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491 F.2d 899

Docket No. 73-1782.

Kane v. Motor Vessel Leda

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided March 29, 1974.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 6, 1974.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1974-03-29

4 counsel of record

Relies on McAllister v. United States · In Re Disbarment of Isserman

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1974-03-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently June 1992

3 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

50197419801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*900Louis R. Koerner, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

¶2Rene S. Paysse, Robert B. Sutherlin, Kenneth J. Berke, New Orleans, La., for defendants-appellees.

¶3David R. Normann, Jack J. Charbonnet, New Orleans, La., for Westside Auto Supply.

¶4Leopold Stahl, New Orleans, La., for American Marine & Equip. Co., Inc.

¶5Before DYER, MORGAN and RO-NEY, Circuit Judges.

¶6PER CURIAM:

¶7In this admiralty action the district court found that Kane, who furnished work and materials to the vessel M/V LEDA, at the request of the charterer, was not entitled to a maritime lien on the vessel. Judgment was entered against the owner, however, for unjust enrichment damages.

¶8The trial court made extensive findings of fact.1 It found that the charterer was not “a person authorized by the owner” to bind the vessel for the labor and materials furnished by Kane and that the latter did not, therefore, have a maritime lien on the vessel. 46 U.S.C.A. § 971. But the court further found that Kane had an admiralty claim for unjust enrichment in personam against Leda Towing Company, Inc., the owner. The findings are not clearly erroneous. McAllister v. United States, 1954, 348 U.S. 19, 75 S.Ct. 6, 99 L.Ed. 20. On the contrary, the record fully supports these findings.

¶9By a plethora of arguments based on Louisiana law, Kane argues that an admiralty court should apply state law to create a lien on the vessel or to revoke the subsequent sale of the vessel. To do this, as the district court properly held, would be destructive of the principle of uniformity in federal maritime law. Moreover, to subordinate the maritime law to Louisiana law, as Kane argues, would defeat the provisions of 46 U.S.C.A. § 973.

¶10By our disposition of this federal action, we do not, of course, intimate any views on the merits of claims Kane may have under state law.

¶11We have considered the other points on appeal urged by Kane and find them to be without merit.

¶12Affirmed.

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