If you got injured in an accident that occurred on a lake, federal maritime law might apply to your case instead of state liability laws.
Federal maritime law, also known as admiralty law, is significantly different than state law. Your case will follow different procedures than other personal injury lawsuits and its outcome will depend on specific rules and regulations.
Federal Maritime Law Only Applies to Navigable Waterways and Lakes
Federal maritime law applies to cases resulting from accidents that occur on navigable waters. Whether a body of water is navigable or not depends on whether it’s used in interstate or international commerce. The US Constitution gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over navigable waters, meaning that even if a lake is entirely within a state, the federal government may have jurisdiction over it.
Federal maritime law applies to cases resulting from accidents that occur on navigable waters.
It’s not always easy to determine whether a lake is navigable or not for purposes of determining the applicability of maritime law to a case. Courts follow a test first laid out in the case Kaiser Aetna v. the United States, according to which a waterway is navigable if it:
- Is subject to the ebb and flow of the tide
- Connects to continuous interstate waterway
- Has navigable capacity
- Is actually navigable
If all four of these criteria are met, a court will consider a lake to be navigable.
In practice, this test has led to some small lakes and shallow rivers being considered navigable waters. So, do not assume that state laws will apply to your case if you were injured on a lake. If that lake has a shore in a different state, or connects to a river that leads to the sea, federal maritime law may apply.
