46 USC § 31102 - Waiver of immunity | Title 46 - Shipping | U.S. Code

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Current through Pub. L. 112-283. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) In General.— A civil action in personam in admiralty may be brought, or an impleader filed, against the United States for—

(1) damages caused by a public vessel of the United States; or

(2) compensation for towage and salvage services, including contract salvage, rendered to a public vessel of the United States.

(b) Counterclaim or Setoff.— If the United States brings a civil action in admiralty for damages caused by a privately owned vessel, the owner of the vessel, or the successor in interest, may file a counterclaim in personam, or claim a setoff, against the United States for damages arising out of the same subject matter.

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(a) In General.— A civil action in personam in admiralty may be brought, or an impleader filed, against the United States for—

(1) damages caused by a public vessel of the United States; or

(2) compensation for towage and salvage services, including contract salvage, rendered to a public vessel of the United States.

(b) Counterclaim or Setoff.— If the United States brings a civil action in admiralty for damages caused by a privately owned vessel, the owner of the vessel, or the successor in interest, may file a counterclaim in personam, or claim a setoff, against the United States for damages arising out of the same subject matter.

Source

(Pub. L. 109–304, § 6(c),Oct. 6, 2006, 120 Stat. 1521.)

Historical and Revision Notes
Revised Section	Source (U.S. Code)	Source (Statutes at Large)
31102(a)
46 App.:781.
Mar. 3, 1925, ch. 428, § 1, 43 Stat. 1112.
31102(b)
46 App.:783 (words before proviso).
Mar. 3, 1925, ch. 428, § 3 (words before proviso), 43 Stat. 1112.

In this section, the words “civil action” are substituted for “libel” because of rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 App. U.S.C.).

In subsection (a), the words “Provided, That the cause of action arose after the 6th day of April, 1920” are omitted as unnecessary.

In subsection (b), the words “in rem or in personam” are omitted as unnecessary. The words “file a counterclaim in personam, or claim a setoff” are substituted for “file a cross libel in personam or claim a set-off or counterclaim” to conform to the terminolgy in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and to eliminate unnecessary words. The words “for damages arising out of the same subject matter” are substituted for “in such suit for and on account of any damages arising out of the same subject matter or cause of action” to eliminate unnecessary words.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

46 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

46 USC § 31102 - Waiver of immunity

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