Court Opinion

ID: 9430598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:10.653899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.156603
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Marshall, and Justice Stevens join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court today holds that § 7 of the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 41 Stat. 538, 46 U. S. C. §767, forecloses application of state remedies for wrongful deaths on the high seas. Thus, the Court confines state courts to the adjudication of causes of action brought under DOHSA. Because I believe that the Court’s reading of § 7 is at odds with the language of the statute and its legislative history, I dissent.1
*234HH
In the early judicial history of the United States, a few courts of admiralty, moved by humanitarian considerations, found in general maritime law a right of action for wrongful death. As Chief Justice Chase noted in an often-quoted passage: “[C]ertainly it better becomes the humane and liberal character of proceedings in admiralty to give than to withhold the remedy, when not required to withhold it by established and inflexible rules.” The Sea Gull, 21 F. Cas. 909, 910 (No. 12,578) (CC Md. 1865). See The Highland Light, 12 F. Cas. 138, 139 (No. 6,477) (CC Md. 1867) (“The admiralty may be styled, not improperly, the human providence which watches over the rights and interests of those ‘who go down to the sea in ships’ ”). In 1886, however, this Court in The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199, held that such a right of recovery was not provided by general maritime law, but instead must be created by a state or federal statute.2
At the time of The Harrisburg, no federal statute afforded a right of action for wrongful death at sea. See id., at 213. Many States, including Louisiana, had statutes that granted a right of action for wrongful death generally, and lower federal courts had begun to enforce such rights in admiralty.3 *235In 1907, the Court confirmed the power of a State to provide a right of action for wrongful death upon the high seas. The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398. This power, however, created jurisdictional fictions and serious problems in choice of law that sometimes denied recovery altogether. See Wilson v. Transocean Airlines, 121 F. Supp. 85, 88-89 (ND Cal. 1954).
As a result, from 1898 to 1917 legislators in Congress introduced several bills that would have provided an exclusive federal right of action for wrongful death on all navigable waters. Id., at 89, nn. 8 and 9. These proposals met with an unbroken string of defeats, primarily because of considerable local opposition to any federal displacement of the operation of state wrongful-death statutes on territorial waters. Ibid. Finally, in the predecessor of § 7 of DOHSA, proposed legislation provided a uniform federal right of action for death on the high seas, and left unaffected the operation of state statutes on territorial waters. S. 4288, 64th Cong., 1st Sess. (1916); H. R. 9919, 64th Cong., 1st Sess. (1916). The bill was favorably reported by both Houses. S. Rep. No. 741, 64th Cong., 1st Sess. (1916); H. R. Rep. No. 1419, 64th Cong., 2d Sess. (1917). The same bill was introduced again in the House on the opening day of the 65th Congress. H. R. 39, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. (1917). Congress took no action on that bill, presumably because the United States entered World War I four days later.
Following World War I, the bill was reintroduced in the 66th Congress. S. 2085, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. (1919). The Senate passed the bill without material amendment. As it then stood, the bill provided in § 1 a right to maintain a suit in admiralty for wrongful death on the high seas. Section 7 of the bill, crucial to the disposition of the issue here today, stated that “the provisions of any State statute giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death shall not be affected by this Act as to causes of action accruing within the territorial limits of any State.” (Emphasis added.)
*236Before the bill went to the floor of the House, it was clear from the language of the bill and from the Reports of the Senate and the House Judiciary Committees that the federal right of action would be exclusive for deaths on the high seas and that the state wrongful-death statutes would provide the right of action for deaths on territorial waters. S. Rep. No. 216, 66th Cong., 1st Sess. (1919); H. R. Rep. No. 674, 66th Cong., 2d Sess. (1920). As the Court correctly observes: “§ 7, as originally proposed, ensured that [DOHSA] saved to survivors of those killed on territorial waters the ability to pursue a state wrongful death remedy in state court.” Ante, at 225.
Had the bill passed in that form, the resolution of this case would be clear — the federal statute would preclude application of state law for respondents’ cause of action. During the floor debate in the House of Representatives, however, Representative Mann from Illinois successfully offered an amendment striking from § 7 the concluding phrase, “as to causes of action accruing within the territorial limits of any State.” Thus, although the original § 7 preserved state-law rights of action within territorial waters, the ultimately enacted §7 preserved these rights of action without geographic qualification. Although § 7 is plainly intended to save state remedies for death on the high seas, the Court today ignores the section’s language and holds that it is a jurisdictional saving clause.
II
The starting point in statutory construction is, of course, the language of the statute itself. Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 756 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring). See Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102 (1980). The language of § 7, given scant attention by the Court, reads as codified:
“§767. Exceptions from operation of chapter
“The provisions of any State statute giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death shall not be af*237fected by this chapter. Nor shall this chapter apply to the Great Lakes or to any waters within the territorial limits of any State, or to any navigable waters in the Panama Canal Zone.” 46 U. S. C. §767 (emphasis added).
The terms of the provision are clear. The provision preserves state rights of action and state remedies for wrongful death without any territorial qualification. It encompasses not only jurisdiction, but also “rights of action” and “remedies.” The geographic reach of these traditional rights of action is therefore undiminished by DOHSA.
The congressional debate and other legislative history cast no doubt on the plain meaning of § 7. It is true, as the Court states, that the debate on the Mann Amendment was “exceedingly confused and often ill informed.” Ante, at 225. Judge Davis, who made a meticulous review of the congressional debate in his opinion for the Court of Appeals, stated:
