Court Opinion

ID: 9425514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:56.244103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.049882
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice, Me. Justice Stewaet, and Me. Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.
The Court today rewrites several areas of the admiralty law of wrongful death. In holding that a wrongful-death action may be brought although the decedent has previously recovered in his own suit based on the same wrongful act, the Court disregards a major body of maritime and state law. The majority opinion also opens up an area of sentimental damages that has not been allowed under traditional admiralty doctrine. It hopes to prevent double recovery through a novel application of collateral estoppel principles, which rests in turn on the unprecedented concept that a seriously injured person acts as a fiduciary for an undefined class of potential beneficiaries with regard to his own recovery in his own personal-injury action. Given the sweep of the majority’s approach, the upshot in many areas will be a nearly total nullification of the congressional enactments previously governing maritime wrongful death. Except for a technical joinder of counts to obtain a jury trial and thus to maximize the benefits promised by the Court’s opinion, no one entitled to rely on the admiralty doctrine of unseaworthiness will, after today, seek relief under the federal maritime wrongful-death statutes. Several limitations built into those congressional enactments have been swept aside by the majority’s decision.
In reaching these results, the majority purports to apply Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U. S. *596375 (1970). It is true that Moragne overruled The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199 (1886), and held that an action for death caused by a violation of maritime duties would lie under the general law of admiralty. But Moragne does not support the Court’s far-reaching holdings in this case. Indeed, Moragne, which was essentially a response to a gap in maritime remedies for deaths occurring in state territorial waters, explicitly counsels against the sort of tabula rasa restructuring of the law of admiralty undertaken by the majority. Writing for the Court, Mr. Justice Harlan stressed the need to “assure uniform vindication of federal policies . . . .” 398 U. S., at 401. He eschewed “the fashioning of a whole new body of federal law . . . ,” id., at 405, believing that the lower courts would have slight difficulty “in applying accepted maritime law to actions for wrongful death.” Id., at 406. He stated that those courts would find “persuasive analogy for guidance” in the accumulated experiences under the state wrongful-death statutes and the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U. S. C. § 761 et seq., 398 U. S., at 408. He emphasized the consistency of the Court’s holding with the congressional purposes behind the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. § 688. 398 U. S., at 400-402.
The Court has now rejected these guidelines so recently laid down in Moragne. Disregarding the source of law endorsed by Moragne, as well as the concern for uniformity expressed in that opinion, the Court has fashioned a new substantive right of recovery in conflict with “accepted maritime law” and a new body of law with regard to the elements of damages recoverable in admiralty wrongful-death actions. In my view, these unprecedented extensions of admiralty law exhibit little deference for stare decisis or, indeed, for enunciated congressional policy. I also believe these new doctrines are unsound as a matter of principle, will create \ difficulty *597and confusion in the litigation of admiralty cases, and are very likely to result in duplicative recoveries.
I
Long accepted law under the Jones Act,1 one of the two federal maritime wrongful-death statutes,2 does not countenance the result reached by the majority today. The Jones Act “created a federal right of action for the wrongful death of a seaman based on the statutory action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act [FELA].” Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426, 429 (1958). Since the FELA, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-60, is the “regime which the Jones Act made applicable to seamen . . . ,” 3 the “entire judicially developed doctrine of liability” under the FELA governs a Jones Act case. *598Kernan, supra, at 439. An uninterrupted line of FELA and Jones Act cases going back a half century holds that if the decedent reduces his claim to settlement or judgment prior to his death, or otherwise extinguishes his right to pursue the claim, no subsequent wrongful-death action may be brought. See, e. g., Mellon v. Goodyear, 277 U. S. 335 (1928); Flynn v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 283 U. S. 53 (1931); Walrod v. Southern Pacific Co., 447 F. 2d 930 (CA9 1971); Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Oliver, 261 F. 1 (CA5 1919); Gilmore v. Southern R. Co., 229 F. Supp. 198 (ED La. 1964); Purvis v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 93 F. Supp. 271 (SDNY 1949).
