Opinion ID: 7377
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legal Developments and their Effect on

Text: Holmes v. J. Ray McDermott 12 Until 1984, we had never upheld an award of punitive damages for the willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure. In our 1984 Holmes opinion, however, we did uphold such a punitive award, and we supported the award with the following analysis: 13 In Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 82 S.Ct. 997, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962), the Supreme Court held that an employer's willful and arbitrary refusal to pay maintenance and cure gives rise to a claim for damages in the form of attorneys' fees in addition to the claim for general damages. Subsequent decisions have established that, in addition to such attorneys' fees, punitive damages for such refusal are available under the general maritime law. See Complaint of Merry Shipping, Inc., 650 F.2d 622, 625 (5th Cir.1981) (collecting cases); see also Robinson v. Pocahontas, Inc., 477 F.2d 1048 (1st Cir.1973). 14 734 F.2d at 1118 (citations omitted). Thus, at the time of our Holmes decision, we relied upon three cases--the Supreme Court's Vaughan, this court's Merry Shipping, and the First Circuit's Pocahontas--and there was not a great deal of additional guidance to be found. Judge Garwood's well-considered concurrence to the panel opinion, see Guevara, 34 F.3d at 1284-90 (Garwood, J., concurring), together with significant developments in the law of admiralty and elsewhere, have caused us to rethink our position. We begin, therefore, by reexamining the precedents that form the foundation of our Holmes opinion, and in the end, we conclude that Holmes 's approval of punitive damages is no longer justifiable in cases of willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure.
15 In Holmes, we cited Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 82 S.Ct. 997, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962), only for the proposition that a willful and arbitrary failure to pay maintenance and cure gave rise to a claim for attorney's fees as well as general damages. See 734 F.2d at 1118. We did not cite Vaughan as an example of the Supreme Court's approval of punitive damage awards in the maintenance and cure context; indeed, we explicitly noted that it was subsequent decisions that made punitive damages available. See id. Nevertheless, it is possible that Vaughan, while only upholding an award of attorney's fees, announced a principle broader than its result. Thus, we now attempt to determine how broad this principle is. 16 Vaughan, a brief opinion by Justice Douglas, is a difficult decision--not because of its holding, but because of the rationale for its holding. It is clear that the majority in Vaughan upheld an award of attorney's fees to a seaman where his employer had deliberately withheld payment of maintenance and cure. See Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 529-31, 82 S.Ct. at 998-1000. The difficulty, however, stems from the theory on which the majority awarded the attorney's fees. 17 On the one hand, the adjectives used by the majority to describe the employer's behavior--callous, recalcitran[t], willful and persistent--imply that the award of attorney's fees was meant to be a punitive sanction. See id. at 530-31, 82 S.Ct. at 999-1000. On the other hand, the majority cited Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U.S. 367, 371, 53 S.Ct. 173, 174, 77 L.Ed. 368 (1932), for the proposition that an employer's failure to pay maintenance and cure may entitle a seaman to the recovery of necessary expenses. The Court further stated that the seaman was forced to hire a lawyer to get what was plainly owed him, and the Court noted that [i]t is difficult to imagine a clearer case of damages suffered for failure to pay maintenance than this one. Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 531, 82 S.Ct. at 1000-1001. This terminology clearly suggests that the attorney's fees were meant as a compensatory award for out-of-pocket expenses, as punitive damages are not owed as expenses and are not designed to remedy damages suffered. Indeed, the language of the dissent implies that the majority's rationale for the attorney's fees award was compensatory, while the dissent believed that the rationale should be punitive: 18 Cortes [, cited by the majority, ] dealt with compensatory damages for a physical injury, and the opinion in that case contains nothing to indicate a departure from the well-established rule that counsel fees may not be recovered as compensatory damages. ... 