Source: https://openjurist.org/516/us/199
Timestamp: 2017-11-25 05:53:22
Document Index: 737545833

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1292', '§ 767', '§ 8301', '§ 1332', '§ 1333', '§ 1292', '§ 1292', '§ 1292', '§ 1292', '§ 3929', '§ 1292', '§ 688', '§ 901', '§ 688', '§ 901', '§ 1333', '§ 901', '§ 905', '§ 901', '§ 905', '§ 1292']

516 US 199 Yamaha Motor Corporation Usa v. B Calhoun | OpenJurist
516 U.S. 199 - Yamaha Motor Corporation Usa v. B Calhoun
516 US 199 Yamaha Motor Corporation Usa v. B Calhoun
516 U.S. 199
116 S.Ct. 619
133 L.Ed.2d 578
YAMAHA MOTOR CORPORATION, U.S.A., et al. , Petitioners,
Lucien B. CALHOUN, etc., et al.
Twelve-year-old Natalie Calhoun was killed in a collision in territorial waters off Puerto Rico while riding a jet ski manufactured and distributed by petitioners Yamaha. Natalie's parents, respondents Calhoun, filed this federal diversity and admiralty action for damages against Yamaha, invoking Pennsylvania's wrongful death and survival statutes. The District Court agreed with Yamaha that the federal maritime wrongful death action recognized in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339, controlled to the exclusion of state law. In its order presenting the matter for immediate interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), the District Court certified questions of law concerning the recoverability of particular items of damages under Moragne. The Third Circuit granted interlocutory review, but the panel to which the appeal was assigned did not reach the questions presented in the certified order. Instead, the panel addressed and resolved an anterior issue; it held that state remedies remain applicable in accident cases of this type and have not been displaced by the federal maritime wrongful death action recognized in Moragne.
1. Section 1292(b) provides that "[w]hen a district judge, in making . . . an order not otherwise appealable . . ., shall be of the opinion that such order involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from the order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation, he shall so state in writing in such order," and specifies that "the Court of Appeals . . . may thereupon, in its discretion, permit an appeal to be taken from such order " (emphasis added). As that text indicates, the court of appeals can exercise interlocutory jurisdiction over any question fairly included within the order certified by the district court, and is not limited to the particular questions of law therein formulated. P. 623.
(a) In The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 7 S.Ct. 140, 30 L.Ed. 358, this Court ruled that the general maritime law (a species of judge-made federal common law) did not afford a cause of action for wrongful death. Federal admiralty courts, prior to Moragne, tempered the harshness of The Harrisburg's rule by allowing recovery under state wrongful death and survival statutes in maritime accident cases. See, e.g., Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U.S. 233, 42 S.Ct. 89, 66 L.Ed. 210. Such state laws proved an adequate supplement to federal maritime law, until a series of this Court's decisions transformed the maritime doctrine of unseaworthiness into a rule making shipowners strictly liable to seamen injured by the owners' failure to supply safe ships. See, e.g., Mahnich v. Southern S.S. Co., 321 U.S. 96, 64 S.Ct. 455, 88 L.Ed. 561. By the time Moragne was decided, claims premised on unseaworthiness had become "the principal vehicle for recovery" by seamen and other maritime workers injured or killed in the course of their employment. 398 U.S., at 399, 90 S.Ct., at 1787. The disparity between the unseaworthiness doctrine's strict liability standard and negligence-based state wron gful death statutes prompted the Moragne Court, id., at 409, 90 S.Ct., at 1792, to overrule The Harrisburg and hold that an action "lie[s] under general maritime law for death caused by violation of maritime duties." Pp. 623-625.
