Horsley v. Mobil Oil Corp.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 93-1664
JONATHAN C. HORSLEY, et al.,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

MOBIL OIL CORPORATION,

Appellee.

No. 93-1736
JONATHAN C. HORSLEY, et al.,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

v.

MOBIL OIL CORPORATION,

Appellee.

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. William G. Young, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Cyr, Circuit Judge,

Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,

and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

Christopher M. Perry, with whom Brendan J. Perry and Terance P.

Perry were on brief for appellants.

Brian P. Flanagan, with whom F. Dore Hunter and Flanagan &

Hunter, P.C. were on brief for appellee.

February 3, 1994

CYR, Circuit Judge. We must decide whether either
CYR, Circuit Judge.

punitive damages or damages for loss of parental and spousal

society allegedly caused by a nonfatal injury to a seaman aboard

a vessel in territorial waters are recoverable in an unseaworthi-

ness action under the general maritime law. On plenary review,

see Gaskell v. The Harvard Coop. Soc'y, 3 F.3d 495, 497 (1st Cir.

1993), we affirm the summary judgment entered against plaintiffs-

appellants based on the analysis required under Miles v. Apex

Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19 (1990).

I

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs-appellants Jonathan C. Horsley and his wife,

Elizabeth Horsley, allege that he sustained a back injury in the

course of his duties aboard a vessel owned by defendant-appellee

Mobil Oil Corporation while operating in the territorial waters

of the Gulf of Maine. Their unseaworthiness action involves,

inter alia, claims for punitive damages by Jonathan C. Horsley;

and damages for loss of parental society by their minor son and

loss of spousal society by Elizabeth Horsley. The district court

entered summary judgment for Mobil on all three claims.1

1Jurisdiction over this interlocutory admiralty appeal is
based on 28 U.S.C. 1292 (a)(3). See Martha's Vineyard Scuba

Headquarters, Inc. v. Unidentified, Wrecked, and Abandoned Steam

Vessel, 833 F.2d 1059, 1064 (1st Cir. 1987).

2

II

DISCUSSION

The Supreme Court has decided that damages for loss of

society are not cognizable in a general maritime action for the

wrongful death of a seaman, because "[i]t would be inconsistent

with [the Supreme Court's] place in the constitutional scheme

were we to sanction more expansive remedies in a judicially-

created cause of action in which liability is without fault than

Congress has allowed in cases of death resulting from negli-

gence." Miles, 498 U.S. at 33. The Court reasoned that the

remedial limitations imposed by Congress in admiralty actions

predicated on negligence likewise restrict an admiralty court's

power to fashion damages remedies in actions under the general

maritime law, such as the present unseaworthiness claim against a

vessel where liability may be imposed without establishing fault.

See Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 94-95 (1946)

(noting unseaworthiness "is essentially a species of liability

without fault"). Thus, the admiralty court's remedial autonomy

is "both direct[ed] and delimit[ed]" by federal statute, Miles,

498 U.S. at 27, insofar as Congress has spoken directly to the

point in issue, id. at 31, citing Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higgin-

botham, 436 U.S. 618, 625 (1978).

Two statutes are directly relevant to general maritime

claims based on fatal injury: the Death on the High Seas Act

(DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. 761, et seq., and the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.

688, both enacted in 1920. DOHSA makes specific provision only

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for the recovery of damages for pecuniary loss. See 46 U.S.C.

762 ("The recovery . . . shall be a fair and just compensation

for the pecuniary loss sustained by the persons for whose benefit

the suit is brought . . . ."). Notwithstanding that the fatal

injury at issue in Miles did not take place on the high seas, the

Supreme Court considered DOHSA indicative of congressional intent

in cases involving fatal injuries to seamen in territorial waters

as well. Miles, 498 U.S. at 31.

Since the Jones Act does afford a right of action to

dependents of seamen fatally injured in territorial waters, it

formed the principal focus of inquiry in Miles. The Jones Act

simply incorporated by reference the remedial scheme established

twelve years earlier under the Federal Employee Liability Act

(FELA), 46 U.S.C. 688. FELA, the progenitor of all federal

liability schemes, simultaneously afforded a uniform cause of

action for railroad workers and dispensed with traditional

master-and-servant defenses. See generally Rogers v. Missouri

Pac. R. Co., 352 U.S. 500 (1957). FELA's language is unhelpful

on its face, however, as it simply provides for "damages,"

without further elaboration. 45 U.S.C. 51.

