Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 164

524US1

Unit: $U78

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 116 (1998)

119

Opinion of the Court

App. § 761 et seq., provides the exclusive source of recover-
able damages. DOHSA provides, in relevant part:

“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 repre-
sentative of the decedent may maintain a suit for dam-
ages in the district courts of the United States, in admi-
ralty, for the exclusive beneﬁt of the decedent’s wife,
husband, parent, child, or dependent relative .
.”
§ 761.

.

.

“The recovery in such suit shall be a fair and just com-
pensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the per-
§ 762.
sons for whose beneﬁt the suit is brought . . . .”

in a case of death on the high seas,
KAL argued that,
DOHSA provides the exclusive cause of action and does not
permit damages for loss of society, survivors’ grief, and dece-
dents’ pre-death pain and suffering. The District Court for
the District of Columbia disagreed, holding that because
petitioners’ claims were brought pursuant to the Warsaw
Convention, DOHSA could not limit the recoverable dam-
ages. The court determined that Article 17 of the Warsaw
Convention “allows for the recovery of all ‘damages sus-
tained,’ ” meaning any “actual harm” that any party “experi-
enced” as a result of the crash. App. 59.

While petitioners’ cases were awaiting damages trials, we
reached a different conclusion in Zicherman v. Korean Air
Lines Co., 516 U. S. 217 (1996), another case arising out of
the downing of Flight KE007.
In Zicherman, we held that
the Warsaw Convention “permit[s] compensation only for le-
gally 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,” and that where “an