19 However, if the shipowner's refusal to pay maintenance stemmed from a wanton and intentional disregard of the legal rights of the seaman, the latter would be entitled to exemplary damages in accord with traditional concepts of the law of damages. While the amount so awarded would be in the discretion of the fact finder, and would not necessarily be measured by the amount of counsel fees, indirect compensation for such expenditures might thus be made. 20 Id. at 540, 82 S.Ct. at 1004 (Stewart, J., dissenting) (citation omitted). 2 Because of this difficulty stemming from the Vaughan rationale, it is not surprising that commentators are divided as to whether the attorney's fees award was intended to be compensatory or punitive in nature. Compare 6 James Wm. Moore, Moore's Federal Practice p 54.78, at 54-503 to -504 & n. 29 (2d ed. 1994) (The [Vaughan ] court found that when a seaman's employer refused to pay the seaman maintenance that 'was plainly owed under laws that are centuries old,' thus forcing the seaman to retain counsel and sue for it, the expenses of the suit could rightly be treated as part of the compensatory damage.) with Gilmore & Black, supra, Sec. 6-13, at 313 (noting that Vaughan awarded what were essentially punitive damages under the name of counsel fees). 3 21 Fortunately, in deciphering Vaughan, we are aided by seven subsequent Supreme Court cases that have cited the opinion. 4 In all seven cases, the Court has treated Vaughan as supporting an exception to the American Rule that litigants generally must bear their own costs. In the 1967 Maier Brewing case, the Court read Vaughan as establishing a compensatory basis for fee-shifting: 22 Limited exceptions to the American rule ... have been sanctioned by this Court when overriding considerations of justice seemed to compel such a result. In appropriate circumstances, we have held, an admiralty plaintiff may be awarded counsel fees as an item of compensatory damages (not as a separate cost to be taxed). Vaughan v. Atkinson, 369 U.S. 527, 82 S.Ct. 997, 8 L.Ed.2d 88 (1962). 23 386 U.S. at 718, 87 S.Ct. at 1407 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). Since Maier Brewing, however, Vaughan has come to stand for the proposition that attorney's fees can be awarded to a prevailing party when his opponent has engaged in bad-faith conduct during litigation. See Shimman v. International Union of Operating Eng'rs, 744 F.2d 1226, 1229-30 (6th Cir.1984) (tracing the citation history of Vaughan ), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1215, 105 S.Ct. 1191, 84 L.Ed.2d 337 (1985). In fact, Vaughan is often cited as a foundational case for this bad-faith exception to the American Rule. See Summit Valley, 456 U.S. at 721, 102 S.Ct. at 2114-15; Hall, 412 U.S. at 5, 93 S.Ct. at 1946; Shimman, 744 F.2d at 1230. 24 Our knowledge that Vaughan is later cited as a foundation of the bad-faith exception to the American Rule, however, does not tell us whether this type of fee-shifting is compensatory or punitive in nature. In Hall v. Cole, the Court made the following observation: 25 Thus, it is unquestioned that a federal court may award counsel fees to a successful party when his opponent has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons. In this class of cases, the underlying rationale of 'fee-shifting' is, of course, punitive, and the essential element in triggering the award of fees is therefore the existence of 'bad faith' on the part of the unsuccessful litigant. 26 412 U.S. at 5, 93 S.Ct. at 1946 (emphasis added) (citations omitted) (internal quotation omitted). Hall 's reasoning was reaffirmed in the recent case of Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991). Quoting Hall, the Chambers Court noted that in the case of the bad-faith exception to the American Rule, 'the underlying rationale of 'fee-shifting' is, of course, punitive.'  Id. at 53, 111 S.Ct. at 2137. 27 A careful reading of Chambers, however, belies the view that awards made under the bad-faith exception to the American Rule are punitive damages in the sense that they punish the conduct giving rise to a plaintiff's claim. The Chambers Court distinguished between fees awarded pursuant to the bad-faith exception, which are based upon a federal court's inherent power to sanction parties for their litigation behavior, see id. at 47, 111 S.Ct. at 2134, and other fee-shifting rules that embody a substantive policy, such as a statute which permits a prevailing party in certain classes of litigation to recover fees. Id. at 52, 111 S.Ct. at 2136. In other words, as the Court explained, the imposition of sanctions under the bad-faith exception depends not on which party wins the lawsuit, but on how the parties conduct themselves during the litigation. Id. at 53, 111 S.Ct. at 2137 (emphasis added). 