Mellon and its progeny hold unequivocally that a judgment, settlement, or similarly conclusive event with regard to the decedent’s own right to seek recovery for his personal injuries “ [precludes] any remedy by the personal representative based upon the same wrongful act.” Mellon, supra, at 344. The Court in Mellon quoted with approval the following language from a state court opinion:
“ ‘ “Whether the right of action is a transmitted right or an original right, whether it be created by a survival statute or by a statute creating an independent right, the general consensus of opinion seems to be that the gist and foundation of the right in all cases is the wrongful act, and that for such wrongful act but one recovery should be had, and that if the deceased had received satisfaction in his lifetime, either by settlement and adjustment or by adjudication in the courts, no further right of action existed.” ’ ” 277 U. S., at 345. (Citation omitted.)
The Mellon rule does not rest on a disagreement in principle with the majority’s view, ante, at 577-578, that a single wrong is capable of producing separate and distinct injuries, those to the decedent and those to his bene*599ficiaries. Indeed, the Court in Mellon explicitly recognized that distinction. It noted that although originating in the same wrongful act, there are two separate and distinct claims, one assertable by the injured person and the other upon his death by his personal representative or dependents. 277 U. S., at 340, 342. Nevertheless, Mellon and uniformly consistent Jones Act and FELA cases that have followed it hold that when the decedent extinguishes his own claim he simultaneously forecloses any wrongful-death action. As Mr. Justice Holmes put it for a unanimous Court in Flynn, supra, the wrongful-death action is “derivative and dependent upon the continuance of a right in the injured employee at the time of his death.” 283 U. S., at 56 (citation omitted). Thus, the Court’s opinion in this case creates a square conflict with one of the major bodies of maritime law that Moragne viewed as a source of guidance.
The Court’s implication that the Death on the High Seas Act4 supports its departure from Mellon, ante, at 583 n. 10, is at best conjectural. In fact, no cases addressing the situation presented here appear to have arisen under that Act. Conceivably such a case could arise, because the High Seas Act by its terms covers deaths caused by injuries inflicted at sea, not simply deaths occurring on the high seas. Cf. Lacey v. L. W. Wiggins Airways, Inc., 95 F. *600Supp. 916 (Mass. 1951).5 Thus, it would be possible in theory for a person injured at sea to recover for his personal injuries and, following his death, for his survivors to attempt to bring suit under the High Seas Act. But certainly the Act would not be read as allowing the subsequent action. Such a result would conflict with the Mellon line of cases under the Jones Act and the FELA, producing precisely the lack of uniformity normally sought to be avoided in admiralty. Moreover, the High Seas Act contains a substitution provision, 46 U. S. C. § 765, that by implication forbids a wrongful-death action following a decedent’s judgment. Section 765 provides that if a person who suffers injuries within the scope of the Act dies during the pendency of his own personal injury action, that action may be transformed by a personal representative into a wrongful-death action countenanced by the Act.6 Surely this substitution provision evidences a congressional recog*601nition that only one action or the other should be allowed to proceed to judgment.
The Court’s reference in Moragne to the “strong concern for uniformity” in admiralty law, 398 U. S., at 401, often repeated and often related to congressional policies underlying the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act, id., at 396 n. 12, 401-402, was not an expression of concern solely for intellectual consistency. “Such uniformity not only will further the concerns of both of the . . . Acts but also will give effect to the constitutionally based principle that federal admiralty law should be 'a system of law coextensive with, and operating uniformly in, the whole country.’ The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 575 (1875).” 398 U. S., at 401-402. But the lack of uniformity produced by the majority’s holding should be evident. For example, whether a seaman’s injuries occur on land or at sea will be determinative under the majority’s approach. If on land, the seaman will have the Jones Act as his admiralty-related remedy.7 Under that Act and the Mellon line of cases his own personal-injury action will foreclose a subsequent wrongful-death action- — a misfortune that would not have befallen him and his survivors if only he had been lucky enough to have been injured at sea. This anomaly is not something, I suspect, the Court will long abide. Since “ [i] t has been consistently true in this branch of the law that whatever a seaman can get under one theory he can sooner or later get under all the others . . . ,” 8 the Court’s holding undoubtedly portends an express overruling of Mellon and its successors, cases that the Court bypasses today.
