Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05278/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05278-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 6, 1997 Decided July 11, 1997 

No. 96-5278

IN RE: KOREAN AIR LINES DISASTER OF SEPTEMBER 1, 1983

PHILOMENA DOOLEY, ET AL. V. KOREAN AIR LINES CO., LTD.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(83ms00345)

Juanita M. Madole argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellants.

Andrew J. Harakas argued the cause for appellee. With 

him on the brief was George N. Tompkins, Jr.

Before: WALD and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges, and BUCKLEY, 

Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: On September 1, 1983, while 

Korean Air Lines flight KE007 was en route from New York 

City to Seoul, South Korea, via Anchorage, Alaska, a Soviet 

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military aircraft shot down the airliner over the Sea of Japan, 

killing all 269 people on board. We have recounted details of 

the tragedy elsewhere. See In re Korean Air Lines Disaster 

of Sept. 1, 1983, 932 F.2d 1475, 1476-79 (D.C. Cir. 1991).

In the ensuing litigation, a joint liability trial on the claims 

of 137 plaintiffs took place in the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia. A jury found that Korean Air 

Lines had committed "willful misconduct," thus removing the 

Warsaw Convention's limitations on liability. This court affirmed. Korean Air Lines Disaster, 932 F.2d at 1479-84. 

(We did, however, vacate an award of punitive damages. Id.

at 1484-90.) The actions were then remanded to the courts 

in which they had originated for individual proceedings on 

compensatory damages. This case comes to us as an interlocutory appeal, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), in five damages actions that have not yet gone to trial.

Early in the damages phase of the litigation, the district 

court rejected Korean Air Lines's argument that the Death 

on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. App. § 761 et seq., restricted 

the damages plaintiffs could recover. As discussed later, the 

Act permits only certain surviving relatives to recover "pecuniary" losses. The district court believed another law

Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention (see Convention for the 

Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, Oct. 12, 1929, art. 17, 49 Stat. 3000, 3018)

"allows for the recovery of all 'damages sustained,' " meaning 

any "actual harm" any party "experienced" as a result of the 

crash. Thereafter, the Supreme Court reached a different 

conclusion: the Warsaw Convention, rather than providing a 

measure of damages, "permit[s] compensation only for legally 

cognizable harm, but leave[s] the specification of what harm is 

legally cognizable to the domestic law applicable under the 

forum's choice-of-law rules." Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines 

Co., 116 S. Ct. 629, 637 (1996).

After the Zicherman decision, Korean Air Lines moved in 

the district court to dismiss all claims for nonpecuniary 

damages, including damages for loss of society and mental 

grief, and damages for the decedents' pre-death pain and 

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1

Section 761 states in full:

Whenever the death of a person shall be caused by wrongful 

act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas beyond a 

marine league from the shore of any State, or the District of 

Columbia, or the Territories or dependencies of the United 

States, the personal representative of the decedent may maintain a suit for damages in the district courts of the United 

States, in admiralty, for the exclusive benefit of the decedent's 

wife, husband, parent, child, or dependent relative against the 

suffering. Because Zicherman directed lower courts to look 

to some source of domestic law in a Warsaw Convention case, 

the district court began with a choice-of-law analysis and 

concluded that United States law governed these suits. In re 

Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1, 1983, 935 F. Supp. 10, 

12-14 (D.D.C. 1996). No party has challenged that determination. The court then ruled that the Death on the High 

Seas Act provided the applicable U.S. law, id. at 14, and that 

the Act did not permit the recovery of nonpecuniary damages, 

id. at 14-15.

Plaintiffs detect two faults in the district court's reasoning. 

While they concede that the Death on the High Seas Act 

itself provides no right to recover damages for a decedent's 

pre-death pain and suffering, they believe the "general maritime law" recognizes such a cause of action. They also 

interpret a provision of the Death on the High Seas Act as 

allowing them to proceed under South Korean law despite the 

district court's undisputed choice-of-law finding that U.S. law 

applies. The law of South Korea, they say, permits them to 

recover damages for pre-death pain and suffering and for the 

mental grief of surviving relatives.

