United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 04-1183
LINDA REYNOLDS-NAUGHTON,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE LIMITED,
d/b/a NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. George A. O'Toole, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
and Saris,* District Judge.
Vincent Galvin with whom Malcolm P. Galvin, III was on brief
for appellant.
Peter A. Junge with whom Lambos & Junge was on brief for
appellee.
September 14, 2004
*
Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.
BOUDIN, Chief Judge. While on a cruise from Boston to
Bermuda aboard the Norwegian Majesty in May 2002, Linda Reynolds-
Naughton was injured (according to her later complaint) by a
passenger door that closed unexpectedly on her hand. The injury
resulted in the loss of the top third of her right middle finger.
In May 2003 Reynolds-Naughton filed a negligence claim in admiralty
in Massachusetts federal district court against the owner of the
vessel, Norwegian Cruise Line Limited, a Bermuda corporation
headquartered in Miami, Florida.
Reynolds-Naughton's passenger-ticket contract contained
various limits on the cruise line's liability, including a forum
selection clause. This clause stated that "any and all claims,
disputes or controversies whatsoever arising from or in connection
with this Contract and the transportation furnished hereunder shall
be commenced, filed and litigated, if at all, before a court of
proper jurisdiction located in Dade County, Florida, U.S.A."
Anticipating a defense based on this clause, Reynolds-Naughton
filed suit concurrently in the Southern District of Florida.
In September 2003, Norwegian Cruise Lines filed a motion
to dismiss the Massachusetts case pursuant to the forum selection
clause. Reynolds-Naughton opposed the motion but not on the ground
that the clause failed as an unfair contract of adhesion or that
she lacked proper notice. Rather, she claimed that the forum
selection clause was invalid under the Limitation of Vessel Owner's
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Liability Act, 46 U.S.C. app. § 183c (2000). In December 2003, the
district court granted the motion to dismiss and this appeal
followed.
The Act, as it stood both at the time of Reynolds-
Naughton's trip and at the time the district court ruled, provided
in pertinent part that the owner of a vessel transporting persons
from or to United States ports could neither limit by contract its
liability for personal injury due to negligence, nor offer any
contract terms purporting to
lessen, weaken, or avoid the right of any
claimant to a trial by court of competent
jurisdiction on the question of liability for
such loss or injury, or the measure of damages
therefor.
46 U.S.C. app. § 183c(a) (emphasis added). Any such limitations
were explicitly declared null and void. Id.
If the issue were open, one might read the above-quoted
language in several different ways. But in Carnival Cruise Lines,
Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585, 596 (1991), the Supreme Court read it
as allowing forum selection clauses that limited the passenger's
choice of venue, so long as a "court of competent jurisdiction"
remained available to the passenger. In this case, the district
court thought Shute controlling, as have other courts that have
addressed the same problem since Shute.1
1
See, e.g., Smith v. Doe, 991 F. Supp. 781, 782 (E.D. La.
1998); Kalman v. Cunard Line, Ltd., 904 F. Supp. 1150, 1151 & n.1
(D. Haw. 1995); Roberson v. Norwegian Cruise Line, 897 F. Supp.
-3-
Reynolds-Naughton's argument to the contrary is inventive
but ultimately unpersuasive. It rests upon the fact that in
October 1992, Congress altered the above-quoted language by
inserting the word "any" before the phrase "court of competent
jurisdiction," and that in November 1993, Congress again amended
the Act by deleting "any" and restoring the original text. How
this happened and what was said by legislative spokesmen bear
recounting.
The October 1992 amendment adding the word "any"
originated in the House version of the Oceans Act of 1992, Pub. L.
No. 102-587, § 3006, 106 Stat. 5039, 5068, sponsored by Gerry E.
Studds of Massachusetts. Until the day of its adoption, this
amendment had not been mentioned in debates or in a congressional
report; it was apparently offered after both houses had completed
their reports on the bill, and was first mentioned early on the
morning of October 6, 1992, immediately before the House passed the
statute and one day before the Senate did so (and three days before
Congress recessed for three months).
Nevertheless, Congressman Studds said on the House floor
prior to enactment that the purpose of the amendment was to
"overturn the result in Carnival" and allow injured passengers to
1285, 1287-88 (C.D. Cal. 1995); Melnik v. Cunard Line Ltd., 875 F.