This seeming dead-end is averted, nevertheless, by

Congress's adoption and incorporation, in the Jones Act, of the

remedial scheme previously established under FELA. The courts

may assume that Congress, at the time it enacted the Jones Act,

was cognizant of the decisional law developed under FELA during

the twelve-year interim between the enactment of the two stat-

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utes. Miles, 498 U.S. at 32; see generally Cannon v. University

of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 696-97 (1979) ("It is always appropri-

ate to assume that our elected representatives, like other

citizens, know the law . . . .").

The Miles Court relied extensively on just such a

decision, see Michigan Cent. R. Co. v. Vreeland, 227 U.S. 59

(1913), which revealed yet another evolutionary layer in the

development of wrongful death statutes:

In [Vreeland] the Court explained that

the language of the FELA wrongful death pro-
vision is essentially identical to that of
Lord Campbell's Act, 9 & 10 Vict. ch. 93
(1846), the first wrongful death statute.
Lord Campbell's Act also did not limit ex-

plicitly the "damages" to be recovered, but
that Act and the many state statutes that
followed it consistently had been interpreted

as providing recovery only for pecuniary

loss.

Miles, 498 U.S. at 32 (emphasis added), citing Vreeland, 227 U.S.

at 69-71. Finally, the Miles Court retraced the development of

wrongful death statutes into the Twentieth Century and the

meaning of the unelaborated FELA term "damages" became clear:

When Congress passed the Jones Act, the
Vreeland gloss on FELA, and the hoary tradi-

tion behind it, were well established. In-
corporating FELA unaltered into the Jones
Act, Congress must have intended to incorpo-
rate the pecuniary limitation on damages as
well. We assume that Congress is aware of
existing law when it passes legislation.
There is no recovery for loss of society in a
Jones Act wrongful death action.

Id.

Uniformity provided the companion rationale for the

Miles decision. See Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398

5

U.S. 375, 402 (1970) ("admiralty law should be 'a system of law

coextensive with, and operating uniformly in, the whole

country.'" (quoting The Lottawanna, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 558, 575

(1875))). As noted, damages awarded under DOHSA are restricted

to pecuniary loss. Miles cautions that the traditional gap-

filling function of the admiralty court is to be exercised only

in furtherance of the presumed congressional objective of unifor-

mity:

We no longer live in an era when seamen and
their loved ones must look primarily to the
courts as a source of substantive legal pro-
tection from injury and death; Congress and
the States have legislated extensively in
these areas. In this era, an admiralty court
should look primarily to these legislative
enactments for policy guidance. We may sup-

plement these statutory remedies where doing

so would achieve the uniform vindication of

such policies consistent with our constitu-

tional mandate, but we must also keep strict-

ly within the limits imposed by Congress.

Miles, 498 U.S. at 27 (emphasis added). Thus, Miles "restore[d]

a uniform rule applicable to all actions for the wrongful death

of a seaman, whether under DOHSA, the Jones Act, or the general

maritime law[,]" by limiting damages in wrongful death actions to

the amount of pecuniary loss. Miles, 498 U.S. at 33.

A. Damages in Nonfatal-Injury Cases

The district court relied primarily on Murray v.

Anthony J. Bertucci Constr. Co., 958 F.2d 127 (5th Cir.), cert.

denied, 113 S. Ct. 190 (1992), in holding that Miles precludes

punitive damages and damages for loss of society under the Jones

Act. See also Smith v. Trinidad Corp., 992 F.2d 996 (9th Cir.

6

1993) (adopting Murray reasoning) (per curiam); and Lollie v.

Brown Marine Serv., Inc., 995 F.2d 1565 (11th Cir. 1993) (same).

For the reasons discussed below, we agree.