I

The first section of the Death on the High Seas Act allows 

the personal representative of any person who dies as the 

result of a "wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the 

high seas," to sue "for the exclusive benefit of the decedent's 

wife, husband, parent, child, or dependent relative." 46 

U.S.C. App. § 761.1 The next section limits recovery to "a 

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vessel, person, or corporation which would have been liable if 

death had not ensued.

2 Section 762 provides:

The recovery in such suit shall be a fair and just compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the persons for whose 

benefit the suit is brought and shall be apportioned among 

them by the court in proportion to the loss they may severally 

have suffered by reason of the death of the person by whose 

representative the suit is brought.

3 Courts often point to pain and suffering as an example of a 

nonpecuniary loss. See, e.g., Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, 499 

U.S. 530, 544 n.10 (1991); Scarfo v. Cabletron Sys., Inc., 54 F.3d 

931, 939 (1st Cir. 1995); Korean Air Lines Disaster, 932 F.2d at 

fair and just compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by 

the persons for whose benefit the suit is brought." Id.

§ 762.2 Other sections establish a limitations period, id.

§ 763a, govern actions under foreign law, id. § 764, permit a 

personal injury suit to continue under the Act if the plaintiff 

dies while the action is pending, id. § 765, bar contributory 

negligence as a complete defense, id. § 766, exempt the Great 

Lakes and state territorial waters from the Act's coverage, id.

§ 767, and preserve certain state law remedies and state 

court jurisdiction, id.; see also Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. 

Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 220-33 (1986).

That the Death on the High Seas Act does not permit 

recovery for a decedent's pre-death pain and suffering is clear 

enough. The Act provides a remedy only for injuries suffered by a limited class of surviving relatives, not the decedent. It is, after all, a "wrongful death" statute, giving 

survivors a right of action for losses they suffered as a result 

of the decedent's death, not a "survival" statute, allowing a 

decedent's estate to recover for injuries suffered by the 

decedent. See Nelson v. American Nat'l Red Cross, 26 F.3d 

193, 199 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Calhoun v. Yamaha Motor Corp., 

U.S.A., 40 F.3d 622, 637 (3d Cir. 1994), aff'd, 116 S. Ct. 619 

(1996); McInnis v. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co., 21 

F.3d 586, 589 (4th Cir. 1994). Pain and suffering is, in any 

event, nonpecuniary.3 On the other hand, § 762 of the Act 

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permits only the recovery of "compensation for ... pecuniary 

loss sustained."

Plaintiffs do not quarrel with any of this. But, they say, 

the Death on the High Seas Act is not the only pertinent 

source of U.S. law. As they see it, "general maritime law"a 

species of federal common lawalso applies and it allows a 

survival action for pre-death pain and suffering independent 

of any action under the Death on the High Seas Act.

The Supreme Court identified a wrongful death cause of 

action under the general maritime law in Moragne v. States 

Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375 (1970). The death in 

Moragne occurred in waters within the state of Florida, id. at 

376, so the Death on the High Seas Act did not apply. The 

Court held that general maritime law nevertheless provided 

the decedent's widow with a remedy for wrongful death 

caused by a violation of federal maritime duties. Id. at 409. 

In Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573, 585-90 

(1974), in which the death occurred in Louisiana waters, the 

____________

1487. It is therefore strange to find several cases under the Jones 

Act, 46 U.S.C. App. § 688, describing damages for pre-death pain 

and suffering as pecuniary. See, e.g., Furka v. Great Lakes Dredge 

& Dock Co., 755 F.2d 1085, 1090 n.7 (4th Cir. 1985); Neal v. 

