Opinion ID: 3009545
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Heading: the relevant federal law

Text: A. EARLIER BACKGROUND: FROM THE HARRISBURG TO MORAGNE In 1886, the Supreme Court held in The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 7 S. Ct. 140, that in the absence of an applicable state or federal statute, the general maritime law did not afford a wrongful death cause of action to the survivors of individuals killed on the high seas, or waters navigable from the sea. The harshness of this rule prompted reaction from district and appeals courts, subsequent Supreme Courts, and Congress. District and appeals courts began to allow recovery for deaths within state territorial waters where the state had an applicable wrongful death statute. See Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 212, 106 S. Ct. at 2489.13 The Supreme Court held in The Hamilton, 207 U.S. 398, 28 S. Ct. 133 (1907), that state wrongful death statutes could, in limited circumstances, be applied to fatal accidents occurring on the high seas.14 Most importantly, 13 Tallentire cited, inter alia, City of Norwalk, 55 F. 98, 108 (S.D.N.Y. 1893) (state wrongful death statute may validly be applied to maritime affairs within the state limits), aff'd in part, rev'd in part on other grounds, 61 F. 364, 367-68 (2d Cir. 1894) (application of state wrongful death statute to accident in state territorial waters valid in the absence of any regulation of the subject by [C]ongress) (citing Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 522 (1873) and Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U.S. (3 Otto) 99 (1876)). 14 Under The Hamilton, state wrongful death statutes could apply in admiralty on the high seas where (1) the statutes were intended to apply on the high seas, see Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 213, 106 S. Ct. at 2489, which was not often the case, id. at 213-14, 106 S. Ct. at 2489-90 (quoting Moragne, 398 U.S. at 393 n.10, 90 S. Ct. at 1784 n.10); and either (2) the vessel upon which the wrongful act occurred was constructively part of the Congress, in 1920, enacted (1) the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) which provided a federal wrongful death remedy for survivors of all persons, seamen and non-seamen, killed on the high seas, 46 U.S.C.A. § 761-768 (1975 & Supp. 1994), and (2) the Jones Act, which gives, among other things, a remedy for the wrongful death of a seaman resulting from a personal injury suffered during the course of the seaman's employment, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688 (1975 & Supp. 1994). These developments, particularly the enactment of DOHSA and the Jones Act, ensured that a wrongful death remedy would be available for most people killed in maritime accidents. Thus, between 1920 and 1970, deaths on the high seas were remedied by DOHSA, deaths in territorial waters were remedied by state wrongful-death statutes, and deaths of seamen (whether on the high seas or in territorial waters) were remedied by the Jones Act. The Harrisburg, however, remained troublesome. Part of the trouble stemmed from the development of different theories of recovery for maritime deaths. Explanation of this difficulty requires reference to the two basic theories on which a seaman can recover for personal injuries. territory of the state, or (3) the wrongdoer was a vessel or citizen of the state subject to its jurisdiction even when beyond its territorial limits, id. at 214, 106 S. Ct. at 2490 (quoting Wilson v. Transocean Airlines, 121 F. Supp. 85, 88 (N.D. Cal. 1954)). As Tallentire notes, however, the limitations placed on the operation of state statutes for deaths on the high seas made The Hamilton of little practical import in allowing recovery for wrongful death. Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 213-14, 106 S. Ct. at 2489-90. First, the seaman can claim that the shipowner or some other potentially liable party was negligent; that is the basis for recovery under the Jones Act. Second, the seaman can claim that the vessel was unseaworthy. The doctrine of unseaworthiness basically imposes on a shipowner a nondelegable duty to provide seamen a vessel that is reasonably fit for its purpose;15 it is a species of liability without fault. Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 94-95, 66 S. Ct. 872, 877 (1946).16 The Harrisburg, however, sharply limited the operation of the doctrine of unseaworthiness when a seaman was killed (as opposed to just being injured) within territorial waters, in the following manner. Under The Harrisburg there was no right to recover for wrongful death under federal maritime law, either on a negligence theory or on an unseaworthiness theory. Although DOHSA allowed recovery based on unseaworthiness for deaths outside the three mile territorial limit, DOHSA did not apply to injuries within territorial waters. This meant that a seaman's survivors could not take advantage of the unseaworthiness doctrine when the 15 [I]n the case of non-seamen, the only duty owed by shipowners is that of exercising due care under the circumstances. 2 BENEDICT ON ADMIRALTY § 81(c), at 7-9 n.18 (7th ed. 1994) (citing Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 79 S. Ct. 406 (1959)). 16 Sieracki is better known for its holding that longshore workers were entitled to a warranty of seaworthiness, id. at 97, 66 S. Ct. at 878, thus creating Sieracki-seamen. That part of the case was made obsolete by the 1972 amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers Compensation Act (LHWCA), see 33 U.S.C.A. §§ 905(b) (1986), which precluded longshoremen from taking advantage of the doctrine of unseaworthiness. seaman was killed in territorial waters unless a state statute allowed recovery based on such a theory. And although some state statutes did, see The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U.S. 588, 79 S. Ct. 503 (1959) (allowing wrongful death action based on the doctrine of unseaworthiness because New Jersey wrongful death statute was construed to allow such a theory), some did not, see Moragne v. State Marine Lines, 211 So. 2d 161, 166 (Fla. 1968) (holding that Florida wrongful death statute did not allow recovery for unseaworthiness).SUBSEQUENT HISTORY NEEDED? The Harrisburg also created a complete bar to recovery for unseaworthiness for Jones Act seamen killed in territorial waters when it was combined with Lindgren v. United States, 281 U.S. 38, 50 S. Ct. 207 (1930), and Gillespie v. United States Steel Corp., 379 U.S. 148, 85 S. Ct. 308 (1964).17 Lindgren and Gillespie held that the Jones Act was the exclusive wrongful death remedy for seamen and could not be supplemented by state wrongful death actions.18 The result was that, since the Jones Act allowed recovery only on the basis of negligence, the doctrine of unseaworthiness was of no aid to a Jones Act seaman who was killed within territorial waters. See Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U.S. 426, 428-30, 78 S. Ct. 394, 396-97 (1958). 17 We use the term Jones Act seamen in contrast to Sierackiseamen, see supra n.16. 18 It is important to note here that both Lindgren and Gillespie were limited to the preemptive effect of the Jones Act's wrongful death remedy on state wrongful death statutes. They did not challenge the Supreme Court's holding in Mahnich v. Southern S.S. Co., 321 U.S. 96, 64 S. Ct. 455 (1944), that an injured Jones Act seaman could invoke the doctrine of unseaworthiness to sue for injuries, wherever contracted. The combination of The Harrisburg, Lindgren, and Gillespie created disarray in the field of remedies for wrongful death of seamen, and led to three anomalies or incongruities in admiralty law that eventually made the regime intolerable.19 First, in territorial waters, general maritime law allowed a remedy for unseaworthiness resulting in injury, but not for death. Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 26, 111 S. Ct. 317, 322 (1990). Second, survivors of seamen killed outside the three-mile territorial limit could pursue a wrongful death action based on unseaworthiness, while survivors of those killed inside territorial waters could not, unless a state wrongful death statute allowed recovery based on unseaworthiness. Moragne, 398 U.S. at 395, 90 S. Ct. at 1785. Third, survivors of a Sierackiseaman, see supra at n.16, could recover for a death within territorial waters under applicable state statutes, while survivors of a Jones Act seaman (a true seaman) could not. Moragne, 398 U.S. at 395-96, 90 S. Ct. at 1785. In 1970 the Supreme Court decided that enough was enough, and in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 90 S. Ct. 1772 (1970), the Court overruled The Harrisburg and recognized a general maritime wrongful death cause of action under federal common law. Id. at 378, 90 S. Ct. at 1776. Moragne was, by all accounts, a landmark case. Although its specific holding merely created a general maritime wrongful death 19 The anomalies were explained in Moragne, 398 U.S. 394-96, 90 S. Ct. at 1784-85. remedy based on the doctrine of unseaworthiness, it has since been interpreted as creating a wrongful death remedy based on negligence. See GILMORE & BLACK § 6-33, at 368 (The remedy provides recovery for deaths caused by negligence as well as for deaths caused by unseaworthiness . . . .); Miles v. Melrose, 882 F.2d 976, 985 (5th Cir. 1989), aff'd sub nom. Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 111 S. Ct. 317 (1990).20 Moragne has, of course, been the focus of detailed analysis and description in the case law and commentaries, which we need not repeat here. It is important, however, to point out that, to justify creating the general maritime wrongful death remedy, the Court invoked the 20 The case law, however, does not uniformly hold that the Moragne wrongful death remedy applies to claims based on negligence. See, e.g., Ford v. Wooten, 681 F.2d 712, 715-16 (11th Cir. 1982) (holding that the Moragne remedy applies only to unseaworthiness, not negligence); Ivy v. Security Barge Lines, Inc., 606 F.2d 524, 527 (5th Cir. 1979) (en banc) (same, as concerns Jones Act seamen). need for uniform vindication of federal policies,21 and the humane and liberal character of proceedings in admiralty.22 One aspect of Moragne -- a jurisprudential one -- must however be related in some detail. Moragne brought to the fore the importance of federal statutory remedies in determining the appropriate shape of the general maritime law. At the time Moragne was decided, DOHSA and the Jones Act both provided wrongful death remedies in admiralty. The existence of these statutory schemes left it unclear whether a court could create a federal common law rule in the area. Although DOHSA and the Jones Act reflected a strong public policy favoring survivors' recovery for wrongful deaths, at the same time they also may have represented a considered legislative judgment that wrongful death remedies should go no further than those provided for by statute. 21 As Justice Harlan put it: Our recognition of a right to recover for wrongful death under general maritime law will assure uniform vindication of federal policies, removing the tensions and discrepancies that have resulted from the necessity to accommodate state remedial statutes to exclusively maritime substantive concepts. Such uniformity not only will further the concerns of both of the 1920 Acts [DOHSA and the Jones Act] but also will give effect to the constitutionally based principle that federal law should be a system of law coextensive with, and operating uniformly in, the whole country. Moragne, 398 U.S. at 401-02, 90 S. Ct. at 1788 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 22 Id. at 387, 90 S. Ct. at 1780-81 (quoting The Sea Gull, 21 Fed. Cas. 909-10 (C.C.D. Md. 1865) (No. 12,578)). The Moragne court recognized that the maritime law included a special solicitude for the welfare of those men who undertook to venture upon hazardous and unpredictable sea voyages. Id. The undertaking in Moragne, in large part, was to determine whether the existing statutory remedies were to place a ceiling or a floor on available remedies for wrongful death. After searching the federal legislation and the case law, the Moragne court concluded that Congress [had] given no affirmative indication of an intent to preclude the judicial allowance of a remedy for wrongful death to persons in the situation of [the] petitioner. Moragne, 398 U.S. at 393, 90 S. Ct. at 1784. In the absence of such an affirmative indication from Congress, the Court believed it appropriate to recognize a general maritime wrongful death cause of action. As we detail below, this aspect of Moragne -- the importance of federal statutory schemes in shaping non-statutory remedies -- has been particularly far reaching in the Court's wrongful death jurisprudence since Moragne. B. THE POST-MORAGNE CASES: GAUDET, HIGGINBOTHAM, TALLENTIRE, AND MILES Four post-Moragne decisions are particularly important to our decision: Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573, 94 S. Ct. 806 (1974); Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 98 S. Ct. 2010 (1978); Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 106 S. Ct. 2485 (1986); and Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 111 S. Ct. 317 (1990). These cases have further refined the federal maritime cause of action recognized in Moragne and provide some outline of the legal architecture for maritime death claims. But although they adumbrate the domains in which federal statutory, federal common law, and state statutory remedies operate to provide a rule of decision in maritime death cases, a brief survey of these decisions shows that significant areas of uncertainty remain. 