Under the analysis obligated by Miles, we inquire

whether Congress has preempted all interpretive discretion on the

part of the admiralty court as the traditional protector and

benefactor of its wards in extending damages relief for non-

pecuniary loss in the present context. At the outset, we note

distinctions pertinent to our inquiry. First, since DOHSA is

inapplicable to nonfatal injuries sustained by a seaman aboard a

vessel operating in territorial waters, it has no direct bearing

on the damages remedies presently at issue. Accordingly, whatev-

er direct analogic bearing DOHSA had in Miles is diminished in

the present context. Second, as concerns the Jones Act, Vreeland

is inapposite to the availability of damages for nonpecuniary

loss in cases involving nonfatal injuries.2 The Miles methodolo-

2At a time when wrongful death statutes were very much the
exception, the Vreeland Court explicitly distanced its analysis

from that involved in nonfatal injury cases:

This [wrongful death] cause of action is
independent of any cause of action the dece-
dent had, and includes no damages which he
might have recovered for his injury if he had
survived. It is one beyond that which the
decedent had one proceeding on all togeth-

er different principles.

Vreeland, 227 U.S. at 68 (emphasis added). These "all together

different principles," of course, derived from Lord Campbell's
Act, the first wrongful death statute: "It is a liability for
the loss and damage sustained by relatives dependent upon the
decedent. It is therefore a liability for the pecuniary damage
resulting to them, and for that only." Id. In sum, the evidence

directly adduced by the Miles Court is not particularly probative

7

gy takes us beyond Vreeland, however.

In Igneri v. Cie. de Transports Oceaniques, 323 F.2d

257 (2d Cir. 1963), the Second Circuit inquired into the avail-

ability of damages for loss of society under the Jones Act and

concluded as follows:

The failure of the Jones Act to confer . . .
a right [to loss of society/consortium
damages] on the spouse of a seaman cannot be
dismissed as an inadvertence. The policy of
the Federal Employees Liability Act, the
regime which the Jones Act made applicable to
seamen, was that the new remedy for the
employee was to be exclusive and that claims
of relatives recognized by state law were to
be abrogated; the FELA had been thus authori-

tatively construed before the Jones Act was

passed.

Igneri, 323 F.2d at 266 (emphasis added), citing New York Cent. &

H. R.R. v. Tonsellito, 244 U.S. 360 (1917) (FELA precludes claim

brought by father for "loss of services" of minor son injured in

course of employment with railroad). Finally, the thrust of the

Supreme Court's holding in Tonsellito is that FELA affords a

remedy to injured workers and only to workers, not to their

relatives: "Congress having declared when, how far, and to whom

carriers shall be liable on account of accidents in the specified

class, such liability can neither be extended nor abridged

. . . ." New York Cent. & H. R.R., 244 U.S. 360, 362 (1917); see

also New York Cent. R.R. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 147 (1917); Erie

R.R. v. Winfield, 244 U.S. 170 (1917). Thus, the Tonsellito

rationale ineluctably precludes the present claims for damages

beyond the discrete confines of wrongful death actions.

8

for loss of parental and spousal society.3

Similarly, compelling evidence precludes Jonathan

Horsley's claim for punitive damages. "It has been the unanimous

judgment of the courts since before the enactment of the Jones

Act that punitive damages are not recoverable under" FELA.

Miller v. American President Lines, Ltd., 989 F.2d 1450, 1457

(6th Cir. 1993) (emphasis added), citing Kozar v. Chesapeake & O.

R. Co., 449 F.2d 1238, 1240-43 (6th Cir. 1971) (citing cases).

Once again, therefore, since the Supreme Court's authoritative

interpretation of FELA antedated enactment of the Jones Act,

Miles mandates the conclusion that punitive damages are not

available in an unseaworthiness action under general maritime

law.

III

CONCLUSION

Under the analysis prescribed in Miles v. Apex Marine

Corp., 498 U.S. 19 (1990), an admiralty court may not extend the

remedies available in an unseaworthiness action under the general

maritime law to include punitive damages or damages for loss of

parental or spousal society. Accordingly, the district court

3No court of appeals recognizes a claim for loss of parental
society under general maritime law. Murray, 958 F.2d at 132 n.3,

citing De Loach v. Companhia de Navegacao Lloyd Brasileiro, 782

F.2d 438 (3d Cir. 1986); and Madore v. Ingram Tank Ships, Inc.,

732 F.2d 475 (5th Cir. 1984)). Moreover, the cognizability of
such claims in a minority of the states, Prosser & Keeton, Torts

125 (5th ed. 1984), would provide no basis under Miles for

recognizing such a remedy in an action for unseaworthiness
closely akin to a strict liability claim where it is not even
widely available in nonadmiralty actions.

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judgment must be affirmed.

Affirmed. The parties shall bear their own costs.

SO ORDERED.

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