Barisich, Inc., 707 F. Supp. 862, 867 (E.D.La.), aff'd, 889 F.2d 273 

(5th Cir. 1989). The Jones Act applies the Federal Employers' 

Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. ("FELA"), to seamen. While 

FELA and the Jones Act permit only pecuniary wrongful death 

damages, see Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 32 (1990); 

Michigan Cent. R.R. v. Vreeland, 227 U.S. 59, 68-71 (1913), FELA 

contains a survival provision (45 U.S.C. § 59) allowing recovery of 

damages for pre-death pain and suffering, see St. Louis, Iron 

Mountain & Southern Ry. v. Craft, 237 U.S. 648, 658 (1915). 

Rather than mislabeling pain and suffering as a pecuniary loss in 

Jones Act cases, it would be more accurate to recognize that under 

FELA and the Jones Act only wrongful death damages, not survival 

damages, need be pecuniary. See Cook v. Ross Island Sand &

Gravel Co., 626 F.2d 746, 748-49 (9th Cir. 1980). 

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Court held that recovery in a Moragne wrongful death action 

is not limited to pecuniary damages, as it is in actions under 

the Death on the High Seas Act. (Although the Court 

permitted nonpecuniary damages for loss of society in Gaudet, it said that "mental anguish or grief ... is not compensable under the maritime wrongful-death remedy," 414 U.S. at 

585 n.17.) A few years after Gaudet, the Court held that if a 

death occurs on the high seas, the Death on the High Seas 

Act, not general maritime law, governs and therefore nonpecuniary wrongful death damages may not be recovered. Mobil Oil Co. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 622-26 (1978).

The Supreme Court has declined to say whether the reasoning of Moragne may be extended to permit a survival 

cause of action under the general maritime law. See Yamaha 

Motor Corp., U.S.A. v. Calhoun, 116 S. Ct. 619, 625 n.7 (1996); 

Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 34 (1990). We have 

never addressed the issue. Other courts of appeals have and 

a majority of them recognize survival actions. See, e.g., 

Barbe v. Drummond, 507 F.2d 794, 799-800 (1st Cir. 1974);

Wahlstrom v. Kawasaki Heavy Indus., Ltd., 4 F.3d 1084, 

1093 (2d Cir. 1993); Ward v. Union Barge Line Corp., 443 

F.2d 565, 569 (3d Cir. 1971), overruled in part on other 

grounds by Cox v. Dravo Corp., 517 F.2d 620 (3d Cir. 1975) 

(en banc); Greene v. Vantage S.S. Corp., 466 F.2d 159, 166 

(4th Cir. 1972); Miles v. Melrose, 882 F.2d 976, 986 (5th Cir. 

1989), aff'd sub nom. Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19 

(1990); Spiller v. Thomas M. Lowe, Jr., & Assocs., Inc, 466 

F.2d 903, 909 (8th Cir. 1972); Evich v. Connelly, 759 F.2d 

1432, 1434 (9th Cir. 1985); Self v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock 

Co., 832 F.2d 1540, 1549 (11th Cir. 1987).

Three courts of appeals have dealt with the availability of a 

general maritime law survival action for deaths on the high 

seas. The First and Fifth Circuits have permitted general 

maritime law survival actions in cases in which the Death on 

the High Seas Act also applies. See Azzopardi v. Ocean

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4 Like the general maritime law, state wrongful death statutes 

may not be used to supplement Death on the High Seas Act 

remedies with nonpecuniary damages. Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 232. 

And although the Supreme Court has held that state survival and 

wrongful death statutes apply to at least some deaths occurring in 

territorial waters, Yamaha, 116 S. Ct. at 626-29, it has not said 

whether state survival statutes can apply to deaths on the high seas, 

see Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 215 n.1. A few lower courts have allowed 

recovery under a state survival statute to supplement recovery 

under the Death on the High Seas Act. See, e.g., Solomon v. 

Warren, 540 F.2d 777, 792 n.20 (5th Cir. 1976); Dugas v. National 

Aircraft Corp., 438 F.2d 1386, 1388-92 (3d Cir. 1971). 

Drilling & Exploration Co., 742 F.2d 890, 893-94 (5th Cir. 