28 While the Chambers majority expressed no opinion on the question of whether a federal court has the inherent power to impose sanctions for conduct giving rise to an underlying claim, rather than for bad-faith conduct during the litigation process, see id. at 54 n. 16, 111 S.Ct. at 2137-38 n. 16, four justices were firmly of the view that bad-faith fee-shifting may not be used to sanction pre-litigation conduct. Justice Scalia noted that the American Rule prevents a court (without statutory authorization) from engaging in what might be termed substantive fee shifting, that is, fee shifting as part of the merits award. It does not in principle bar fee shifting as a sanction for procedural abuse. Id. at 59, 111 S.Ct. at 2140 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Similarly, Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Souter, made the following observation: 29 [I]t is impermissible to allow a District Court acting pursuant to its inherent authority to sanction such prelitigation primary conduct. A court's inherent authority extends only to remedy abuses of the judicial process. By contrast, awarding damages for a violation of a legal norm, [such as] the binding obligation of a legal contract, is a matter of substantive law.... [The] bad-faith exception permits fee shifting as a sanction to the extent necessary to protect the judicial process.... When a federal court, through invocation of its inherent powers, sanctions a party for bad-faith prelitigation conduct, it goes well beyond the exception to the American Rule.... 30 Id. at 74, 111 S.Ct. at 2148 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). 31 The upshot of this extended discussion is that the bad-faith exception to the American rule, of which the Vaughan award is cited as an example, is not a punitive award in the tort sense of punishing the underlying conduct that gives rise to a plaintiff's claim. Tort-like punitive damages are awarded on the basis of the merits of a case, while bad-faith fee-shifting punishes abuses of the litigation process. 32 In the end, we need not definitely resolve whether Vaughan awarded attorney's fees as an item of compensatory or punitive damages. The award clearly has a make-whole compensatory aspect, see Maier Brewing, 386 U.S. at 718, 87 S.Ct. at 1407, and, based upon the facts of Vaughan, the award also has a punitive aspect to the extent that it punished an abuse of the litigation process. See, e.g., Chambers, 501 U.S. at 52-53, 111 S.Ct. at 2136-37; Shimman, 744 F.2d at 1230-32. According to the case law, however, the punitive aspect of the Vaughan award is the bad-faith exception to the American Rule, and that exception is limited to a recovery of attorney's fees. The Vaughan award was clearly not a punitive damages award in the tort sense of punishing the underlying conduct that gave rise to the litigation, and the developing case law does not support such a position. 33 Simply put, all we can confidently say about Vaughan is that it entitles an injured seaman to recover attorney's fees--perhaps as part of compensatory damages--when his employer willfully fails to pay maintenance and cure. We cannot definitively conclude, however, that Vaughan establishes any broader principle to support Holmes 's rule that tort-like punitive damages, not limited to attorney's fees, are available in cases of willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure. 34
35 In Dyer v. Merry Shipping Co., 650 F.2d 622, 623 (5th Cir. Unit B July 1981), the widow of a deceased seaman brought a wrongful death cause of action based upon the Jones Act and the unseaworthiness doctrine of the general maritime law. The primary issue on appeal was whether punitive damages [could] be recovered in a seaman's action brought under either general maritime law or the Jones Act, or both. Id. We did not answer the Jones Act question, noting that [t]he district court may well be correct that punitive damages may not be recovered in this Circuit under the Jones Act, although we need not decide the issue at this time. Id. at 626. As to the general maritime action, however, we concluded that in this Circuit punitive damages may be recovered under general maritime law upon a showing of willful and wanton misconduct by the shipowner. Id. Consequently, we reversed the district court's dismissal of the plaintiff's claim for punitive damages. See id. at 626-27. 5 36 Because Merry Shipping was an earlier panel opinion, we were bound by its holding in Holmes. Indeed, even though Merry Shipping dealt with punitive damages in an unseaworthiness context, the analysis, which we will soon discuss, was wholly applicable to maintenance and cure cases as well, and the court concluded with a broader declaration: in this Circuit punitive damages may be recovered under general maritime law.... (emphasis added). The law, of course, is constantly developing, and with the 1990 decision of the Supreme Court in Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 111 S.Ct. 317, 112 L.Ed.2d 275 (1990), the analysis that we relied upon in Merry Shipping has been significantly undermined. 