Opinion ID: 702303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: applicability of american law under the lauritzen

Text: TRIAD
71 The questions whether American law actually applies under the Lauritzen triad, and if so whether the facts entitle the plaintiff to recover, arise only when, as here, a district court has subject matter jurisdiction over a Jones Act or American general maritime law claim. Moreover, Lauritzen analysis is a choice of law methodology, and, like a plaintiff's need to prove one or more of the specific statutory elements of his or her claims, choice of law issues may be waived. 10 Thus, if defendants do not argue that American law is inapplicable as a matter of choice of law, the court will not analyze the Lauritzen factors. The plaintiff would need only to prove the particular elements of the cause of action, such as seaman status, employer status, negligence, causation, and damages (for a Jones Act case). 72 When a defendant does raise the Lauritzen issue, a plaintiff suing for personal injury damages under American maritime law must, as with any other cause of action, both establish the applicability of the law under which the case was brought and prove the elements of the cause of action. See, e.g., Larry Kramer, Rethinking Choice of Law, 90 COLUM.L.REV. 277, 290 (1990); cf. G.E.J. Corp. v. Uranium Aire, Inc., 311 F.2d 749, 751 (9th Cir.1962) (Generally a party must establish a fact which is essential to his claim or defense....). If American law is not applicable, or if the plaintiff fails to prove one of the specific elements of the cause of action, the suit would, in the ordinary course, fail on the merits. 11 73
74 Determining whether or not American maritime law (statutory or general) applies with respect to a given incident entails a choice of law analysis, mandated by the Supreme Court as a matter of statutory construction. The Court adverted to choice of law principles because of the facial universality of the Jones Act, whose terms offer a remedy to any seaman. 46 U.S.C.App. Sec. 688(a) (1988). In Lauritzen--which involved a lawsuit by a Danish sailor (for injuries suffered in the coastal waters off Cuba) against his employer, a Danish shipowner with whom he had contracted (in Danish)--the Court was concerned with restricting the literal catholicity, Lauritzen, 345 U.S. at 576, 73 S.Ct. at 925, of the Jones Act's language to ensure that it would not apply to situations where the seaman, the employment [and] the injury [lack] the slightest connection with the United States. Id. at 577, 73 S.Ct. at 925. Thus, the first aim of Lauritzen analysis is to assure that American maritime law is not applied to incidents that lack any significant American connection. 75 The second, related purpose of the analysis is to resolve and avoid conflicts with the maritime laws of other nations. 12 See Lauritzen, 345 U.S. at 582, 73 S.Ct. at 928. To this end the Court invoked a presumption that in the absence of specific direction to the contrary, statutes of Congress would not be interpreted to violate international law. See 345 U.S. at 577, 581, 73 S.Ct. at 926, 927-28. Applying this presumption to the Jones Act, the Court in Lauritzen adopted a form of interest analysis to cabin the sweep of the Jones Act. See id. at 582, 73 S.Ct. at 928 (The criteria, in general, appear to be arrived at from weighing of the significance of one or more connecting factors between the shipping transaction regulated and the national interest served by the assertion of authority.) (emphasis supplied); id. at 577, 73 S.Ct. at 925 (extolling expertise of courts long accustomed to dealing with admiralty problems in reconciling our own with foreign interests). Courts ruling on the reach of American law were thus directed to consider seven factors that were, in part for pragmatic reasons, accorded various degrees of importance. 76 In Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. at 354, 79 S.Ct. at 468, the Supreme Court emphasized that the Lauritzen factors were gleaned not from the terms of the Jones Act but rather from more general maritime law choice of law principles, and that they were intended to guide courts generally in applying maritime law regarding personal injury claims to incidents with foreign connections. See 358 U.S. at 382, 79 S.Ct. at 485. 13 Finally, in Hellenic Lines Ltd. v. Rhoditis, the Supreme Court elaborated upon the Lauritzen analysis. In particular, the Court added an eighth factor for consideration, see 398 U.S. at 309, 90 S.Ct. at 1734, and attached a label to the types of contacts with the United States necessary to sustain applicability of American law in light of the aims of the Lauritzen analysis: substantial contacts. Id. at 309 n. 4, 90 S.Ct. at 1734 n. 4. 77 In adopting this terminology, the Court placed its focus primarily, though not myopically, on whatever American contacts the transaction may have. See id. (The decisional process ... involves the ascertainment of the facts or groups of facts which constitute contacts between the transaction involved in the case and the United States, and then deciding whether or not they are substantial.) (quoting Bartholomew v. Universe Tankships, Inc., 263 F.2d 437, 441 (2d Cir.1959)); id. at 310, 90 S.Ct. at 1734 (The [foreign contacts present] are in the totality of the circumstances of this case minor weights in the scales compared with the substantial and continuing contacts that this alien owner has with this country.). 78 Despite these developments, Lauritzen interest analysis remained a somewhat amorphous process. The Supreme Court stressed in Rhoditis that Lauritzen's choice of law interest analysis is not mechanical, that the significance of each factor is variable, and that the enumerated factors are not exhaustive of potentially relevant considerations. See 398 U.S. at 308, 90 S.Ct. at 1734. The analysis is consequently imbued with a flexibility that permits courts to take account of the context of any incident that American law is alleged to govern, but this malleability has not always proven the surest guide. Indeed, one troubled trial court remarked that the case law applying the Lauritzen triad had made the relative significances of the 'factors' almost infinitely variable, and it feared that each 'factor's' significance is sufficiently obscure or variable to justify any judicial conclusion. Munusamy v. McClelland Engineers, Inc., 579 F.Supp. 149, 153 (E.D.Tex.), mandamus denied (with request for certification), 742 F.2d 837 (5th Cir.1984), order vacated, 784 F.2d 1313 (1986). Academic commentary has been similarly critical. See, e.g., Michael Boydston, Cruz v. Chesapeake Shipping and the Choice-of-Law Problem in Admiralty Actions, 27 TEX.INT'L L.J. 419, 434 (1992); Symeon Symeonides, Maritime Conflicts of Law from the Perspective of Modern Choice of Law Methodology, 7 MAR.LAW. 223, 242-43 (1982) [hereinafter Symeonides, Maritime Conflicts ]. 79