“The congressional debate reflects a number of differing concerns and beliefs on the part of the legislators. These include whether the federal courts would have exclusive jurisdiction of DOHSA claims and whether causes of action granted by state statutes would be affected or preempted by DOHSA. The debate is not couched in the most precise legal terminology, and it appears that the term ‘jurisdiction’ was used indiscriminately to refer to both the power of state or federal courts to hear a particular case and the power of a state to grant a right of recovery. ... In this circumstance, an attempt to discern the congressional intent from the conflicting statements by participants in the debate is hopeless. It is also unnecessary in light of the clear language of the statute. Absent a clearly-expressed legislative intention to the contrary, the plain words of the statute must ordinarily be regarded as controlling.” 754 F. 2d 1274, 1280-1282 (1985).
*238Despite the confusion of the debate, it is clear that the Mann Amendment removed the clause that expressly limited state remedies “to causes of action accruing within the territorial limits of any State.” Accordingly, § 7, once confined to territorial waters, on its face extends to the high seas as well. Today’s holding, by barring state rights of action for deaths occurring on the high seas, limits § 7 in a manner that Congress expressly rejected. Whatever the policy advantages such a reading may have, it is inappropriate for this Court to make the “judgment that Congress intended a result that it expressly declined to enact.” Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186, 200 (1974).
H-H I — I
The Court attempts to explain its holding through a comparison of § 7 with § 4 of DOHSA, and with the “saving to suitors” clause in the Judiciary Act of 1789, § 9, 1 Stat. 76 (codified, as amended, at 28 U. S. C. § 1333). I find neither argument convincing. Section 4 preserves “a right of action . . . granted by the law of any foreign State . . . without abatement in respect to the amount for which recovery is authorized, any statute of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Emphasis added.) It is true that the italicized language is absent from §7. But §7 contains its own explicit language, since it expressly provides that state statutes “giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death shall not be affected by this Act.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, by its terms, § 7 protects the operation of state statutes that either create rights of action for wrongful death or “regulat[e]” the amount of those rights of action. That clear purpose is inconsistent with the notion that § 7 fails to preserve state-law rights of action on the high seas.
The Court’s second argument, never advanced by any of the federal courts that have considered this issue, is that § 7 is merely a “jurisdictional saving clause” that preserves state courts’ power to entertain certain causes of action for wrong*239ful death. I cannot accept this argument because it is inconsistent not only with the plain language of the provision, but also with one of the clear purposes of § 7.
The Court concedes that the original version of §7 preserved both state-law remedies for wrongful death occurring within territorial waters and state jurisdiction over those remedies. Ante, at 224, 225 (“§ 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”). The Court then asserts, however, that the Mann Amendment “extended the jurisdictional saving clause to the high seas but in doing so, it did not implicitly sanction the operation of state wrongful death statutes on the high seas in the same manner as the saving clause did in territorial waters.” Ante, at 227.
It is not easy to understand how § 7 was transformed from a provision that preserved both state jurisdiction and state rights of action in territorial waters, into a mere “jurisdictional saving clause” with no power to preserve state rights of action on the high seas. The Mann Amendment did nothing more than remove a territorial restriction; all other clauses of §7 remained intact. As Representative Mann stated: “If the amendment which I have suggested should be agreed to, the bill would not interfere in any way with rights now granted by any State statute, whether the cause of action accrued within the territorial limits of the State or not.” 59 Cong. Rec. 4484 (1920) (emphasis added). Moreover, as already noted, construing §7 as preserving only state jurisdiction on the high seas is at odds with the terms of the provision itself. The language plainly refers to “[t]he provisions of any State statute giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death.”4
*240As final support for its reading of § 7, the Court argues that it would be “incongruous” to read § 7 as “preserving] intact largely nonexistent or ineffective state law remedies for wrongful death on the high seas. ” Ante, at 230. Aside from the question whether this argument accurately portrays state-law remedies for death on the high seas, see The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398 (1907) (Delaware right of action for wrongful death on the high seas); La Bourgogne, 210 U. S. 95, 138 (1908) (similar Louisiana statute, direct precedessor of current respondents’ claim), it certainly is plausible to suggest that Congress may have wished to establish an assured and uniform federal right of action for wrongful death at sea. And in the light of the adoption of the Mann Amendment, it is not “incongruous” to believe that Congress, in providing that federal right of action, also decided to preserve the array of state-law remedies because these remedies sometimes — as is the case here — conferred upon a State’s residents rights of recovery beyond those of the federal statute.
> I — I
The Court argues that preserving state rights of action for death on the high seas, in accordance with the plain language of § 7, would undermine a uniform federal remedy and conflict with the exclusive, federal character of most aspects of admiralty law. I agree that such a result undercuts a federal uniformity that seems desirable here, but it is not the role of this Court to reconsider the wisdom of a policy choice that Congress has already made. Congress enacted the Mann Amendment to remove the territorial restriction from § 7’s preservation of state-law rights of action for wrongful death. *241The Court now holds that those rights of action may not be enforced on the high seas, and thereby imposes an exclusive federal remedy that Congress declined to enact. We should respect the outcome of the legislative process and preserve State rights of action for wrongful death on the high seas until Congress legislates otherwise. Accordingly, I dissent.