1984); Barbe, 507 F.2d at 799-800. The Ninth Circuit 

reached the opposite conclusion. See Saavedra v. Korean Air 

Lines Co., 93 F.3d 547, 553-54 (9th Cir. 1996).4 We believe 

the Ninth Circuit got it right.

Assume general maritime law provides a survival action in 

some cases (we do not decide whether it does). Still, the 

effect of the Supreme Court's decision in Higginbotham must 

be evaluated. Nonpecuniary damages may be recovered 

under general maritime law, but not, the Court held, when 

the death is on the high seas. Then the Death on the High 

Seas Act controls and the judiciary may not evaluate the 

policy arguments in favor of, or against, allowing nonpecuniary damages. "Congress has struck the balance for us. It 

has limited survivors to recovery of their pecuniary losses." 

Higginbotham, 436 U.S. at 623. "The Death on the High 

Seas Act ... announces Congress' considered judgment on 

such issues as the beneficiaries, the limitations period, contributory negligence, survival, and damages." Id. at 625. 

Moragne developed general maritime law in a space Congress 

had not occupied. But "[t]here is a basic difference between 

filling a gap left by Congress' silence and rewriting rules that 

Congress has affirmatively and specifically enacted. In the 

area covered by the statute, it would be no more appropriate 

to prescribe a different measure of damages than to prescribe 

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a different statute of limitations, or a different class of 

beneficiaries." Id.

Higginbotham thus instructs the lower federal courts not 

to extend the general maritime law to areas in which Congress has already legislated. For deaths on the high seas, 

Congress decided who may sue and for what. Judge-made 

general maritime law may not override such congressional 

judgments, however ancient those judgments may happen to 

be. Congress made the law and it is up to Congress to 

change it.

At almost the same time as the Sixty-Sixth Congress 

passed the Death on the High Seas Act, it enacted the Jones 

Act, 46 U.S.C. App. § 688. See Death on the High Seas Act, 

ch. 111, 41 Stat. 537 (1920); Merchant Marine (Jones) Act, ch. 

250, § 33, 41 Stat. 988, 1007 (1920). The Jones Act contains a 

survival provision applicable to certain maritime deaths. See 

supra note 3. A fair assumption is that the members of 

Congress who passed the Death on the High Seas Act 

understood the difference between wrongful death and survival actions. Their inclusion of a survival remedy in the Jones 

Act but not in the Death on the High Seas Act scarcely seems 

inadvertent.

Higginbotham stated that the Death on the High Seas Act 

expressed a congressional "judgment on such issues as ... 

survival, and damages." 436 U.S. at 625. In support, the 

Court cross-referenced a footnote citing 46 U.S.C. App. 

§ 765, a provision allowing a personal injury suit, initiated by 

a plaintiff who dies while the suit is pending, to be continued 

under the Act. A law professor has criticized the Court's 

statement as "casual," or "at best dictum and conceivably 

nothing more than an ill-advised gratuitous remark." Joseph 

F. Smith, Jr., A Maritime Law Survival Remedy: Is There 

Life After Higginbotham?, 6 MAR. LAW. 185, 196, 198 (1981). 

Dictum yes, ill-advised no. That the Death on the High Seas 

Act contains only a very limited survival provision is no 

reason for treating the Act as something other than an 

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5 One of the drafters of the Death on the High Seas Act 

explained the Act's unusual, limited survival provision. The Act 

originally required suits to be filed "within two years from the date 

of [the] wrongful act, neglect, or default." Ch. 111, § 3, 41 Stat. 

