The district court also ordered the floating home to be sold to satisfy the judgment.
After a court trial, judgment was entered in favor of the city of Riviera Beach for $3,039.88 for dockage and $1 for trespass damages. The district court found the floating home to be a vessel, and as a result, concluded it had admiralty jurisdiction over the case. Lozman asked the district court to dismiss the case, arguing the court lacked admiralty jurisdiction because the floating home was not a vessel and therefore could not be subject to a maritime lien. Several years later, Lozman had his floating home towed seventy miles to a marina owned by the city of Riviera Beach, Florida where he kept it docked.Īfter unsuccessful efforts to evict Lozman from the marina, the city of Riviera Beach brought a federal admiralty action in rem against the floating home, asserting a maritime lien for unpaid dockage and trespass damages. He had it towed twice thereafter to nearby marinas. An empty bilge space underneath the main floor provided buoyancy.Īfter buying the floating home, Lozman had it towed 200 miles to a small village in Florida where he moored it. A stairway led to an office on the second level. It had a sitting room, bedroom, closet, bathroom, and kitchen on the main floor. The home was built of plywood, and had French doors on three sides.
Lozman was the owner of a 60-foot by 12-foot floating home. Despite the owner’s intent to moor it permanently, the court held the structure was a vessel because it had functioning machinery and a maritime crew, and was capable of moving over water and being transported on water under tow. The Eleventh Circuit also interpreted the term in a case involving a floating casino. The Fifth Circuit interpreted the term in a case involving a floating casino and held the structure was not a vessel when it was only theoretically capable of sailing and the owner intended to moor it indefinitely. * (2013) because the courts of appeals in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits were not consistent in their interpretations of the term “capable” found in the statutory definition of vessel. The City of Riviera Beach, Florida, 568 U.S. The United States Supreme Court recently agreed to consider Lozman v.
However, the Supreme Court may agree to hear a case for several reasons, one of which is an inconsistency in rulings from different federal appellate circuits on the same point of law. Moreover, as the recent Supreme Court case illustrates, only a vessel may be the subject of a maritime lien.Īs readers may recall from a prior article, Appeals in Maritime Cases (Pacific Maritime Magazine, March 2012), there is no automatic right to appeal an adverse decision by a federal appellate court to the United States Supreme Court. Further, the rights of an injured maritime worker may depend on whether the injury occurred on a vessel. For example, the federal lighting requirements apply only to vessels. Recently, the United States Supreme Court provided some guidance on what is a vessel and what is not a vessel.įederal statutory law defines a “vessel” to be “every description of watercraft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.” The definition of vessel is important in various contexts. Everyone in the maritime industry knows what a vessel is.