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Introduction
Say you’re on a jet ski off Fort Lauderdale Beach and another rider slams into you at full speed. You break three ribs and tear your rotator cuff. The other rider was clearly at fault — witnesses saw him weaving through traffic at 40 mph. You think it’s a straightforward Florida negligence case. It’s not. Because it happened on navigable water, you’re in admiralty jurisdiction, and that changes almost everything about how your case gets filed, where it gets heard, and what law applies.
Admiralty jurisdiction is the federal court system’s exclusive power over cases arising on navigable waters or involving maritime activity. It comes from Article III of the U.S. Constitution and is codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1333. When your case falls under admiralty, you’re not just dealing with Florida tort law anymore — you’re dealing with a separate body of federal maritime law that’s been evolving since the 1700s. The rules are different. The procedures are different. And plenty of lawyers who handle car accidents every day have never touched an admiralty case.
What makes a case fall under admiralty jurisdiction
Federal courts use two tests to decide whether a tort claim belongs in admiralty. Both come from Supreme Court cases decided in the 1990s — Sisson v. Ruby and Grubart v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.
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Location test. Did the injury occur on navigable waters? In Florida, that includes the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Intracoastal Waterway, and most major rivers, bays, and inlets. It doesn’t include swimming pools or private ponds. The Admiralty Extension Act (46 U.S.C. § 30101) extends jurisdiction to certain injuries that happen on land but are caused by a vessel on navigable water — for example, a dock collapse caused by a boat collision.
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Connection test. Does the incident have a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity? Could it disrupt maritime commerce? A recreational boating accident qualifies. So does a passenger slip-and-fall on a cruise ship. A car accident in a parking lot near the marina does not, even if both drivers were headed to their boats.
Contracts follow a different rule. A contract is maritime if its primary objective relates to maritime commerce — ship charters, cargo transport, marine insurance, towage, salvage. The key case is Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Kirby (2004). It doesn’t matter where you signed the contract or where it gets performed. What matters is whether the contract’s purpose is fundamentally about moving goods or people by water.
Federal court or state court
This is where the “saving to suitors” clause in 28 U.S.C. § 1333 comes in. Federal courts have original jurisdiction over admiralty cases, but the statute “saves to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled.” Translation: you can file certain maritime injury claims in Florida state court if you’re seeking money damages and not trying to arrest a vessel or invoke a special admiralty procedure.
Here’s how that plays out:
- A recreational boater who gets hit by a drunk jet skier off Pompano Beach can file in Broward County Circuit Court and proceed under Florida’s comparative negligence rules with a jury trial.
- Or they can file in the Southern District of Florida under admiralty jurisdiction, where the case will be tried to a judge without a jury unless they invoke diversity jurisdiction separately and avoid designating the claim as exclusively admiralty.
But some admiralty actions can only happen in federal court:
- In rem actions — lawsuits against the vessel itself, not just its owner — must be filed in federal court under Supplemental Rule C of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
- Limitation of Liability Act proceedings under 46 U.S.C. §§ 30501–30512 are federal-only. These are cases where a vessel owner files in federal court to cap their liability at the value of the vessel after the accident. They’re common in serious boating collisions and are designed to consolidate all claims in one proceeding.
Cruise ship cases are almost always in Miami federal court
If you’re injured on a Carnival, Royal Caribbean, or Norwegian cruise, your passenger ticket contract almost certainly designates federal court in Miami as the exclusive forum and shortens your deadlines to file. Most major cruise lines require written notice of your claim within six months and require you to file suit within one year of the injury. Florida’s general personal injury statute of limitations is four years under § 95.11(3), Fla. Stat., but cruise contracts routinely override that because maritime law allows parties to shorten limitations periods by contract.
Courts enforce these forum-selection clauses and shortened deadlines as long as the contract language is reasonably communicated to the passenger. That doesn’t mean buried in 8-point type on page 47. But if it’s in the ticket terms you received or could access online when you booked, courts in the Eleventh Circuit will hold you to it. The Southern District of Florida in Miami handles thousands of cruise injury cases every year for this reason. Justia’s federal dockets show ongoing litigation against every major line operating out of Port Everglades, PortMiami, and Port Canaveral.
How admiralty law changes the substance of your case
Maritime law is federal common law, not Florida state law. When admiralty jurisdiction applies, you’re governed by a body of law that prioritizes uniformity across the country. State law can fill gaps, but it can’t override established maritime rules.