1. GAUDET Gaudet addressed the types of damages available for a longshoreman killed in territorial waters, 414 U.S. at 573, 94 S. Ct. at 806, and concluded that nonpecuniary damages for loss of society were available. Id. at 587-88, 94 S. Ct. at 816. Although recognizing that DOHSA did not compensate for nonpecuniary losses, id. at 588 n.22, 94 S. Ct. at 816 n.22, the Court studiously ignored the example of DOHSA and followed the humanitarian policy of the maritime law that favored recovery for loss of society. Id. at 588, 94 S. Ct. at 816. Three aspects of Gaudet are worth mentioning. First, the decision recognizes damages for loss of society as being available in a general maritime wrongful death action. Id. at 587, 94 S. Ct. at 816. Second, on its face, Gaudet appears to approve of the application of state statutes in maritime death cases.23 See id. at 587-88, 94 S. Ct. at 816. Third, and perhaps most important, Gaudet (together with its offspring, American Export Lines, Inc. v. Alvez, 446 U.S. 274, 100 S. Ct. 1673 (1980)) represents the first, and last, time that the Court departed from the guidance 23 Gaudet also cited approvingly to a decision of this court, Dugas v. National Aircraft Corp., 438 F.2d 1386 (3d Cir. 1971), which joined a state survival statute to a general maritime wrongful death cause of action. Gaudet, 414 U.S. at 588 n.24, 94 S. Ct. at 817 n.24. of federal statutory wrongful death remedies in shaping recovery for wrongful death.24 Cf. Gaudet, 414 U.S. at 601-02, 605, 94 S. Ct. at 823, 825 (Powell, J., dissenting). Indeed, since Gaudet, the Court, disapproving of that decision but reluctant to overrule it directly, has narrowed the case to its facts so that the decision may be, for all intents and purposes, a dead letter. See Miller v. American President Lines, 989 F.2d 1450, 1458 (6th Cir. 1993) (Although Gaudet has never been overruled, its holding has been limited over the years to the point that it is virtually meaningless.), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 304 (1993). 2. HIGGINBOTHAM In Higginbotham, 436 U.S. at 618, 98 S. Ct. at 2010, the Court addressed the question whether survivors of a person killed on the high seas were entitled to recover damages under federal maritime law in addition to the damages available under DOHSA. Of particular interest to the Court was whether the loss 24 In American Export Lines, the Supreme Court held that general maritime law allowed the wife of a harbor worker to bring an action for damages for loss of society due to a maritime tort suffered by her husband. Although DOHSA and the Jones Act did not themselves provide such non-pecuniary damages, the Court allowed them, reasoning à la Gaudet that DOHSA was the exclusive remedy only for fatal injuries incurred on the high seas, 446 U.S. at 282, 100 S. Ct. at 1678, and that the Jones Act does not exhaustively or exclusively regulate longshoremen's remedies, id. at 282-83, 100 S. Ct. at 1678. Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 111 S. Ct. 317 (1990), allowed a maritime wrongful death action for the death of a Jones Act seaman in territorial waters due to unseaworthiness. Despite the Jones Act's provision of liability only for deaths due to negligence, the holding in Miles may still be seen as following congressional guidance in that DOHSA allowed recovery for deaths occurring on the high seas due to unseaworthiness, and the Court's holding merely harmonized those two statutes. of society damages recognized in Gaudet were available where the death occurred on the high seas notwithstanding the fact that DOHSA itself did not allow for loss of society damages. The Court's answer was no. The reasoning of Higginbotham was straightforward: Congress had specifically spoken to the issue of damages in DOHSA and provided damages only for pecuniary losses, and it was not open to the Court to authorize supplementary relief that went beyond that authorized by Congress. Id. at 626, 98 S. Ct. at 2015. Although not explicit in the decision, Higginbotham drew its inspiration directly from the statutory analysis in Moragne that we have identified above.25 The only difference between the analysis in Moragne and that in Higginbotham is that while Moragne saw a gap in the statutory scheme, Higginbotham saw none. See id. at 625, 98 S. Ct. at 2015. 