Edward Neal Alford v. Appalachian Power Company

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

In Price v. Price, 929 F.2d 131 (4th Cir.1991), we held that a tort claim arising out of alleged errors in navigation on the John H. Kerr reservoir, which straddles the North Carolina-Virginia border, came within the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts. We must decide here whether a tort claim arising from an accident on Smith Mountain Lake, another of the lakes on the Roanoke River, located entirely within Virginia, is likewise within the admiralty jurisdiction of the federal courts under 28 U.S.C. § 1333 (1988). At issue is the larger question of when…