Supp. 103, 106 (N.D.N.Y. 1994). Of these cases only the first two
mention the post-Shute amendments to the Limitation Act, on which
Reynolds-Naughton bases her appeal.
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"choose the forum" and sue "in any court of competent
jurisdiction." 138 Cong. Rec. H11,785 (daily ed. Oct. 5, 1992)
(statement of Rep. Studds). Taking the change of language together
with this legislative history, we agree that Reynolds-Naughton's
suit could be maintained in Massachusetts if the 1992 amendment
governed this case. But well before the district court acted, the
law had changed again.
This time the amendment came from the Senate. As another
piece of maritime legislation was making its way through Congress,
Senators Ted Stevens and Ernest F. Hollings offered an amendment to
the House bill, replacing everything after the enacting clause with
new text. The new text included a provision deleting the word
"any" from the Limitation Act paragraph in dispute in this case.2
The Senate passed this substitute on the day the amendment was
offered, and the House passed the same version less than 10 hours
later. Three days later Congress recessed.
If this were all that had happened, the outcome in this
case would be obvious. The natural inference would be that by
striking "any" Congress was expressing an intention to go back to
the precise language construed in Shute and, indeed, to enact the
Supreme Court's gloss. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 580-81
2
See Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1993, § 309, Pub. L. No.
103-206, 107 Stat. 2419, 2425; 139 Cong. Rec. S16,957-67 (daily ed.
Nov. 22, 1993). Section 309, like section 3006 of the Oceans Act
the year before, was labeled a "Technical Clarification."
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(1978). Even without this latter inference, Shute's interpretation
would certainly bind lower courts once Congress had re-adopted the
glossed language. At least, this would all be so in the absence of
powerful legislative history giving a different spin to the 1993
amendment.
Reynolds-Naughton purports to offer just such legislative
history. When in November 1993 the Senate sent the newly amended
version of the Coast Guard Authorization Act to the House, a member
asked that Representative Studds explain its provisions. 139 Cong.
Rec. H10,938 (daily ed. Nov. 22, 1993) (statement of Rep. Young).
Representative Studds replied that the 1992 revision to the
Limitation Act (which was now to be undone) had been intended to
overrule Shute and that the newly proposed deletion of "any" did
not undo Congress' overruling of Shute. Rather, the new bill's
reversion to the pre-1992 text sought only
to clarify that the tort action cannot be
brought in just any district court of the
United States, but must be filed in [a] court
located in a district in which the vessel
owner is doing business, the vessel is
operating, or where the passenger board[s] the
vessel. For this reason, the word "any" has
been deleted. We do not intend by this
amendment to restore the standard set by the
Supreme Court in its 1991 decision, Carnival
Cruise Lines versus Shute.
Id. at H10,939 (statement of Rep. Studds).
Representative Studds also read into the Congressional
Record a "section-by-section analysis" of the bill, which similarly
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stated that the bill did not intend to reinstate the Shute
standard, but merely sought to clarify that the ordinary principle
of forum non conveniens applied to the plaintiff's choice of forum.
139 Cong. Rec. H10,941 (daily ed. Nov. 22, 1993) (statement of Rep.
Studds). Although another member of the Merchant Marine and
Fisheries Committee referred to this section-by-section analysis as
a "conference report," id. at H10,945 (statement of Rep. Bentley),
this analysis never appeared in a printed report of Congress.3
A month after the Senate reconvened from its winter 1993
recess, Senators Stevens and Hollings responded. Describing the
Studds statement to the House as a misinterpretation, Senator
Stevens told the Senate that "[o]ur intent was that section 309
should be interpreted to allow vessels to enforce [forum selection]
clauses, as upheld by the Supreme Court in the Shute case." 140
Cong. Rec. S1848 (daily ed. Feb. 24, 1994) (statement of Rep.
Stevens). Senator Hollings agreed: "[T]he intent of the Senate
amendment made in section 309 . . . was to reverse the action taken
by Congress in section 3006 of the Oceans Act of 1992. By passing
section 309, Congress has reinstated the decision in the Shute case
. . . ." Id. (statement of Sen. Hollings).
