Miami River Boat Yard, Inc., Appellant, v. 60' Houseboat, Serial #sc-40-2860-3-62, Appellee, 390 F.2d 596 (5th Cir. 1968)

The Shipyard's libel against the Houseboat in rem asserting a lien for repairs, materials, and dockage under the Maritime Lien Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 971 (1958), was dismissed on summary judgment presumably because the craft was not a "vessel" essential to the Court's jurisdiction. The successful claimant, neither by appearance, brief nor argument, undertakes to support this holding which, apart from general considerations, maritime or amphibious, without more, simply founders on the plain words of the statutory definition. "The word `vessel' includes every description of water craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water." 1 U.S.C.A. § 3.

The District Judge, perhaps influenced greatly by cases turning on the question of whether an admitted vessel had previously been withdrawn from navigation,¹  thought that status as a "vessel" required an intent that the craft be employed in navigation and commerce either at the moment or in the immediate future, at least under some of our earlier decisions. Notable among these is J. C. Penney-Gwinn Corp. v. McArdle, 5 Cir., 1928, 27 F.2d 324, 59 A.L.R. 1342, 1928 A.M.C. 1323 — a case which both here²  and elsewhere³  is severely confined to the unique situation of a floating hydraulic dredge being used to make land, not create, improve, or maintain a navigable waterway.

A houseboat is nonetheless a boat because, as its name implies, it affords a water-borne place to live with the added advantage of at least some maritime mobility. That she has no motive power and must, as would the most lowly of dumb barges, be towed does not deprive her of the status of a vessel.

The facts revealed without dispute that Claimant's predecessor had used the Houseboat for its intended purpose at the Flamingo Marina in the Everglades National Park. From there it had made the rather considerable maritime voyage to libelant's shipyard in Miami where she continued to remain afloat during repairs and storage with the expectation that she would be towed away.

The Houseboat was a vessel capable of being subjected to a maritime lien and the District Court was in error in holding that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the vessel in rem. Pleason v. Gulfport Shipbldg. Corporation, 5 Cir., 1955, 221 F.2d 621, 1955 A.M.C. 794; Campbell v. Loznicka, 5 Cir., 1950, 181 F.2d 356, 359, 1950 A.M.C. 756; The Showboat, D. Mass., 1930, 47 F.2d 286, 1931 A.M.C. 19; The Ark, S.D. Fla., 1926, 17 F.2d 446, 1927 A.M.C. 38; cf. The Jack-O-Lantern, 258 U.S. 96, 42 S. Ct. 243, 66 L. Ed. 482.

Reversed and remanded.