| |   Contact Daniel Fisher Business 1,467 views  From Casinos
To Carpenters, Watching Houseboat Case At Supreme Court  When a
customer steps aboard Pinnacle Entertainment‘s Boomtown Belle II
docked across the Mississippi from New Orleans, the 380-foot
floating casino is a riverboat. She’s registered with the Coast
Guard and Pinnacle has access to up to $1.5 billion in loans
under a federal law that facilitates mortgages on ships.  But if
that customer slips and falls, or has too much to drink and
crashes her car, the Boomtown Belle II ceases to be a boat at
all. In court, she’s an extension of the land, where federal
maritime law does not apply.  It’s that quirk of the law — and
the billions of dollars in casino financing, potential liability
and labor costs that go with it — that has lawyers, casino
executives and union leaders watching very closely a U.S.
Supreme Court case involving a former Marine pilot’s demolished
floating house.  I wrote about Fane Lozman’s house on Friday,
but today the Supreme Court