3. TALLENTIRE Eight years later came Tallentire, 477 U.S at 207, 106 S. Ct. at 2485, which involved a claim for damages for a death on the high seas. This time the question was whether remedies available under a state wrongful death action could supplement the remedies available under DOHSA. The Court again said no, holding that the Louisiana wrongful death statute (which allowed recovery for loss of society) could not apply to a claim governed by DOHSA. Id. at 233, 106 S. Ct. at 2499. Again, the analysis 25 But see id. at 625, 98 S. Ct. at 2015 (citing Moragne's discussion of congressional intent concerning DOHSA). had been foreshadowed by Moragne and Higginbotham: Congress had spoken directly to the question of damages for deaths on the high seas in DOHSA, and the Court was not free to supplement the statutory scheme (with a state law remedy). The main battle in Tallentire, however, was not over the applicability of the Higginbotham mode of analysis to a state wrongful death statute;26 rather, the principal dispute was over the construction of Section 7 of DOHSA, which provided in pertinent part 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.A. § 767 (1975). A circuit split existed on the question whether this section preserved the operation of state wrongful death statutes for deaths on the high seas. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that the clause was nothing more than a jurisdictional savings clause which preserved the rights of state courts to entertain causes of action and provide wrongful death remedies both for accidents arising on territorial waters and, under DOHSA, for accidents occurring more than one marine league from shore. Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 221, 106 S. Ct. at 2493. Although the Court justified its result in part by stressing the advantage of having a uniform remedy for deaths on the high seas, see id. at 230-31, 106 S. Ct. at 2498-99, the 26 Tallentire also discussed the applicability of the remedies afforded under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C.A. § 1331 et. seq. (1986 & Supp. 1994), id. at 217, 106 S. Ct. at 2491, but that discussion is not pertinent here. Court's reasoning was ultimately grounded on its interpretation of the legislative history of Section 7 of DOHSA. In surveying the legislative history of DOHSA, the Court stated that Section 7 was included in the act in order to save state remedies within territorial waters. According to the Court, [t]he reach of DOHSA's substantive provisions was explicitly limited to actions arising from accidents on the high seas, so as to `prevent the Act from abrogating by its own force, the state remedies then available in state waters.' Id. at 224, 106 S. Ct. at 2495 (quoting Higginbotham, 436 U.S. at 621-22, 98 S. Ct. at 2013) (internal citation omitted). It concluded that because DOHSA by its terms extended only to the high seas and therefore was thought not to displace these state remedies on territorial waters, [see Moragne], § 7, as originally proposed, ensured that the Act saved to survivors of those killed on territorial waters the ability to pursue a state wrongful death remedy in state court. Id. at 224-25, 106 S. Ct. at 2495. According to one commentator, the implication of the Court's decision in Tallentire is that although survivors of a person killed on the high seas may seek only the limited recovery provided by DOHSA, [i]f the same accident occurs within a marine league from shore, where [DOHSA] has no effect, the survivors can recover damages under the state wrongful death statute, including, when provided, reimbursement for non-economic losses. 14 CHARLES A. WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 3672, at 295 (Supp. 1994). 