Genre: Legal

Article III of the United States Constitution extends federal judicial power to all cases arising under admiralty and maritime jurisdiction . The Death on the High Seas Act ( DOHSA ) in turn provides the exclusive , albeit monetarily limited , maritime remedy for wrongful deaths that take place on the " high seas beyond 3 nautical miles from the shore of the United States . " In Helman v. Alcoa Global Fasteners , Inc. , the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered , as a matter of first impression , whether DOHSA applied to , and thus preempted other available claims arising from , a fatal helicopter accident that occurred approximately nine and a half nautical miles off the California coastline . Finding little interpretive significance in the term " high seas , " the Ninth Circuit held that DOHSA becomes unconditionally operative seaward of three nautical miles from U.S. shores . . .