(b) This Court rejects Yamaha's argument that Moragne's wrongful death action covers the waters, creating a uniform federal maritime remedy for all deaths occurring in state territorial waters, and ousting all state remedies previously available to supplement general maritime law. The uniformity concerns that prompted the Moragne Court to overrule The Harrisburg related to ships and the workers who serve them, and to the frequent unavailability of unseaworthiness, a distinctively maritime substantive concept, as a basis of liability under state law. See 398 U.S., at 395-396, 90 S.Ct., at 1784-1785. The concerns underlying Moragne were of a different order than those invoked by Yamaha. Notably, Yamaha seeks the contraction of remedies, not the extension of relief in light of the "humane and liberal" character of admiralty proceedings recognized in Moragne. See id., at 387, 90 S.Ct., at 1780-1781. The Moragne Court tied its petitioner's unseaworthiness plea to a federal right-of-action anchor, but left in place the negligence claim she had stated under Florida's law, and thus showed no hostility to concurrent application of state wrongful death statutes that might provide a more generous remedy. Cf. Sun Ship, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 447 U.S. 715, 724, 100 S.Ct. 2432, 2438-2439, 65 L.Ed.2d 458. No congressionally prescribed, comprehensive tort recovery regime prevents such enlargement of damages here. See Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 30-36, 111 S.Ct. 317, 324-328, 112 L.Ed.2d 275. The only relevant congressional disposition, the Death on the High Seas Act, states that "[t]he provisions of any State statute giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death shall not be affected by this chapter." 46 U.S.C.App. § 767. This statement, by its terms, simply stops DOHSA from displacing state law in territorial waters. See, e.g., Miles, supra, at 25, 111 S.Ct., at 321-322. Taking into account what Congress sought to achieve, however, the Court preserves the application of state statutes to deaths within territorial waters. Pp. 625-628.
The Calhouns, individually and in their capacities as administrators of their daughter's estate, sued Yamaha in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Invoking Pennsylvania's wrongful death and survival statutes, 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. §§ 8301-8302 (1982 and Supp.1995), the Calhouns asserted several bases for recovery (including negligence, strict liability, and breach of implied warranties), and sought damages for lost future earnings, loss of society, loss of support and services, and funeral expenses, as well as punitive damages. They grounded federal jurisdiction on both diversity of citizenship, 28 U.S.C. § 1332,1 and admiralty, 28 U.S.C. § 1333.
Both sides asked the District Court to present questions for immediate interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The District Court granted the parties' requests, and in its § 1292(b) certifying order stated:
In our order granting certiorari, we asked the parties to brief a preliminary question: "Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), can the courts of appeals exercise jurisdiction over any question that is included within the order that contains the controlling question of law identified by the district court?" 514 U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1998, 131 L.Ed.2d 999 (1995). The answer to that question, we are satisfied, is yes.
As the text of § 1292(b) indicates, appellate jurisdiction applies to the order certified to the court of appeals, and is not tied to the particular question formulated by the district court. The court of appeals may not reach beyond the certified order to address other orders made in the case. United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669, 677, 107 S.Ct. 3054, 3060, 97 L.Ed.2d 550 (1987). But the appellate court may address any issue fairly included within the certified order because "it is the order that is appealable, and not the controlling question identified by the district court." 9 J. Moore & B. Ward, Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 110.25[1], p. 300 (2d ed.1995). See also 16 C. Wright, A. Miller, E. Cooper, & E. Gressman, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3929, pp. 144-145 (1977) ("[T]he court of appeals may review the entire order, either to consider a question different than the one certified as controlling or to decide the case despite the lack of any identified controlling question."); Note, Interlocutory Appeals in the Federal Courts Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), 88 Harv. L.Rev. 607, 628-629 (1975) ("scope of review [includes] all issues material to the order in question").
The Court acknowledged in Moragne that The Tungus had led to considerable uncertainty over the role state law should play in remedying deaths in territorial waters, but concluded that "the primary source of the confusion is not to be found in The Tungus, but in The Harrisburg." 398 U.S., at 378, 90 S.Ct., at 1776. Upon reexamining the soundness of The Harrisburg, we decided that its holding, "somewhat dubious even when rendered, is such an unjustifiable anomaly in the present maritime law that it should no longer be followed." 398 U.S., at 378, 90 S.Ct., at 1776. Accordingly, the Court overruled The Harrisburg and held that an action "lie[s] under general maritime law for death caused by violation of maritime duties." 398 U.S., at 409, 90 S.Ct., at 1792.