 I agree with the Court’s conclusion that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 67 Stat. 462, as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 1331 et seq., does not govern this action, and therefore join Part III of the Court’s opinion.

 The Court stated:
“The argument everywhere in support of [wrongful death] suits in admiralty has been, not that the maritime law, as actually administered in common law countries, is different from the common law in this particular, but that the common law is not founded on good reason, and is contrary to ‘natural equity and the general principles of law.’ Since, however, it is now established that in the courts of the United States no action at law can be maintained for such a wrong in the absence of a statute giving the right, and it has not been shown that the maritime law, as accepted and received by maritime nations generally, has established a different rule for the government of the courts of admiralty from those which govern courts of law in matters of this kind, we are forced to the conclusion that no such action will lie in the courts of the United States under the general maritime law.” 119 U. S., at 213.

 See cases cited in 754 F. 2d 1274, 1277, n. 1 (CA5 1985).

 Nor does the Court’s extended discussion of Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205 (1917), see ante, at 224, 227-228, explain its view that the Mann Amendment converted § 7 into a jurisdictional saving clause. It is true that the uniformity requirement in Jensen was broad enough on *240its face to foreclose state wrongful-death rights of action. (But cf. 244 U. S., at 216 (state wrongful-death statute expressly exempted from Jensen rule)). Congress therefore might have believed that an express reservation of state-law rights of action was necessary to save state causes of action after Congress had enacted DOHSA. This concern, however, does not explain how the Mann Amendment transformed § 7 into a jurisdictional saving clause.