3
Nat'l Assoc. of Greeting Card Publishers v. United States
Postal Serv., 462 U.S. 810, 832 n.28 (1983), relied upon by
Reynolds-Naughton, is not helpful to her case. Greeting Card
Publishers drew a clear distinction between a published conference
report and a statement of the House Managers that was unilaterally
appended to a conference report after that report had already been
considered by the Senate.
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Supporting the Senate sponsors of the 1993 change,
Senator John B. Breaux added a further explanation for the Senate's
decision to change the language back to its pre-1992 version:
While it is perfectly legitimate for the
Congress to overturn a Supreme Court decision
within the bounds of the Constitution, we do
not believe such changes should be made
without notification to, and careful
consideration by, the Members of Congress
responsible for the enactment of the
legislation. . . . At no time prior to the
passage of the Oceans Act of 1992 was
legislation introduced or did the House or
Senate hold hearings on the cruise ship venue
concern addressed by section 3006 of the
Oceans Act. It is for this reason that the
Senate supported a provision in the Coast
Guard Authorization Act of 1993 to restore [46
U.S.C. app. § 183c(a)] to the wording as it
read prior to the passage of the Oceans Act of
1992. Section 309 reinstates the Supreme
Court decision in the Shute case as the
applicable law for interpreting forum
selection clauses.
140 Cong. Rec. S1847 (daily ed. Feb. 24, 1994) (statement of Rep.
Breaux).
In urging that Representative Studds' view be credited,
Reynolds-Naughton has the benefit of two circumstances: that
Studds' interpretation is the only contemporaneous explanation of
the 1993 change and that courts are generally quite suspicious of
legislative history--such as the later Senate floor colloquy--
created after enactment.4 Among the reasons for discounting such
4
See Consumer Prod. Safety Comm'n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447
U.S. 102, 108 (1980); United States v. Phila. Nat'l Bank, 374 U.S.
321, 348-49 (1963). But see Andrus v. Shell Oil Co., 446 U.S. 657,
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later history are that it is easily manufactured and that it comes
at a time when it cannot influence anyone's vote.
Yet in this instance the linguistic evidence weighs
heavily against the Studds gloss. The deletion of "any" in 1993
was not coupled with any new language that accomplished the basic
purpose that he gave for the change; the bill did not state, for
example, that forum selection clauses were unlawful but that
plaintiffs could only sue in specified jurisdictions (such as where
the plaintiff had boarded). Nor did the new version conform to
Studds' section-by-section analysis by outlawing such clauses but
adding that this did not limit forum non conveniens dismissals or
transfers.
Forum non conveniens is a background doctrine, and there
is little reason to think that the term "any" before "competent
court" had ever been read to negate such a doctrine or that the
term's subsequent deletion was intended merely to reawaken that
doctrine. And, had the purpose of the 1993 revision been to
preserve the 1992 version's main aim, it would have been child's
play to say that "forum selection clauses are void" but attach
other forum restrictions. The deletion of "any" is not a plausible
way of achieving such an end.
666 n.8 (1980); Seatrain Shipbuilding Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 444
U.S. 572, 596 (1980).
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We cannot give weight to a single congressman's gloss,
however ingenious, that is in such tension with the language, the
sequence of events and the probable intent of the drafters.
Despite Representative Studds' comments on the House floor, the
change back to pre-1992 language is decisive in defeating Reynolds-
Naughton's right to sue in Massachusetts. As already noted, the
Senate amendment restored the text to the language to which Shute
had given a controlling meaning and, in addition, the sequence
warrants the inference that the purpose of the Senate's change was
to restore the status quo ante.
The Senate statements are not similarly compromised by a
tension between their gloss and the statutory language. Indeed, as
the sponsors of the language, the views of Senators Stevens and
Hollings would ordinarily get special weight.5 Whether such post-
enactment statements should be considered at all need not be
resolved; the result in this case--that deleting "any" restores
Shute--would be the same even if the senators had said nothing.
Affirmed.
5
The case law to this effect is familiar, and the decisions
also advise caution in accepting the gloss offered by opponents--
which in practical terms includes Representative Studds in this
case. See Bankamerica Corp. v. United States, 462 U.S. 122, 139
(1983); see also NLRB v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers & Warehousemen,
Local 760, 377 U.S. 58, 66 (1964).
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