37 In reaching our holding in Merry Shipping--that punitive damages are available in a wrongful death action brought by the representative of a seaman under the unseaworthiness doctrine of the general maritime law--we relied upon a key proposition: It does not follow ... that if punitive damages are not allowed under the Jones Act, they should also not be allowed under general maritime law. Merry Shipping, 650 F.2d at 626. To understand why we now view this proposition as problematic, an examination of the Miles analysis is necessary. 38 Miles v. Apex Marine Corp. 39 In Miles, the parents of a seaman killed by a fellow crew member ultimately recovered under the Jones Act for the negligence of the ship's operators, charterer, and owner, as well as under the general maritime law on the basis that the ship was unseaworthy as a matter of law. See 498 U.S. at 21-22, 111 S.Ct. at 319-20. The unseaworthiness ruling presented two questions concerning the scope of damages under the general maritime law: 1) whether a nondependent parent could recover for loss of society in a general maritime wrongful death action, and 2) whether the general maritime law permits a survival action for the decedent's lost future earnings. See id. at 22-23, 111 S.Ct. at 320-21. A unanimous Court held that although the wrongful death of a seaman is actionable under the general maritime law, damages recoverable in such actions do not include loss of society. See id. at 33, 111 S.Ct. at 326. The Court also held that a general maritime survival action cannot include recovery for the decedent's lost future earnings. See id. at 36, 111 S.Ct. at 327-28. 40 The Miles Court began by thoroughly describing Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339 (1970), in which the Court overruled its prior decision in The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 7 S.Ct. 140, 30 L.Ed. 358 (1886), to create a general maritime wrongful death cause of action applicable in all waters. The Moragne Court's decision was driven by two complementary rationales: consistency of the general maritime law with the policy implemented in the Jones Act and in the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) favoring wrongful death recovery, and the constitutionally based principle that federal admiralty law should be 'a system of law coextensive with, and operating uniformly in, the whole country.'  Moragne, 398 U.S. at 402, 90 S.Ct. at 1788 (quoting The Lottawanna, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 558, 575, 22 L.Ed. 654 (1874)). 41 The Miles Court noted that Moragne exemplifies the fundamental principles that guide our decision in this case: 42 [i]n this era, an admiralty court should look primarily to these legislative enactments for policy guidance. We may supplement these statutory remedies where doing so would achieve the uniform vindication of such policies consistent with our constitutional mandate, but we must also keep strictly within the limits imposed by Congress. Congress retains superior authority in these matters, and an admiralty court must be vigilant not to overstep the well-considered boundaries imposed by federal legislation. These statutes both direct and delimit our actions. 43 498 U.S. at 27, 111 S.Ct. at 323 (emphasis added). The Court noted that Moragne did not set forth the scope of recoverable damages under the maritime wrongful death action; thus, the Court sought guidance from comparable federal statutes. 44 Starting with DOHSA, the Court observed that the statute, by its explicit terms, prohibited the recovery of nonpecuniary damages. Miles, 498 U.S. at 31, 111 S.Ct. at 325; see Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 622-24, 98 S.Ct. 2010, 2013-14, 56 L.Ed.2d 581 (1978). Responding to the contention that admiralty courts have traditionally undertaken to supplement maritime statutes, the Miles Court stated: 45 Congress has spoken directly to the question of recoverable damages on the high seas, and when it does speak directly to a question, the courts are not free to 'supplement' Congress' answer so thoroughly that the Act becomes meaningless. Moragne involved gap filling in an area left open by statute; supplementation was entirely appropriate. But in an area covered by the statute, it would be no more appropriate to prescribe a different measure of damages than to prescribe a different statute of limitations, or a different class of beneficiaries. 46 Id. at 31, 111 S.Ct. at 325 (quoting Higginbotham, 436 U.S. at 625, 98 S.Ct. at 2015) (citation omitted). 