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

Heading: Purposes of and Problems with the Lauritzen Analysis

Text: 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