537. The survival provision of § 765 preserved for defendants the 

benefits of the Act's restricted limitations period without creating 

an undue barrier for wrongful death actions in cases in which the 

death did not occur soon after the event causing the injury. In 

such cases, a suit filed within two years while the decedent was still 

alive would preserve the action. See Robert M. Hughes, Death 

Actions in Admiralty, 31 YALE L.J. 115, 126 (1921). 

expression of legislative judgment on the extent to which 

survival actions are to be permitted. When Congress decides 

to go only so far it necessarily has decided to go no further.5

While the contours of plaintiffs' proposed survival action for 

deaths on the high seas are uncertain, they presumably would 

allow a decedent's estate to recover compensation for the 

decedent's injuries. This would necessarily expand the class 

of beneficiaries in the Death on the High Seas Act, which 

does not include decedents' estates. Yet Higginbotham held 

that "it would be no more appropriate to prescribe a different 

measure of damages than to prescribe ... a different class of 

beneficiaries." 436 U.S. at 625. It was, to the Court, unthinkable that a legislatively-mandated class of beneficiaries 

could be judicially altered. Suits under the Act are "for the 

exclusive benefit of the decedent's wife, husband, parent, 

child, or dependent relative." 46 U.S.C. App. § 761 (emphasis added). In a death on the high seas case, there is no 

relevant difference between a court's giving a decedent's nondependent niece a right of action under general maritime law, 

which is clearly impermissible, and allowing the decedent's 

estate to sue for the decedent's injuries under the general 

maritime law.

Perhaps plaintiffs envisage a survival action that would not 

alter the Death on the High Seas Act's beneficiary class. 

One might permit a decedent's personal representative to sue 

for damages suffered by the decedent, but only for the benefit 

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6 Under 45 U.S.C. § 59:

Any right of action given by this chapter to a person 

suffering injury shall survive to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and 

children of such employee, and, if none, then of such employee's 

parents; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon 

such employee....

al representative the right to recover survival damages for 

the benefit of a fixed class of surviving relatives. See 45 

U.S.C. § 59; 46 U.S.C. App. § 688.6 Such an approach could 

leave the Death on the High Seas Act's beneficiary class 

intact. But it would change the damages available to the 

Act's beneficiaries. No longer would damages be limited to 

"compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the persons for whose benefit the suit is brought," 46 U.S.C. App. 

§ 762. The beneficiaries would also receive compensation for 

nonpecuniary losses sustained by otherstheir decedents. 

That result Higginbotham forecloses.

Because the Death on the High Seas Act is a "wrongful 

death" statute, plaintiffs insist it has no bearing on survival 

remedies. They have missed the point. That the Act provides remedies only to certain surviving relatives for their 

losses and provides no compensation for the decedent's own 

losses is the very reason why courts may not create a survival 

remedy. The Act explicitly limits beneficiaries to a particular 

group of surviving relatives, and it explicitly limits the recoverable damages to pecuniary losses suffered by the members 

of that group. These are the limits of recovery and a court 

may neither expand nor contract them. Calling the Act a 

wrongful death statute does nothing more than describe the 

manner in which Congress restricted the beneficiary class 

and the recoverable damages. It does not deprive those 

restrictions of their significance.

Plaintiffs also offer comparisons to the Jones Act, emphasizing that general maritime law remedies exist alongside 

Jones Act statutory remedies. The Jones Act provides compensation to seamen injured as a result of negligence, and in 

the event of death it provides both a wrongful death and a 

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survival action. See 46 U.S.C. App. § 688; 45 U.S.C. §§ 51, 

59. In Miles, the Supreme Court held that after Moragne a 

seaman's survivors could pursue a general maritime law 

wrongful death action alleging unseaworthiness (a strict liability theory), in addition to a Jones Act negligence claim. 

Miles, 498 U.S. at 29-30. Plaintiffs may have identified an 

inconsistency in how the Court treats the Jones Act and how 

it treats the Death on High Seas Act. But this case involves 

the Death on the High Seas Act, and we therefore are bound 

to follow Higginbotham. Moreover, Miles severely restricted 

the extent to which the general maritime law may expand the 

remedies available under the Jones Act. Relying on 

Higginbotham, the Court refused to allow the decedent's 

survivors to recover nonpecuniary wrongful death damages 

under the general maritime law because they could not 

recover such damages under the Jones Act. Miles, 498 U.S. 

at 30-33. So while the general maritime law permits recovery for violations of duties other than those imposed by the 

Jones Act, such recovery may not exceed the recovery that 

would be available under the Jones Act if it applied. It is 

thus uncertain how much mileage plaintiffs could get out of 

their Jones Act analogy even if we disregarded the Court's 

pronouncements in Higginbotham.