47 Turning to the Jones Act, the Court observed that a well-established pecuniary limitation on damages existed under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) at the time of the enactment of the Jones Act. 6 The Court noted that by incorporating FELA unaltered into the Jones Act, Congress must have intended to incorporate the pecuniary limitation on damages as well. Id. at 32, 111 S.Ct. at 325. Even though a general maritime unseaworthiness action, rather than a Jones Act action, was at issue in Miles, the Court stated that [i]t would be inconsistent with our place in the constitutional scheme were we to sanction more expansive remedies in a judicially created cause of action in which liability is without fault than Congress has allowed in cases of death resulting from negligence. Id. at 32-33, 111 S.Ct. at 326. The Court concluded that there is no recovery for loss of society in a general maritime action for the wrongful death of a Jones Act seaman, and the Court noted that [t]oday we restore a uniform rule applicable to all actions for the wrongful death of a seaman, whether under DOHSA, the Jones Act, or general maritime law. Id. at 33, 111 S.Ct. at 326 (emphasis added). 48 The Court then addressed the second question: whether, in a general maritime action surviving the death of a seaman, the estate can recover decedent's lost future earnings. Id. The Court noted that recognizing a right to recover lost future income in a survival action would be a distinctly minority view, but the Court stated that [t]his fact alone would not necessarily deter us, if recovery of lost future income were more consistent with the general principles of maritime tort law. Id. at 35, 111 S.Ct. at 327. The Court cited strong policy arguments for allowing such recovery, including economic incentives and solicitude to seamen, id. at 35-36, 111 S.Ct. at 327-28, but the Court's decision was driven by the analytical framework that it had previously used: 49 We sail in occupied waters. Maritime tort law is now dominated by federal statute, and we are not free to expand remedies at will simply because it might work to the benefit of seamen and those dependent upon them. Congress has placed limits on recovery in survival actions that we cannot exceed. Because this case involves the death of a seaman, we must look to the Jones Act. 50 The Jones Act/FELA survival provision limits recovery to losses suffered during the decedent's lifetime. This was the established rule under FELA when Congress passed the Jones Act, incorporating FELA, and it is the rule under the Jones Act. Congress has limited the survival right for seaman's injuries resulting from negligence. As with loss of society in wrongful death actions, this forecloses more expansive remedies in a general maritime action founded on strict liability.... Because [the] estate cannot recover for his lost future income under the Jones Act, it cannot do so under general maritime law. 51 Id. at 36, 111 S.Ct. at 328 (citations omitted). 52 The analytical framework of Miles governs our approach to deciding damages issues in general maritime actions. In order to decide whether (and how) Miles applies to a case, a court must first evaluate the factual setting of the case and determine what statutory remedial measures, if any, apply in that context. If the situation is covered by a statute like the Jones Act or DOHSA, and the statute informs and limits the available damages, the statute directs and delimits the recovery available under the general maritime law as well. The general maritime law will not expand the available damages when Congress has spoken to the relief it deems appropriate or inappropriate. See Anderson v. Texaco, Inc., 797 F.Supp. 531, 536 (E.D.La.1992). 53 The factual setting in Miles nicely exemplifies this approach. Miles involved a seaman in a factual setting of wrongful death, and the wrongful death of a seaman is covered by the Jones Act. Thus, even though the plaintiff also sued for wrongful death under the general maritime law, the factual setting was still the wrongful death of a seaman, and Miles compels damages uniformity with the statutory schemes that cover the same factual circumstances. Cf. Miles, 498 U.S. at 36, 111 S.Ct. at 327-28 (Congress has placed limits on recovery in survival actions that we cannot exceed. Because this case involves the death of a seaman, we must look to the Jones Act. (emphasis added)). The Jones Act prohibits non-pecuniary recovery; thus, the Miles Court found that the general maritime unseaworthiness action for the wrongful death of a seaman must have a similar prohibition against non-pecuniary awards. Although the Miles Court did not mention punitive damages, they are also rightfully classified as non-pecuniary. 