80 The solution to the lack of guidance lies in approaching the Lauritzen analysis in a way that is faithful to its nature as a specialized form of interest analysis designed to ensure that American maritime law of personal injuries applies only where significant American interests are implicated and only in conformity with international law. Specifically, we interpret the notion of substantial contacts to embody these twin concerns in a two-step inquiry derived from international law. We conclude below that, in a Jones Act or general maritime law case, a court deciding whether American contacts are substantial (so that American law applies) must at the threshold ask whether one of the following factors is involved in the incident, in which case there is a basis for prescriptive jurisdiction (which, we explain infra subsection 1, means that significant American interests are implicated): injury to an American seaman or a seaman with American dependents, injury in American territory, American defendants, an American flagged ship, or a contractual choice of law clause specifying American law. If so, the second step in the substantial contacts inquiry is for the court to ascertain whether application of American law is reasonable under the circumstances, in which case (as subsection 2 describes) international law is satisfied. 14 81 In this case, as we explain below, the plaintiff succeeds on both steps of the inquiry. Her American citizenship satisfies the threshold requirement of a basis for prescriptive jurisdiction, and consideration of the Lauritzen factors reveals that the American interests at stake here are such that American law may be reasonably applied. Hence, the American contacts are substantial and the plaintiff was entitled to sue under American law. 82 In the following analysis, we rely on the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law for the relevant principles of international law. Its standards appear fairly supported in the decisions of [the Supreme] Court construing international choice-of-law principles ( [e.g.,] Lauritzen, Romero, and McCulloch [v. Sociedad Nacional de Marineros de Honduras, 372 U.S. 10, 83 S.Ct. 671, 9 L.Ed.2d 547 (1963) ].... Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. California, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2891, 2920, 125 L.Ed.2d 612 (Scalia, J., dissenting in part). A primary reason for relying on the Restatement of Foreign Relation Law is that one of the Court's chief motives for cabining the potentially unlimited scope of the Jones Act in Lauritzen was a concern that the legislation not violate norms of international law. While the dissent argues that the sections we rely on were not meant to apply in a tort case such as this, dissenting op. infra at 208 (quoting RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW Pt. IV, Ch. 1, Introd. Note, at 237 (1987) [hereinafter RESTATEMENT], the passage it quotes reveals that the Restatement's rules are not unconditionally irrelevant to tort cases: they only do not necessarily apply. Id. (different emphasis supplied). However, [i]n some circumstances, issues of private international law may also implicate issues of public international law, and many matters of private international law have substantial international significance and therefore may be considered foreign relations law [.] RESTATEMENT Sec. 101, cmt. c, at 23 (emphasis supplied). The Jones Act and American maritime law more generally are examples of just such matters, as is reflected by the Supreme Court's concern in Lauritzen about the prospect of violating international law. 15 See also infra note 17 (discussing difference between maritime laws and conventional tort law). Furthermore, the views of Lea Brilmayer, one of the leading authorities in the area, support use of the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law here. Professor Brilmayer has analyzed conflict of laws as the domestic counterpart of the international law issue of the extraterritorial application of American law. Lea Brilmayer, The Extraterritorial Application of American Law: A Methodological and Constitutional Appraisal, 50 L. & Contemp.Probs. 11, 11 (Summer 1987). Of particular relevance here, she has noted the unhelpfulness of the public/private distinction as regards international law: Whether or not that distinction is viable, it does not describe the different roles of the two Restatements. Some private law cases, such as Lauritzen v. Larsen, fall under the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law. Id. at 12 (footnote observing that Lauritzen is mentioned in the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law Sec. 403, reporters' note 2 omitted; emphasis supplied). 16 83
84 The first essential question in Lauritzen analysis is whether the suit implicates significant interests of the United States. In accordance with Lauritzen's direction to construe American maritime law so as not to violate international law, we identify this preliminary inquiry with the question whether there is a basis for the United States to exercise prescriptive jurisdiction over the incident at issue. 85 International law has long recognized limitations on the authority of states to exercise jurisdiction to prescribe in circumstances affecting the interests of other states. RESTATEMENT, Introd. Note, at 230. The Restatement defines prescriptive jurisdiction--which is not to be confused with subject matter jurisdiction--as the authority of a state to make its law applicable to the activities, relations, or status of persons, or the interests of person in things.... RESTATEMENT Sec. 401(a). It lists several alternative bases for prescriptive jurisdiction. As a general matter (subject to restrictions we discuss below), nations may prescribe law 86 with respect to 87
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