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Barnes v. Sea Hawaii Rafting, LLC (9th Cir. 2018)

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Barnes v. Sea Hawaii Rafting, LLC (2018)

Citation: 889 F.3d 517 (order and amended opinion) · Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Fisher, Paez, Nguyen, JJ.; opinion by Nguyen, J.) · Decided: opinion filed March 28, 2018; order and amended opinion filed April 19, 2018, confirmed against the court’s full amended opinion retrieved 2026-10-17.

Source note (2026-10-18):

Facts

Seaman Chad Barnes was injured when the M/V Tehani exploded. He sued the Tehani in rem, and its owner Sea Hawaii Rafting, LLC (“SHR”) and SHR’s manager in personam, to enforce his maintenance-and-cure lien against the vessel. The district court declined to award maintenance before trial. After SHR filed bankruptcy, the district court stayed the case, treating the vessel as estate property under the automatic stay, and later dismissed the in rem claim for lack of a verified amended complaint. While the appeal was pending, the bankruptcy trustee — with bankruptcy-court approval — sold the Tehani “purportedly free and clear” of Barnes’s lien and moved to dismiss the appeal as moot.

Holding

The appeal was not moot. “The district court obtained jurisdiction over the vessel Tehani when Barnes filed a verified complaint and the defendants appeared generally and litigated without contesting in rem jurisdiction. The district court did not lose in rem jurisdiction while the Tehani remained in its constructive custody. And the court’s control over the vessel, once obtained, was exclusive. SHR’s later-filed bankruptcy petition did not divest the district court of in rem jurisdiction. Moreover, the automatic bankruptcy stay did not affect Barnes’s maritime lien against the Tehani, and the bankruptcy court had no authority to dispose of the lien through the application of bankruptcy law.” The court reversed the dismissal of the Tehani and issued mandamus directing the district court to award maintenance at USD 34 per day, “subject to a potential upward modification after trial.”

Reasoning

  • Two “well-established” principles: first, a maritime lien “accompanies the property into the hands of a bona fide purchaser. It can be executed and divested only by a proceeding in rem” (quoting Vandewater v. Mills, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 82, 89 (1856)); second, “a maritime lien cannot be extinguished except through the application of admiralty law” (citing in-re-millenium-seacarriers-2005).
  • Following United States v. ZP Chandon, 889 F.2d 233 (9th Cir. 1989), the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(4) did not bar enforcement of the seaman’s lien.
  • Millenium was distinguished because the lienors there consented to bankruptcy-court jurisdiction.

Practical impact

  • Buyers: a purchaser at a bankruptcy sale of a vessel already under admiralty in rem jurisdiction can take subject to a nonconsenting seaman’s maritime lien notwithstanding a “free and clear” bankruptcy sale order. The prior admiralty court’s custody and absence of lienor consent matter; this holding does not adjudicate every other sale channel or erase the consent distinction discussed in Millenium. Maritime risk is not confined to federally documented vessels. See vessels, bankruptcy-363-sales.
  • Seamen / lienholders: maintenance-and-cure liens survive a debtor’s bankruptcy when an admiralty court has the vessel.
  • Trustees: sell in admiralty, or obtain lienor consent, before promising free-and-clear title.

Good-law status

The full amended opinion was verified on 2026-10-17. Comprehensive subsequent treatment has not been verified (needs_verification); full-text verification is not a good-law clearance. This is a Ninth Circuit decision, not a universal ruling on every sale channel.

Applies in →

Ninth Circuit states (e.g., hawaii, california, washington, oregon, alaska); persuasive elsewhere. See admiralty-arrest-and-marshals-sale, maritime-liens-and-preferred-ship-mortgages, bankruptcy-automatic-stay.

Sources

This page provides general legal information, not legal advice. Verify the holding and its current treatment against the primary source and consult a licensed maritime or bankruptcy attorney before acting. Last verified: 2026-10-16.

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