Red Hook Container Terminal, LLC v. South Pacific Shipping Company Limited, et al.

The Shipping Act of 1984, as amended, 46 U.S.C. § 40501, allows a marine terminal operator to “make available to the public a schedule of rates, regulations, and practices . . .,” and “[a]ny such schedule made available to the public is enforceable by an appropriate court as an implied contract without proof of actual knowledge of its provisions.” Whether as a matter of federal admiralty law a maritime terminal operator’s schedule of rates, established in accordance with 46 U.S.C. § 40501 and approved by the Federal Maritime Commission, should be enforced by a federal court as an implied contract when the parties’ prior, private contract had terminated and did not cover the long-term storage services provided?

Under the rule established in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), requiring a federal court in diversity to apply state substantive law to a state law cause of action, whether a federal court must apply the state’s substantive law barring a conversion claim where the court finds that such tort claim alleges and arises from the same facts alleged for a breach of contract claim also barred under federal maritime law?