Finally, we pointed out that "a true seaman [a member of a ship's company] . . . is provided no remedy for death caused by unseaworthiness within territorial waters, while a longshoreman, to whom the duty of seaworthiness was extended only because he performs work traditionally done by seamen, does have such a remedy when allowed by a state statute." 398 U.S., at 395-396, 90 S.Ct., at 1785. This anomaly stemmed from the Court's rulings in Lindgren v. United States, 281 U.S. 38, 50 S.Ct. 207, 74 L.Ed. 686 (1930), and Gillespie v. United States Steel Corp., 379 U.S. 148, 85 S.Ct. 308, 13 L.Ed.2d 199 (1964), that the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.App. § 688 (1988 ed.), which provides only a negligence-based claim for the wrongful death of seamen, precludes any state remedy, even one accommodating unseaworthiness. As a result, at the time Moragne was decided, the survivors of a longshore worker killed in the territorial waters of a State whose wrongful death statute incorporated unseaworthiness could sue under that theory, but the survivors of a similarly-situated seaman could not.9
The anomalies described in Moragne relate to ships and the workers who serve them, and to a distinctly maritime substantive concept—the unseaworthiness doctrine. The Court surely meant to "assure uniform vindication of federal policies," 398 U.S., at 401, 90 S.Ct., at 1788, with respect to the matters it examined. The law as it developed under The Harrisburg had forced on the States more than they could bear—the task of "provid[ing] the sole remedy" in cases that did not involve "traditional common-law concepts," but "concepts peculiar to maritime law." 398 U.S., at 401, n. 15, 90 S.Ct., at 1788, n. 15 (internal q uotation marks omitted). Discarding The Harrisburg and declaring a wrongful death right of action under general maritime law, the Court concluded, would "remov[e] the tensions and discrepancies" occasioned by the need "to accommodate state remedial statutes to exclusively maritime substantive concepts." 398 U.S., at 401, 90 S.Ct., at 1788.10
We have reasoned similarly in Sun Ship, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 447 U.S. 715, 100 S.Ct. 2432, 65 L.Ed.2d 458 (1980), where we held that a State may app ly its workers' compensation scheme to land-based injuries that fall within the compass of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. See Sun Ship, 447 U.S., at 724, 100 S.Ct., at 2438-2439 (a State's remedial scheme might be "more generous than federal law" but nevertheless could apply because Congress indicated no concern "about a disparity between adequate federal benefits and superior state benefits") (emphasis in original).13
By "nonseafarers," we mean persons who are neither seamen covered by the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.App. § 688 (1988 ed.), nor longshore workers covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.
Indeed, years before The Harrisburg, this Court rendered a pathmarking decision, Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 83 U.S. 522, 21 L.Ed. 369, 16 Wall. 522 (1873). In Steamboat, the Court upheld, under the "saving-to-suitors" proviso of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (surviving currently in 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1)), a state court's application of the State's wrongful death statute to a fatality caused by a collision in territorial waters between defendants' steamboat and a sailboat in which plaintiff's decedent was passing.
The Court extended the duty to provide a seaworthy ship, once owed only to seamen, to longshore workers in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099 (1946). Congress effectively overruled this extension in its 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. See 33 U.S.C. § 905(b). We have thus far declined to extend the duty further. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 629, 79 S.Ct. 406, 409, 3 L.Ed.2d 550 (1959) (unseaworthiness doctrine inapplicable to invitee aboard vessel).
As noted earlier, unseaworthiness recovery by longshore workers was terminated by Congress in its 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. See 33 U.S.C. § 905(b).
Moragne was entertained by the Court of Appeals pursuant to a 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) certification directed to the District Court's order dismissing the unseaworthiness claim. See 398 U.S., at 376, 90 S.Ct., at 1775.