7 54 Taking the analysis one step further, it should be clear that actions under the general maritime law for personal injury are also subject to the Miles uniformity principle, as non-fatal actions for personal injury to a seaman are covered by statute--i.e., the Jones Act. 8 Thus, many courts have extended Miles 's logic to prohibit the recovery of certain damages in personal injury factual settings that are covered by statute, even when these personal injury claims are brought under the general maritime law. 9 See, e.g., Murray v. Anthony J. Bertucci Constr. Co., 958 F.2d 127, 131-32 (5th Cir.) (applying the principles of Miles to preclude an injured seaman's spouse from recovering loss of society damages under the general maritime law), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 190, 121 L.Ed.2d 134 (1992); Michel v. Total Transp., Inc., 957 F.2d 186, 191 (5th Cir.1992) (applying Miles to a personal injury claim by a seaman and holding that damages recoverable in general maritime causes of action for personal injury of a Jones Act seaman do not include loss of consortium); Anderson, 797 F.Supp. at 534, 536 (noting in a personal injury action of seamen that their general maritime claims encompass[ed] the same factual events and the same injuries as their Jones Act claims, and concluding that [t]he application of Miles here compels the dismissal of the plaintiffs' unseaworthiness and general maritime negligence punitive damages claims). 55 After Miles, it is clear that Merry Shipping has been effectively overruled. Its holding--that punitive damages are available in a wrongful death action brought by the representative of a seaman under the unseaworthiness doctrine of the general maritime law--is no longer good law in light of the Miles uniformity principle because, in the factual scenario of Merry Shipping, the Jones Act damages limitations control. 10 3. Robinson v. Pocahontas, Inc. 56 We turn to the last of our precedents that formed the foundation of our Holmes decision--Robinson v. Pocahontas, Inc., 477 F.2d 1048 (1st Cir.1973). In Robinson, the court upheld an award of punitive damages on a seaman's claim for maintenance and cure. See 477 F.2d at 1051-52. The court cited Vaughan for the proposition that the Supreme Court held that a seaman could recover attorneys' fees as damages where a shipowner was callous, willful, or recalcitrant in withholding these [maintenance and cure] payments. Id. at 1051. Significantly, however, the court emphasized the language in the Vaughan dissent:  '[I]f the shipowner's refusal to pay maintenance stemmed from a wanton and intentional disregard of the legal rights of the seaman, the latter would be entitled to exemplary damages in accord with traditional concepts of the law of damages.'  Id. (quoting Vaughan, 369 U.S. at 540 (Stewart, J., dissenting)). 57 To be sure, Pocahontas did uphold an award of punitive damages in a maintenance and cure context, but for at least two reasons, we believe that it is not a particularly strong precedent. First, the Pocahontas court's emphasis on the Vaughan dissent is troubling, especially because it seems that the court relied on the dissent to reach its conclusion that punitive damages--in excess of attorney's fees--may be awarded in maintenance and cure cases. As the Second Circuit noted in Kraljic v. Berman Enterprises, Inc.: 58 The [Pocahontas ] court justified the punitive damage award primarily by relying on Mr. Justice Stewart's dissenting opinion in [Vaughan v.] Atkinson which, as we have indicated, would have awarded exemplary damages under traditional concepts not necessarily limited to the amount of counsel fees. The obvious difficulty with this approach is that the court followed the views of the dissenters in Atkinson and not the majority. The court, we believe, correctly perceived that both majority and minority opinions in Atkinson in essence found that punitive damages were awardable in maintenance and cure cases. The inescapable fact is, however, that the majority opinion in Atkinson limited that recovery to counsel fees despite the explicit view of the dissenters that no such curb be imposed. 59 575 F.2d 412, 415-16 (2d Cir.1978) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). 60 Second, even if we overlook the Pocahontas court's apparent reliance on the Vaughan dissent, the decision was rendered seventeen years before Miles. In light of Miles, we cannot be sure that the First Circuit would reach the same result today as it did in Pocahontas. Cf. Horsley v. Mobil Oil Corp., 15 F.3d 200, 203 (1st Cir.1994) (Miles mandates the conclusion that punitive damages are not available in an unseaworthiness action under general maritime law.). In short, Pocahontas was not rock-solid support to begin with, and because of Miles, we believe that its precedential weight has been further eroded. 