The question presented, whether a contract is maritime in nature, has major implications in the law because it is on this basis that many questions of maritime indemnity will be resolved.  Both Texas and Louisiana, heavy oil drilling and production states, invalidate offshore indemnity agreements.   Due to the amount of oil and gas drilling and production stemming from these states, they also produce a high amount of maritime litigation. However, despite the Texas and Louisiana prohibitions on indemnity agreements, federal law has no such restriction. Thus, the issue of whether a contract is maritime in nature or not becomes highly contested in litigation. If the contract is maritime, then federal law applies and the indemnity provision is allowed. If the contract is not maritime, then state law applies to void the provision. As such, the issue is frequently recurring and of high importance. This has led the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to focus on clarifying the issue.

With its decision in Doiron in 2018, the Fifth Circuit changed the long-standing test used to determine whether a contract was maritime in nature or not. This article will first review the existing state of the law at the time of the Fifth Circuit's 2018 decision, before proceeding to analyze the decision itself, then it will conclude with a synopsis of the law that has developed which interprets that decision