4. MILES The latest case in the Court's wrongful death jurisprudence is Miles, 498 S. Ct. at 19, 111 S. Ct. at 317. In Miles, the mother of a Jones Act seaman killed in territorial waters pressed a Moragne cause of action based on the doctrine of unseaworthiness. The Court considered two issues: first, whether the Jones Act provided the exclusive measure of remedies for the death of a Jones Act seaman where recovery was premised on the Moragne cause of action, and second, whether a general maritime survival action recognized loss of future earnings for a Jones Act seaman. The Court held that the Jones Act damages were the exclusive measure of damages allowed to a Jones Act seaman, regardless of whether the claim was based on Moragne; it then held that the Jones Act damages controlled any recovery based on a general maritime survival action for the death of a Jones Act seaman, and that since the Jones Act did not allow recovery for future earnings, they were not recoverable under Moragne. Id. at 32-33, 36, 111 S. Ct. at 326, 328. Miles reflects the preeminence that the Moragne statutory analysis has achieved in shaping wrongful death remedies. By the time of Miles, the entire inquiry into remedies for deaths has been reoriented into an inquiry into what the relevant statutes had stated. We have described Moragne at length because it exemplifies the fundamental principles that guide our decision in this case. We no longer live in an era when seamen and their loved ones must look primarily to the courts as a source of substantive legal protection from injury and death; Congress and the States have legislated extensively in these areas. In this era, an admiralty court should look primarily to these legislative enactments for policy guidance. Id. at 27, 111 S. Ct. at 323. But importantly for this appeal, Miles showed no great hostility to the operation of state statutes in providing rules of decision in admiralty cases. The passage quoted above hints that state statutory schemes have a role to play in admiralty cases. Such a role received fuller articulation later in the Miles opinion, where the Court discussed the question whether a general maritime survival action existed. Although it ultimately declined to address the issue, the Court's discussion seemed to sanction some lower courts' practice of applying state survival statutes to deaths at sea. Id. at 326 (Most States have survival statutes applicable to tort actions generally, and admiralty courts have applied these state statutes in many instances to preserve suits for injury at sea. . . . Where these state statutes do not apply, however, or where there is no state survival statute, there is no survival of unseaworthiness claims absent a change in the traditional maritime rule.) (internal citations and footnote omitted). 5. EMERGING TRENDS Although the trend in the post-Moragne case law can be explained by reference to the rise in the importance of federal statutory schemes in shaping maritime remedies, it would be myopic not to recognize the other forces at work. One trend that cannot be ignored is that the Court seems to be cutting back on plaintiffs' rights in maritime actions. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court expanded the rights of plaintiffs by generally allowing plaintiffs the benefit of whichever rule, state or federal, was more favorable to recovery. See GILMORE & BLACK § 6-61, at 463-68. Moragne -- or perhaps Gaudet -- represented the apex of the Court's policy of expanding plaintiffs' rights in admiralty actions. Higginbotham, Tallentire, and Miles, in contrast, show a tendency on the part of the Court during the last two decades to reverse its policy of favoring seamen plaintiffs. A second trend is the weakness with which the principle of uniformity, i.e., the notion that Moragne initiated a trend in the case law to make recovery for maritime deaths more uniform -- which permeates the rhetoric of the case law -- has been actually applied in these cases. For, although the cases often mention uniformity as a guiding principle, the Court's actions belie its importance. Higginbotham, for example, quite consciously created an anomaly (the unavailability of non-pecuniary damages for wrongful death at high sea where such damages were available to longshoremen killed in territorial waters), stating that a desire for uniformity cannot override the statute [DOHSA], 436 U.S. at 624, 98 S. Ct. at 2014. Similarly, Tallentire rejected a rule that would make DOHSA recoveries consistent with those available under Moragne for deaths on territorial waters. See Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 233, 106 S. Ct. at 2499-500. And Miles viewed the variety of survival actions under state law without alarm, declining to fashion a uniform