Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 167

524US1

Unit: $U78

[09-06-00 18:35:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

122

DOOLEY v. KOREAN AIR LINES CO.

Opinion of the Court

child, or dependent relative,” ibid. The Act limits recovery
in such a suit to “a fair and just compensation for the pecuni-
ary loss sustained by the persons for whose beneﬁt the suit
is sought.”
§ 762. DOHSA also includes a limited survival
provision: In situations in which a person injured on the high
seas sues for his injuries and then dies prior to completion
of the suit, “the personal representative of the decedent may
be substituted as a party and the suit may proceed as a suit
under this chapter for the recovery of the compensation
provided in section 762.”
§ 765. Other sections establish a
limitations period, § 763a, govern actions under foreign law,
§ 764, bar contributory negligence as a complete defense,
§ 766, exempt the Great Lakes, navigable waters in the Pan-
ama Canal Zone, and state territorial waters from the Act’s
coverage, § 767, and preserve certain state-law remedies and
state-court jurisdiction, ibid. DOHSA does not authorize
recovery for the decedent’s own losses, nor does it allow
damages for nonpecuniary losses.

In Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U. S. 618 (1978),
we considered whether, in a case of death on the high seas,
a decedent’s survivors could recover damages under general
maritime law for their loss of society. We held that they
could not, and thus limited to territorial waters those cases
in which we had permitted loss of society damages under
Id., at 622–624; see n. 1, supra. For
general maritime law.
deaths on the high seas, DOHSA “announces Congress’
considered judgment on such issues as the beneﬁciaries, the
limitations period, contributory negligence, survival, and
damages.”
436 U. S., at 625. We thus noted that while
we could “ﬁl[l] a gap left by Congress’ silence,” we were
not free to “rewrit[e] rules that Congress has afﬁrmatively
Ibid. Because “Congress ha[d]
and speciﬁcally enacted.”
struck the balance for us” in DOHSA by limiting the avail-
able recovery to pecuniary losses suffered by surviving rela-
tives, id., at 623, we had “no authority to substitute our
views for those expressed by Congress,” id., at 626. Hig-