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Comparative fault. Maritime law uses pure comparative fault — your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover even if you’re 99% responsible. Florida switched to modified comparative fault in 2023 under § 768.81, Fla. Stat., barring recovery if you’re more than 50% at fault. That change doesn’t apply to maritime cases.
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Prejudgment interest. Prejudgment interest is almost always awarded in maritime cases as part of full compensation. Florida courts have discretion to award prejudgment interest under § 55.03, Fla. Stat., but it’s not automatic. In admiralty, it’s the default unless the defendant shows peculiar circumstances that justify denial.
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Jury trials. Pure admiralty claims filed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(h) are tried to a judge. You can get a jury if you invoke a separate basis for jurisdiction — like diversity of citizenship — and avoid designating the claim as exclusively admiralty. But if you file a Limitation of Liability case or an in rem action, there’s no jury.
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Limitation of Liability Act. This Act lets a vessel owner file in federal court to cap their exposure to the post-accident value of the vessel and any pending freight, as long as the accident happened without the owner’s “privity or knowledge.” These cases are governed by Supplemental Rule F and are used frequently in Florida waters after serious collisions or drownings. They consolidate all claims into one federal proceeding and often result in settlements far below what individual plaintiffs would recover in separate lawsuits.
Florida’s three federal districts handle these cases differently
Florida has three federal districts, and all three see admiralty cases regularly:
- Southern District. Covers Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach and is the busiest. Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale and PortMiami are two of the largest cruise ports in the world.
- Middle District. Covers Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Fort Myers and sees a mix of cruise cases out of Port Canaveral and recreational boating accidents in the Gulf.
- Northern District. Handles Pensacola, Panama City, and Tallahassee, with cases involving offshore drilling, commercial fishing, and Gulf of Mexico collisions.
A 2024 order from the Middle District’s Fort Myers Division in a limitation-of-liability case emphasized that “admiralty and maritime law includes a host of special rights, duties, rules, and procedures” that don’t exist in ordinary tort cases. The court explained why defendants can’t just remove a state-court boating case to federal court and then ignore the special admiralty rules. It’s a reminder that these cases require lawyers who actually practice in this area.
Florida boating statutes still matter
Admiralty jurisdiction is federal, but Florida criminal and regulatory statutes intersect with maritime cases constantly. Section 327.35, Fla. Stat., makes it a crime to operate a vessel while under the influence. BUI convictions or even arrests can be used as evidence of negligence or negligence per se in a civil admiralty case. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers enforce Chapter 327 on state waters, and their incident reports often become key evidence in federal admiralty litigation.
Florida wrongful death and survival statutes can apply in territorial waters depending on the circumstances, but cases involving deaths on the high seas are governed by the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. §§ 30301–30308. DOHSA historically limited damages to pecuniary loss — no pain and suffering, no loss of companionship — but Congress amended it in 2000 to allow nonpecuniary damages for commercial aviation accidents. The original restrictions still apply to most maritime deaths beyond three nautical miles from shore.
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Why this matters if you’re hurt on the water
Most people don’t know they’re in admiralty jurisdiction until a lawyer tells them. They assume a boating accident works like a car accident. It doesn’t.
- If you’re injured on a cruise ship and you don’t send written notice to the cruise line within six months, your claim is likely barred no matter how strong your case is.
- If you’re hurt in a jet ski collision off Deerfield Beach and you file in state court without understanding the interplay between Florida law and maritime law, you risk having the case removed to federal court and losing procedural advantages you didn’t know you had.
Admiralty cases require different expertise. The duty of care a cruise line owes its passengers isn’t the same as the duty a hotel owes its guests. The rules for proving causation in a deck slip-and-fall are different from the rules in a Publix slip-and-fall. And the damages you can recover — especially if the incident happened far offshore — may be governed by statutes that don’t exist in ordinary Florida tort law.
Document everything immediately:
- If you’re on a cruise ship, file an incident report with the ship’s medical center or purser’s office before you disembark.
- Get witness names and contact information.
- Photograph the scene — the wet deck, the broken railing, whatever caused the injury.
- Keep your boarding pass, your cruise contract, and any excursion tickets.
These cases move fast because the deadlines are short, and evidence disappears quickly once the ship leaves port.
If you’re hurt in a recreational boating accident:
- Get the Florida Fish and Wildlife incident report.
- Photograph the boats, the damage, and the registration numbers.
- If the other operator was arrested for BUI, get the arrest report and any field sobriety test results.
Insurance companies handling maritime claims are sophisticated and aggressive, and they know most injured people don’t understand how admiralty jurisdiction limits their options.
