Summary
This Fifth Circuit opinion affirms the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissing a crossclaim for indemnification between Genesis Energy and Danos, LLC. The court held that the contract for repairing an offshore platform damaged by Hurricane Laura was not a maritime contract under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act because the chartered vessel did not play a substantial role in completing the work. Consequently, Louisiana law applied, barring the enforceability of the indemnity provision.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the contract to repair an offshore platform was a maritime contract under the two-prong test adopted in In re Larry Doiron, Inc., particularly whether the parties expected the vessel to play a substantial role in completing the contract.
- Whether the district court properly granted Danos summary judgment and dismissed Genesis's indemnification crossclaim after concluding that the contract was nonmaritime and that Louisiana law rendered the indemnity provision unenforceable.
Holdings
- The contract was not a maritime contract because the parties did not expect the vessel to play a substantial role in completing the platform-repair work. The vessel's anticipated uses—housing personnel, transporting personnel and supplies, storing equipment, and supporting meals and safety meetings—were ancillary and did not establish a direct and substantial link between the contract and the vessel's operation, navigation, or management afloat.
- The district court properly granted Danos's motion for summary judgment, denied Genesis's motion, and dismissed Genesis's crossclaim with prejudice.
Key quotations
“Because we agree that the parties’ contract is not a maritime contract, we AFFIRM.” (1)
“For a vessel to have a “substantial role,” there must be a “direct and substantial link between the contract and the operation of the ship, its navigation, or its management afloat.”” (4)
“Genesis’s proffered evidence therefore does not establish that the parties expected the Vessel to have a substantial role in completing the contract.” (13)
“That Genesis also chartered the Vessel to facilitate those repairs does not transform this platform-repair contract into a maritime contract.” (14)
Factual background
Hurricane Laura damaged Genesis's offshore platform, Genesis Garden Banks 72, located on the outer Continental Shelf off Louisiana. Genesis contracted with Danos to repair the platform and chartered a third-party vessel to house the repair crew and transport personnel, equipment, and supplies to the platform. The repair work itself was to be performed on the platform; the vessel was not crane-equipped and was not expected to serve as a location for platform repairs or equipment fabrication. A Danos employee was injured during a personnel-basket transfer from the platform to the vessel, leading Genesis to seek contractual defense and indemnification from Danos.
Procedural history
After a Danos employee was injured while being transferred from an offshore platform to a vessel, he sued Danos, Genesis, and the vessel owner. Danos removed the action to federal court, and Genesis asserted a crossclaim against Danos for defense and indemnification under a 2008 Master Services Agreement. The district court held that the parties' contract was not maritime, applied Louisiana law under OCSLA, held the indemnity provision unenforceable, granted Danos's motion for summary judgment, denied Genesis's motion, dismissed the crossclaim with prejudice, and entered final judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).