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

Heading: Loss of Guidance, Training, and Advice

Text: DOHSA permits recovery for the monetary value of services a decedent would have continued to provide but for his wrongful death. Such services include ... the nurture, training, education, and guidance that a child would have received had not the parent been wrongfully killed. Gaudet, 414 U.S. at 585, 94 S.Ct. at 815. The district court recognized that, under DOHSA, recovery for loss of guidance, training, and advice has generally been limited to that provided a decedent's minor children. It nevertheless [326 U.S.App.D.C. 388] concluded that awards to adult children for such losses were permissible under the Warsaw Convention. As became clear when the Supreme Court issued its intervening decision in Zicherman, 516 U.S. at ---- - ----, 116 S.Ct. at 634-36, the district court erred in relying on the Convention. Moreover, we agree with the Second and Fifth Circuits that, under DOHSA, damages for loss of parental guidance and training are available to adult children only if there is a very specific showing that their parents' guidance had a pecuniary value beyond the irreplaceable values of companionship and affection. Solomon v. Warren, 540 F.2d 777, 789 (5th Cir.1976) (quoting First Nat'l Bank in Greenwich v. National Airlines, Inc., 288 F.2d 621, 624 (2d Cir.1961)); see also In re Air Disaster at Lockerbie Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, 37 F.3d 804, 830 (2d Cir.1994). The evidence at the trial indicated that, after reaching her majority, Marsha Maikovich lived with her parents during her first year of law school, sought advice and guidance from them about career choices after she had received her law degree, discussed medical options when she was ill in the hospital, discussed childbearing and parenting issues with her mother, and sought her father's advice on financial matters such as investments and home ownership. Similarly, Joseph Kohn testified that he lived with his parents after graduating from college, worked at Drexel Burnham with his father, and discussed with him his decision to pursue a master's degree in business. After leaving graduate school, he sought advice from his father about workplace dynamics and investment matters. In short, the evidence showed that the Kohns were interested, loving, and helpful parents. Although we have no doubt that Marsha and Joseph placed great value on the counseling that they sought and continued to receive from their parents, there is nothing in the record to show that these children suffered a financial loss as a result of their inability to receive such guidance after 1983. Accordingly, we reverse the awards to Marsha and Joseph for loss of guidance, training, and advice and remand the award to Robert so that the district court may determine the value of the loss that he suffered between the time of the crash and his eighteenth birthday. Because we reverse the jury awards on this issue, we need not consider KAL's argument that the claimants are not entitled to prejudgment interest on those awards. We express no opinion on whether prejudgment interest may be appropriate on any award that Robert may receive for the loss of guidance, training, and advice prior to his eighteenth birthday but leave that determination to the district court.