Aside from the disunity in the law of admiralty inherent in its opinion, I fail to see how the Court can square *602its sweeping approach with Mor ague’s reliance on and admonition to draw by analogy from the federal statutes. E. g., 398 U. S., at 400-402, 408. Moragne envisioned a process of accommodation with those statutes, not their abrupt and near-total forced obsolescence. In this regard, it might be noted that the Court has still not resolved many of the practical questions left open in Moragne, such as how to define the class of beneficiaries or an appropriate limitation period. Presumably, in resolving such questions the lower courts are to continue to rely on the admiralty wrongful-death statutes. Now they are placed in the interesting position of analogizing to statutes under which the very claim before them would be blocked.
II
The Court in Moragne also counseled the lower courts to draw by analogy from the case law under the state wrongful-death statutes. Id., at 408. Under the great majority of those statutes, whether of survival or true death act character, Mrs. Gaudet’s cause of action would have been foreclosed by her husband's recovery.9 *603The Restatement of Torts is also in direct conflict with the position taken by the Court:
“Although the death statutes create a new cause of action, both they and the survival statutes are dependent upon the rights of the deceased. Hence where no action could have been brought by the deceased had he not been killed, no right of action exists. Likewise a release by the deceased or a judgment either in his favor or, if won on the merits, in favor of the defendant, bars an action after his death. ...”10
Because of the likelihood of double recovery and the threat to repose inherent, in the majority’s holding, several .leading commentators also favor the majority rule under the state wrongful-death statutes.11 This is *604particularly true where, as here, the deceased in his own action has recovered his loss of earnings over his pre-accident life expectancy.12 Even those opposed to the majority position under state law recognize the “force” of that view in such a case.13
*605III
The Court devotes a major portion of its opinion to the' elements of damages recoverable under Moragne. Ante, at 584-591. In particular, the Court embraces the Court of Appeals’ suggestion, 463 F. 2d 1331, 1333 (CA5 1972), that Mrs. Gaudet is entitled to seek damages for loss of “society,” including love, affection, care, attention, companionship, comfort, and protection. Ante, at 585-590. Although I would not otherwise address the question of damages because I believe that no cause of action exists here, I think it important to note that the Court’s holding that loss of society may be recovered is a clear example of the majority’s repudiation of the congressional purposes expressed in the two federal maritime wrongful-death statutes.14 The traditional admiralty view is that such nonpecuniary damages are not recoverable under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Jones Act.
The Death on the High Seas Act by its terms restricts recovery to pecuniary losses,15 a restriction the lower *606federal courts have consistently read as excluding loss of consortium and similar nonpecuniary injuries to persona] relationship, affections, and sentiments.16 Because of its relationship to the FELA and its overlapping coverage with the Death on the High Seas Act, the Jones Act also has been read as forbidding recovery of the sentimental losses approved by the Court today.17 Moreover, these well-established damages principles under the two federal maritime wrongful-death statutes, coupled with a concern for uniformity in admiralty law, have led most lower courts that have taken part in the continuing development of the Mor ague cause of action to conclude that the affection-related damages endorsed by the Court are not recoverable under Mor ague.18 These courts have *607heeded Moragne’s admonition not to fashion a whole new body of law, yet their holdings are disapproved by the majority. Ante, at 588 n. 23.
XV
The reasons underlying the extensive state and admiralty precedent contrary to the Court’s holding that this action may be brought are not difficult to discern. The majority’s statement that this precedent rests not so much on policy as on “statutory limitations on the wrongful-death action . . . ,” ante, at 579, is erroneous.19 The *608large number of courts that have refused to adopt the majority's view have done so for very good, practical reasons. The Court has adopted a rule that will be difficult to administer, that presents a serious risk of unfairness for those in petitioner’s position, and that fails to foster the law’s normal regard for finality.