11 4. The law of other circuits 61 As mentioned, our court and the First Circuit have upheld punitive damage awards in cases of willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure. In the Second Circuit's Kraljic opinion, the court also found that punitive damages were available in maintenance and cure cases, but the court relied on Vaughan to conclude that any punitive recovery is explicitly limited to attorney's fees. See Kraljic, 575 F.2d at 415-16. 62 In Hines v. J.A. LaPorte, Inc., 820 F.2d 1187 (11th Cir.1987), the Eleventh Circuit squarely confronted the issue of whether a seaman may be awarded punitive damages in addition to reasonable attorney's fees for the arbitrary and willful withholding of maintenance and cure benefits. Id. at 1188. The court recognized that punitive damages in excess of attorney's fees were available in the First Circuit and in the Fifth Circuit, while the Second Circuit limited the award to attorney's fees. The court chose to rely on our Merry Shipping opinion, noting that [f]ollowing the guidance of Merry Shipping ... it seems clear that even if exemplary in nature, attorney's fees, if fixed reasonably to cover only a proper fee award, would not foreclose the punitive purpose of a punitive damage award. Id. at 1189. Thus, the Hines court held that both reasonable attorney's fees and punitive damages may be legally awarded in a proper case. Id. Of course, Hines 's reliance on Merry Shipping is now analytically problematic because, as explained, Merry Shipping was effectively overruled by the later decision in Miles. Similarly, in Manuel v. United States, 50 F.3d 1253 (4th Cir.1995), the Fourth Circuit in dicta noted that [c]ourts have long awarded punitive damages to seamen where maintenance and cure benefits have been arbitrarily and willfully denied. Id. at 1260. The court cited Holmes and Pocahontas for this proposition, however, and there was no mention of Miles. 63 The law in the Sixth Circuit is unclear. Dicta in Al-Zawkari v. American Steamship Co., 871 F.2d 585, 590 n. 8 (6th Cir.1989), implies that punitive damages could be available, but the decision was pre-Miles and it cited Holmes as support. The district courts in the Sixth Circuit have also come to different conclusions. Compare Hoeffling v. United States Steel, 792 F.Supp. 1029, 1030 (E.D.Mich.1991) ([A] claim for punitive damages under the doctrine of maintenance and cure is recognizable in this circuit.) with Owens v. Conticarriers & Terminals, Inc., 591 F.Supp. 777, 792 (W.D.Tenn.1984) (holding that because defendant's refusal to pay maintenance and cure was callous and willful, plaintiff is entitled to an award of punitive damages limited to attorney's fees ) and In re Mardoc Asbestos Case Clusters, 768 F.Supp. 595, 599-600 & n. 1 (E.D.Mich.1991) (suggesting that punitive damages are not recoverable at all in the general maritime law). As mentioned, it is worth noting that the Sixth Circuit in Miller concluded that Miles precluded the recovery of punitive damages in general maritime unseaworthiness actions. 64 Finally, a recent Ninth Circuit opinion explicitly addressed the post-Miles propriety of a punitive damages award for the failure to pay maintenance and cure. In Glynn v. Roy Al Boat Management Corp., 57 F.3d 1495 (9th Cir.1995), the Ninth Circuit stated that [b]ecause Miles did not consider the availability of punitive damages, and was not faced with a claim for maintenance and cure that has no statutory analog, it does not directly control the question of whether punitive damages are available for the willful failure to pay maintenance. Id., at 1503. Instead, the court looked to Vaughan for guidance, and it determined that we see no support for punitive damages in addition to attorney's fees in Vaughan itself.... We see no other reason why punitive damages, in addition to attorney's fees, should be allowed. Id., at 1505. As the court concluded, [w]e therefore hold that punitive damages are not available, although attorney's fees are, where the shipowner has been willful and persistent in its failure to investigate a seaman's claim for maintenance and cure or to pay maintenance. Id., at 1505. 65 To sum up, the cases that Holmes relied upon cannot now support the result in Holmes. Vaughan awarded attorney's fees, and not punitive damages; Merry Shipping did not involve maintenance and cure, and it has been overruled by Miles; and Pocahontas is questionable in light of its pre-Miles analysis and its apparent reliance upon the Vaughan dissent. 12 We turn now to the independent impact of the Miles decision on the availability of punitive damages in cases of willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure. 66