Background and Parties

This appeal arose from a tragic offshore accident in which a liftboat capsized while contractors slept aboard during repair operations on Fieldwood Energy LLC's platform off the Louisiana coast. Fieldwood had separately contracted with United Fire & Safety, L.L.C. for fire watch services and chartered a liftboat (the Ram XVIII) from Aries Marine Corporation. When the liftboat's port leg punched through the seabed, causing the vessel to list and capsize, a United Fire employee filed a personal injury claim in Aries' limitation of liability action. Aries then sought indemnification from United Fire pursuant to cross-indemnification provisions in the Fieldwood-United Fire master services contract.

The Central Dispute: Maritime vs. Nonmaritime Contract Classification

The dispositive issue was whether the Fieldwood-United Fire contract was maritime in nature, which would determine whether federal maritime law or Louisiana state law applied to the indemnity provisions. Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), state law applies as surrogate federal law when federal maritime law does not apply of its own force. If Louisiana law applied, the Louisiana Oilfield Anti-Indemnity Act (LOAIA) would void the contract's indemnity provisions to the extent they covered losses caused by the indemnitee's own negligence. The district court granted summary judgment for United Fire, finding the contract nonmaritime, and Aries appealed after two unsuccessful motions for reconsideration.

The Fifth Circuit's Analysis

The Fifth Circuit applied the two-part test established in Davis & Sons, Inc. v. Gulf Oil Corp. to determine whether a contract is maritime: (1) whether the contract provides services to facilitate drilling or production of oil and gas on navigable waters; and (2) whether the contract provides or the parties expect that a vessel will play a substantial role in completion of the contract. The court emphasized that

the focus on inquiry as to whether parties' contracts provided that vessel would play substantial role in completion of contract, should be on whether the contract calls for substantial work to be performed from a vessel.

Examining the master services contract and job order email, the court found neither document provided that the liftboat would play a substantial role in United Fire's fire watch services. The contract required United Fire to provide fire watch services on the fixed platform, consisting of testing areas where welding would be performed using a gas detector. Critically, the job order email made no mention of the liftboat. The court rejected Aries' argument that United Fire should have expected the liftboat to play a substantial role, noting that

although operator anticipated use of liftboat for transportation, crane work and lodging, only liftboat owner was part to communications and 'master time charter agreement' with operator.

Implications for Offshore Contractors and Indemnity Provisions

This decision provides critical guidance for structuring offshore service contracts and managing indemnity risk in the Gulf of Mexico. The Fifth Circuit's narrow interpretation of what constitutes a "substantial role" for vessel involvement means that many service contracts for work performed on fixed platforms—even when vessels provide transportation, lodging, and crane support—may be classified as nonmaritime. This classification subjects indemnity provisions to state anti-indemnity statutes like LOAIA, which void provisions requiring contractors to indemnify operators for the operators' own negligence. Operators seeking to preserve broad indemnity protection must ensure their contracts explicitly require substantial vessel-based work performance, not merely vessel presence or ancillary support services. For contractors, this decision offers a roadmap to challenge indemnity claims by demonstrating that their scope of work was platform-based rather than vessel-dependent, even when vessels played supporting roles in the overall project.