The majority’s position requires it to establish procedures to prevent a double recovery of the elements of damages awarded Gaudet in his own lawsuit. This is no easy task, as “ [i]t should be obvious that as yet no satisfactory systematic solution to the whole [double recovery] problem has been found.” 20 The Court adopts a collateral estoppel theory, and apparently would implement this by treating the injured seaman as a “fiduciary” for his dependents. Ante, at 593-594. Apart from the utter novelty of this extension of the law of trusts and fiduciary duties, the majority’s estoppel theory is hardly a “satisfactory solution” to the problem of unfair recoveries.21 Apparently the Court intends to limit the ele-*609merits of proof of damages that may be introduced at the second trial. But this will in no way guarantee that the second trier of fact will succeed in compartmentalizing the allowable from the unallowable elements of damages in the second trial. The highly conceptualized nature of the parsing of categories of damages undertaken by the Court suggests how unlikely it is that the majority’s theoretical distinctions will be meaningful in practice. And control by way of appellate review of the injustices that are bound to occur will be, practically speaking, an impossible task.
Mr. Gaudet’s judgment was given by a jury. It would be unrealistic to assume that that verdict was restricted to an objective measurement of Gaudet’s lost earnings plus the “value” of his pain and suffering. In all likelihood, Gaudet’s award reflected an element of the jury’s concern for a permanently disabled working man. As anyone who has tried jury cases knows, jury sympathy commonly overcomes a theoretical inability to recover for such intangibles as loss of society. If Mrs. Gaudet is then allowed to recover in her subsequent lawsuit the full value, whatever that is, of her loss of love, attention, care, affection, companionship, comfort, and protection, she will be given a second opportunity to benefit from the imprecision built into any award for injuries that cannot be measured objectively. The Gaudet family may well then receive substantially more than just compensation for its injuries.
One expression of jury sympathy is commonplace, despite its conflict with the damages principles that in theory control. But certainly two opportunities for *610jury sentiment cross the line between benignity and bonanza and should not be sanctioned. And, it is in those cases where the decedent's suit and the subsequent Moragne wrongful-death action are both tried to juries that the majority’s procedures for preventing a windfall are most likely to break down. Since it is an admiralty action, a Moragne claim by itself will not entitle the wrongful-death claimant to a jury. But there will be cases in which the claimant will be able to join a state law action to a Moragne claim and obtain a jury for both, either in state or federal court. See, ante, at 589 n. 24. When that happens, those in petitioner’s position will be subjected twice to the vagaries of a jury, the second time on such wide-open damages concepts as those embraced by the majority.
The Court’s approval of a second recovery based on the same wrong for which decedent already had recovered, compounded by its rejection of traditional admiralty “pecuniary loss” damage standards, seems particularly inappropriate given the nature of the claim relied on by both Gaudets. The maritime concept of unseaworthiness is not based on fault. The doctrine has evolved into a judicially created form of strict liability.22 When the law imposes absolute liability, it often restricts recovery to damages for those injuries that are clearly ascertainable and susceptible of monetary compensation. E. g., Igneri v. Cie. de Transports Oceaniques, 323 F. 2d 257, 268 (CA2 1963), cert. denied, 376 U. S. 949 (1964). This reflects the impossibility of deterrence and the inappropriateness of punishment in many cases where liability is absolute. The Court has broken with that wise rule of social policy in this case.
*611The Court also has ignored the law’s normal regard for an end to duplicative litigation arising from the same transaction. After her husband’s judgment was affirmed on appeal,23 Mrs. Gaudet commenced this action by, in essence, changing a few lines in her husband’s complaint and filing it again in the same United States District Court as a Mor ague wrongful-death action. That court’s dismissal of Mrs. Gaudet’s complaint on res judicata grounds24 is hardly surprising, given the striking similarities between the two Gaudet complaints. Both complaints were based on the maritime doctrine of unseaworthiness, a condition that Mrs. Gaudet alleged was established as a matter of res judicata by Mr. Gaudet’s successful lawsuit. App. 2, 5-6. The same facts and injuries were alleged. Id., at 1-2, 4-5. Both sought recovery, in the amount of $250,000. Id., at 2, 6. Whereas Mr. Gaudet had sought recovery for lost earnings, id., at 2, Mrs. Gaudet sought compensation for her “severe financial loss.” Id., at 5. Thus, on the face of the complaints, Mrs. Gaudet apparently sought recovery solely for elements of damages that had been encompassed by her husband’s judgment.25
There should be strong reasons of policy to justify such repetitive suits and to impose on petitioner the attendant doubling of litigation expenses. The reasons advanced by the majority opinion do not, in my view, approach that level of persuasion. Petitioner has already fully litigated, and paid, a large judgment com*612pensating Gaudet’s estate for the injuries Gaudet incurred on board its vessel. Ordinarily, petitioner would have been able to consider the ease closed and to order its affairs on the basis of a verdict affirmed on appeal. Today’s result deprives petitioner of that reliance interest, subjecting it to another round of litigation with wide-open damages possibilities. The admiralty precedents, the prevailing weight of state law, and elementary fairness call for relieving petitioner of that unjustifiable burden.