II

Plaintiffs invoke South Korean law on the basis of this 

provision of the Death on the High Seas Act:

Whenever a right of action is granted by the law of 

any foreign State on account of death by wrongful act, 

neglect, or default occurring upon the high seas, such 

right may be maintained in an appropriate action in 

admiralty in the courts of the United States without 

abatement in respect to the amount for which recovery is 

authorized, any statute of the United States to the 

contrary notwithstanding.

46 U.S.C. App. § 764. As plaintiffs read § 764, it allows 

them to use an action under the Death on the High Seas Act 

to assert claims cognizable under foreign law. They have 

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submitted the statement of a South Korean attorney that 

South Korean law would allow the recovery of damages for 

the decedents' pre-death pain and suffering and for the 

surviving relatives' mental anguish. The district court rejected the plaintiffs' submission as "irrelevant" in light of its 

determination that U.S. law applied. Korean Air Lines 

Disaster, 935 F. Supp. at 14 n.2.

The case law regarding § 764 is not uniform. Some opinions seem to support plaintiffs' view of § 764. See Heath v. 

American Sail Training Ass'n, 644 F. Supp. 1459, 1467 

(D.R.I. 1986); Noel v. Linea Aeropostal Venezolana, 260 

F. Supp. 1002, 1004-06 (S.D.N.Y. 1966); Fernandez v. Linea 

Aeropostal Venezolana, 156 F. Supp. 94, 96 (S.D.N.Y. 1957);

Iafrate v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 106 F. Supp. 

619, 622 (S.D.N.Y. 1952). Other opinions support the view 

that § 761 and § 764 are mutually exclusive and that plaintiffs therefore may not simultaneously advance claims under 

both U.S. and foreign law. See In re Air Crash Disaster 

Near Bombay, India on Jan. 1, 1978, 531 F. Supp. 1175, 

1185-88 (W.D.Wash. 1982); Bergeron v. Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, N.V., 188 F. Supp. 594, 596-97 (S.D.N.Y. 

1960), appeal dismissed, 299 F.2d 78 (2d Cir. 1962); The 

Vulcania, 41 F. Supp. 849 (S.D.N.Y. 1941), modifying 32 

F. Supp. 815 (S.D.N.Y. 1940); The Vestris, 53 F.2d 847, 855-

56 (S.D.N.Y. 1931).

If plaintiffs were correct, § 764 would license them to pick 

and choose among provisions of U.S. and South Korean law in 

order to assemble the most favorable package of rights 

against the defendant. That would be odd enough. But 

stranger still is the notion that South Korean law has any 

bearing on this case. Faced with Zicherman 's directive to 

make a choice-of-law determination, 116 S. Ct. at 637, the 

district court chose U.S. law, not South Korean law. Plaintiffs have not appealed this ruling. So how does South 

Korean law enter the picture? True, § 764 permits suits 

under foreign law when "a right of action is granted by the 

law of any foreign State." Since U.S. law, not South Korean 

law (or French law or Brazilian law), applies to this case, we 

are at a loss to understand how "a right of action is granted 

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7 Under Rev. Stat. § 4283 (1878) (current version at 46 U.S.C. 

App. § 183), when a loss or injury occurred "without the privity, or 

knowledge" of a vessel owner, the owner could limit its liability to 

the value of its interest in the vessel and "her freight then pending." 

by the law of " South Korea or any other foreign country. If 

South Korean law does not apply to a suit, it can hardly grant 

rights to the parties. Once the choice-of-law determination is 

in favor of U.S. law, only U.S. law can grant plaintiffs any 

sort of right of action.

It is fair to ask what function § 764 serves if not the one 

plaintiffs imagine. If, as we have decided, § 764 cannot be 

used to inject foreign law into a case controlled by U.S. law, 

one might suppose it has no purpose. When foreign law 

governs a case, the court would not consider the various 

provisions of the Death on the High Seas Act. But § 764 is 

not without significance.

