Opinion ID: 747145
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: This Court's July 26, 1996 Order

Text: Following the parties' submissions of briefs in these appeals, we ordered that the cases be held in abeyance pending the decision of the Supreme Court in Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd., 516 U.S. 217, 116 S.Ct. 629, 133 L.Ed.2d 596 (1996). Order dated September 20, 1995. The Supreme Court issued its decision on January 16, 1996, which held, inter alia, that Articles 17 and 24(2) of the Warsaw Convention permit compensation only for legally cognizable harm, but leave the specification of what harm is legally cognizable to the domestic law applicable under the forum's choice-of-law rules. Where, as [in the case of Flight KE007], an airplane [326 U.S.App.D.C. 382] crash occurs on the high seas, DOHSA supplies the substantive United States law.... DOHSA permits only pecuniary damages.... Id. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 637. The Court, however, explicitly declined to consider whether DOHSA permits the recovery of damages for a decedent's pain and suffering. Id. at ---- n. 4, 116 S.Ct. at 636 n. 4. KAL moved for permission to submit a supplemental brief to address the recoverability of such damages under DOHSA. We directed the parties to file replacement briefs limited in scope to those issues which were raised in the parties' first [submissions] and dismissed as moot KAL's motion for leave to file supplemental papers. Order dated July 26, 1996. In its replacement briefs, KAL challenged the availability of damages for pre-death pain and suffering under DOHSA even though it had failed to raise that issue in its earlier submission. KAL claims that our July 26 Order implicitly permitted it to argue the question because, it asserts, we would not have dismissed its request as moot unless we intended to allow it to discuss the matter. KAL is mistaken. Our July 26 Order clearly stated that the parties' replacement briefs would be limited in scope to those issues raised in the first submissions. We dismissed KAL's motion as moot because our instructions indicated that KAL could not address the availability of pre-death pain and suffering damages if the question had not previously been raised. KAL offers no reason why it could not have raised the issue in its initial briefs. This is hardly surprising because it was well aware of its existence long before the Supreme Court's decision in Zicherman. In fact, KAL's counsel had argued the unavailability of damages for pre-death pain and suffering before the district court and in several related cases elsewhere in the country. Accordingly, we will not consider KAL's claim that such damages are unavailable as a matter of law. See Bickel v. Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd., 96 F.3d 151, 153-54 (6th Cir.1996) (declining, in a related case, to address pre-death pain and suffering claims because issue was not raised in initial briefs), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 770, 136 L.Ed.2d 716 (1997).