The case arose from an in rem suit brought under admiralty jurisdiction by the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, against a floating home owned by resident Fane Lozman.

[5] In De La Rosa v. St. Charles Gaming Co., the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted Stewart as allowing such considerations, and ruled that a floating casino was not a vessel since its owners had no intention to use it for transportation,[6] while in Bd.

Lozman responded pro se to the suit, City of Riviera Beach v. That Certain Unnamed Gray, Two-Story Vessel Approximately Fifty-Seven Feet in Length.

[8] Lozman chose not to continue pro se, and instead sought as counsel Jeffrey L. Fisher of the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic after googling "appellate lawyers".

He highlighted Lozman's home's unsuitability to transport people or goods, noting its "French doors on three sides a few feet above the water line" and lack of independent source of power or movement.

[12] David C. Frederick, representing Riviera Beach, argued for a simple definition based on a "practical capability to float, move and carry goods or people".

To state the obvious, a wooden washtub, a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, a large fishing net, a door taken off its hinges, or Pinocchio (when inside the whale) are not "vessels," even if they are "artificial contrivance[s]" capable of floating, moving under tow, and incidentally carrying even a fair-sized item or two when they do so. ...

Breyer emphasized that "But for the fact that it floats, nothing about Lozman's home suggests that it was designed to any practical degree to transport persons or things over water", and highlighted several attributes which made it ill-suited for those tasks.

[26] Chief Justice Roberts referred to the case as his favorite of the 2012 term, and emphasized the impact of seeing a picture of the floating home, which he described as looking like "a house that got swept into the ocean somehow".

[31][32] Lozman's litigation against Riviera Beach regarding his floating home occurred parallel to suit alleging that his 2006 arrest at a city council meeting had been retaliatory.