be subject to the same rules of law as marine insurance on a houseboat yacht 'confined,' after arrival, to the waters of Lake Tahoe or Lake Champlain. The provision of the policy whereby the insured warranted 'that the vessel will be confined to Lake Texoma' conveys the emphasis of the situation-the essentially localized incidence of the transaction despite the interstate route followed in reaching the circumscribed radius within which the yacht was to move. It is reasonable to conclude that the interests concerned with shipping in its national and international aspects are substantially unconcerned with the rules of law to be applied to such limited situations. I join in a result restricted within this compass.

Unfortunately, for reasons that I do not appreciate, the Court's opinion goes beyond the needs of the problem before it. Unless I wholly misconceive that opinion, its language would be invoked when cases so decisively different in degree as to be different in kind come before this Court. It seems directed with equal force to ocean-going vessels in international maritime trade, as well as coastal, intercoastal and river commerce. Is it to be assumed that were the Queen Mary, on a world pleasure cruise, to touch at New York City, New Orleans and Galveston, a Lloyds policy covering the voyage would be subjected to the varying insurance laws of New York, Louisiana and Texas? Such an assumption, I am confident, would not prevail were decision necessary. The business of marine insurance often may be so related to the success of many manifestations of commercial maritime endeavor as to demand application of a uniform rule of law designed to eliminate the vagaries of state law and to keep harmony with the marine insurance laws of other great maritime powers. See Queen Ins. Co. of America v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 263 U.S. 487, 493, 44 S.Ct. 175, 176, 68 L.Ed. 402; Calmar Steamship Corp. v. Scott ,345 U.S. 427, 442-443, 73 S.Ct. 739, 747, 97 L.Ed. 1125. It cannot be that by this decision the Court means suddenly to jettison the whole past of the admiralty provision of Article III and to renounce requirements for nationwide maritime uniformity, except insofar as Congress has specifically enacted them, in the field of marine insurance.

It is appropriate to recall that the preponderant body of maritime law comes from this Court and not from Congress. Judicial enforcement of nationwide rules regarding marine insurance is, as my brother REED cogently shows, deeply rooted in history. What reason is there for abruptly turning over, pending action by Congress, to the crazy-quilt regulation of the different States what so long has been the business of the courts?

As is true of other maritime interests, however, the demand for uniformity is not inflexible and does not preclude the balancing of the competing claims of state, national and international interests. The process and some of the relevant considerations here are not unlike those involved when the question is whether a State, in the absence of congressional action, may regulate some matters even though aspects of interstate commerce are affected. In rejecting abdication of all responsibility by this Court for uniformities in marine insurance and its complete surrender to the States, one is not required to embrace another absolute, complete absorption by this Court of the field of marine insurance and entire exclusion of the States. It is not necessary to assert that uniformity, if it be required in any case, is required in all cases cognizable in admiralty-whether the craft was for business or pleasure, touched in five states, five nations or never left the confines of an inland lake. The deceptive lure of certainty and comprehensive symmetry should not be permitted to canceal the fact that admiralty's expansion beyond 'the ebb and flow of the tides' has been a response to demands more inclusive than those for mechanical uniformity.

Under the distribution of power between national authority and local law, admiralty has developed for more than a hundred years by rulings of the Court, but not by absolutes either of abstension or extension. While not able to join the dissenters, I can only hope that what are essentially dicta will not be found controlling when situations which have not called them forth, and to which they are not applicable, come before the Court for adjudication.

Mr. Justice REED, with whom Mr. Justice BURTON joins, dissenting.

Notes