Stephen K. Walton, Sr. v. Virginia International Terminals, LLC

Since the founding of our country, the individual States have provided and regulated tort remedies for land-based personal injuries of their citizens. Since 1916 Congress has regulated the cargo-related activities of marine terminal operators, through the Shipping Act. Pursuant to 46 U.S.C. § 40501(f) of the Shipping Act of 1984, 46 U.S.C. § 40101, et seq., a marine terminal operator may issue a schedule of rates pertaining to receiving, delivering, handling or storing property at its terminal, and the schedule is enforceable as an implied contract. In the case below, the respondent marine terminal operator successfully argued that the personal injury action of a longshoreman who was injured on terminal grounds through the respondent’s negligence, which was timely filed under Virginia law, was nevertheless time-barred by time limitation provisions in the respondent’s schedule of rates, pursuant to the Shipping Act of 1984. The question presented for review is: Pursuant to the Shipping Act of 1984, is a marine terminal operator’s schedule of rates, which is authorized by the Act to pertain to the receiving, delivering, handling or storing of property at its terminal, enforceable to time-bar a land-based personal injury action which is timely under State law?