federal rule on the matter that would cover all plaintiffs. See 498 U.S. at 34, 111 S. Ct. at 326-27.27 We believe that the thrust of these cases suggests that the concept of uniformity has a good deal less weight than has been thought, see also Sutton v. Earles, 26 F.3d 903, 917 (9th Cir. 1994) (invoking Gaudet and Higginbotham to reject uniformity argument untethered to statute), and that it has significance to the extent that it aids in the vindication of federal policies, Moragne, 398 U.S. at 401, 90 S. Ct. at 1788. C. WRONGFUL DEATH VS. SURVIVAL ACTIONS IN THE SCHEMA We have discussed this case law at such length because a thorough understanding of it is critical to our analysis of the issue presented here. Before we turn to that analysis, however, we must identify another aspect of the legal background that often appears to be glossed over in the case law of maritime 27 See also American Dredging, 114 S. Ct. at 987: It is true that state law must yield to the needs of a uniform federal maritime law when this Court finds inroads on a harmonious system[,] [b]ut this limitation still leaves the states a wide scope. State created liens are enforceable in admiralty. State remedies for wrongful death and state statutes providing for the survival of actions . . . have been upheld when applied to maritime causes of action. . . . State rules for the partition and sale of ships, state laws governing the specific performance of arbitration agreements, state laws regulating the effect of a breach of warranty under contracts of maritime insurance -- all these laws and others have been accepted as rules of decision in admiralty cases, even, at times, when they conflicted with a rule of maritime law which did not require uniformity. (quoting Romero, 358 U.S. at 373-74, 79 S. Ct. at 480-81) (alterations and omissions in American Dredging). deaths. Throughout the previous discussion of the case law, reference has been made to wrongful death actions and to survival actions. Although they are often lumped together without any distinction, see Wahlstrom v. Kawasaki Heavy Indus., Ltd., 4 F.3d 1084, 1093 (2d Cir. 1993) (where plaintiffs treated as a single action a claim for wrongful death and survivorship benefits), they are, in fact, quite distinct. See, e.g., Gaudet, 414 U.S. at 575 n.2, 94 S. Ct. at 810 n.2 (distinguishing wrongful death statutes from survival statutes). A wrongful death cause of action belongs to the decedent's dependents (or closest kin in the case of the death of a minor). It allows the beneficiaries to recover for the harm that they personally suffered as a result of the death, and it is totally independent of any cause of action the decedent may have had for his or her own personal injuries. Damages are determined by what the beneficiaries would have received from the decedent and can include recovery for pecuniary losses like lost monetary support, and for non-pecuniary losses like loss of society. 2 BENEDICT ON ADMIRALTY § 81(a), at 7-2. A survival action, in contrast, belongs to the estate of the deceased (although it is usually brought by the deceased's relatives acting in a representative capacity) and allows recovery for the injury to the deceased by the action causing death. Under a survival action, the decedent's representative recovers for the decedent's pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost earnings (both past and future), and funeral expenses. Id. The Jones Act (by incorporating the FELA) contains both a wrongful death provision and a survival provision. Moragne, 414 U.S. at 575 n.2, 576, 94 S. Ct. at 810 & n.2. DOHSA contains a wrongful death provision, but does not contain a survival provision. Id. General maritime law contains a wrongful death action by way of Moragne, but the Supreme Court has not recognized a survival action. As was mentioned above, both Tallentire and Miles have stressed that there is as yet no clear federal rule on the extent to which state survival remedies are available under DOHSA or Moragne. See Miles, 498 U.S. at 33-34 & n.2, 111 S. Ct. at 326-27 & n.2; Tallentire, 477 U.S. at 215 n.1, 106 S. Ct. at 2490 n.1 (declining to approve or disapprove of the application of state survival statutes to cases involving deaths on the high seas). With this distinction in mind, we now turn to the question whether state wrongful death and survival statutes conflict with the principles articulated in the post-Moragne line of cases.