The provision originated as an amendment recommended 

by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee's 

report took the position (no longer current) that Congress 

had no power to create a right of action allowing the recovery 

of damages against foreigners or foreign vessels for deaths 

occurring on the high seas. S. REP. No. 66-216, at 4 (1919). 

The report also recognized that American courts permitted 

suits concerning foreign vessels to proceed under the law of 

the vessel's home country. Id. at 4-5. For example, the 

claims in La Bourgogne, 210 U.S. 95 (1908), were against a 

French vessel and its owners for deaths occurring on the high 

seas. The Supreme Court held that while U.S. law at that 

time did not recognize a wrongful death cause of action, 

wrongful death damages were available under French law in 

a proceeding in a U.S. court. Id. at 138-40. Section 764 was 

the legislative response to decisions permitting the owners of 

such foreign vessels to take advantage of U.S. statutes limiting their liability, see, e.g., Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. 

Mellor, 233 U.S. 718, 731 (1914) ("The Titanic").7 The Committee report explained § 764 this way: "[A]s the Supreme 

Court has held that the limited liability statute of the United 

States applies to foreign ships seeking such limitation of 

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liability in our courts, the committee recommends that the bill 

be amended by the insertion of [§ 764]." S. REP. No. 

66-216, at 5.

It was immediately recognized that § 764 was "superfluous" insofar as it provided that U.S. courts would hear suits 

under foreign law in cases involving foreign vessels. Hughes, 

supra, 31 YALE L.J. at 118, 122; see also Calvert Magruder & 

Marshall Grout, Wrongful Death Within the Admiralty Jurisdiction, 35 YALE L.J. 395, 423-24 (1926). As the Senate 

Committee realized, that was already the practice. The real 

force of § 764 was its barring foreign vessel owners from 

taking advantage of American limitation of liability laws.

Another function of § 764, not discussed in the legislative 

history, is to require foreign law actions for wrongful deaths 

on the high seas to be brought in admiralty, at least if the 

plaintiffs wish to prevent the defendants from limiting their 

liability. See The Silverpalm, 79 F.2d 598, 600 (9th Cir. 

1935); Bergeron, 188 F. Supp. at 597-98; Iafrate, 106 

F. Supp. at 621-22; Egan v. Donaldson Atlantic Line, Ltd.,

37 F. Supp. 909 (S.D.N.Y. 1941). But see Powers v. Cunard 

S.S. Co., 32 F.2d 720 (S.D.N.Y. 1925).

Section 764 also made it explicit that American courts 

would continue to hear these suits under foreign law. While 

the courts' authority to do so did not depend on § 764, 

without § 764 the Death on the High Seas Act would have 

been open to the judicial interpretation that it was a congressional attemptalbeit an illegitimate one in the eyes of the 

Senate Committeeto impose a new American law of wrongful death on all suits brought in U.S. courts, including those 

against foreign defendants. Some maritime statutes of the 

period explicitly applied to foreigners and their vessels. See, 

e.g., Act of Mar. 4, 1915, ch. 153, § 4, 38 Stat. 1164, 1165. 

Others, like the limitation of liability statute (which at that 

time applied to "the owner of any vessel," Rev. Stat. § 4283), 

were less clear on the point, but the courts interpreted them 

to apply to foreigners as well as Americans, see, e.g., The 

Titanic, 233 U.S. at 731. Thus, § 764 made it certain that 

the substantive provisions of the Death on the High Seas Act 

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were not to displace foreign law in those cases in which 

foreign law already applied.

We therefore find no reason for concluding that § 764 

requires the abandonment of normal choice-of-law principles, 

as plaintiffs suggest, allowing them to combine the most 

favorable elements of U.S. law, South Korean law, and perhaps also any other nation's law. Section 764 and foreign law 

play no role once a court determines that U.S. law governs an 

action.

Affirmed.

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