As noted at the outset of this dissent, the Court has written new admiralty law as to the right of survivors to recover for wrongful death and has expanded significantly the elements of damages recoverable. In reaching these results, the majority opinion has discredited, if not in substance overruled, the unanimous decisions of the Court in the Mellon and Flynn cases. In Mor ague, a decision on which I believe the majority places a mistaken reliance, the Court emphasized its reluctance to disregard or overrule established precedent:
“Very weighty considerations underlie the principle that courts should not lightly overrule past decisions. Among these are the desirability that the law furnish a clear guide for the conduct of individuals, to enable them to plan their affairs with assurance against untoward surprise; the importance of furthering fair and expeditious adjudication by eliminating the need to relitigate every relevant proposition in every case; and the necessity of maintaining public faith in the judiciary as a source of impersonal and reasoned judgments. The reasons for rejecting any established rule must always be weighed against these factors.” 398 U. S., at 403.
Mr. Justice Harlan, for the Court, then went on to state with care the reasons for rejecting The Harrisburg *613rule, described as an “unjustifiable anomaly.” Id., at 404. The substantive rule rejected today is no comparable anomaly. It has been the generally applied doctrine since wrongful-death actions were introduced in this country. It has been the rule of the relevant federal statutes since their inception, and Congress has not modified the rule during that entire period. It was the rule announced in Mellon and Flynn, supra, cases the Court chooses not to follow today. And, unlike the opinion in Morague, the majority has not provided, in my view, sound reasons of precedent or policy for overturning the rule.

 46 U. S. C. § 688. The Jones Act provides:
“Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply; and in case of the death of any seaman as a result of any such personal injury the personal representative of such seaman may maintain an action for damages at law with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States conferring or regulating the right of action for death in the case of railway employees shall be applicable. Jurisdiction in such actions shall be under the court of the district in which the defendant employer resides or in which his principal office is located.”
Since the Act employs the terms “in the course of his employment . . .,” the cause of action it provides “follows from the seaman’s employment status and is not limited to injury or death occurring on the high seas.” Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U. S. 375, 394 (1970). Proof of negligence is a predicate to recovery. Ibid.

 The second such statute, the Death on the High Seas Act, is discussed below. See text, infra, at 599-601 and nn. 4-6.

 Igneri v. Cie. de Transports Oceaniques, 323 F. 2d 257, 266 (CA2 1963), cert. denied, 376 U. S. 949 (1964).

 46 U. S. C. § 761 et seq. The opening section of the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U. S. C. § 761, provides:
“Whenever the death of a person shall be caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas beyond a marine league from the shore of any State, or the District of Columbia, or the Territories or dependencies of the United States, the personal representative of the decedent may maintain a suit for damages in the district courts of the United States, in admiralty, for the exclusive benefit of the decedent's wife, husband, parent, child, or dependent relative against the vessel, person, or corporation which would have been liable if death had not ensued.”

 But see Pickles v. F. Leyland & Co., 10 F. 2d 371 (Mass. 1925). Pickles holds that if the death occurs on land, the High Seas Act is not applicable, even though the injuries ultimately producing death were inflicted at sea. Id., at 372. If this were the correct view, it would be easy to see why cases like the instant one had not previously arisen under the High Seas Act. The Act would simply not allow actions like the present one. However, the Act says “death . . . caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas . . . not “death occurring on the high seas.” See n. 4, supra. Pickles, therefore, is probably an erroneous reading of the Act.

 Section 765 reads:
“If a person die as the result of such wrongful act, neglect, or default as is mentioned in section 761 of this title [see n. 4, supra] during the pendency in a court of admiralty of the United States of a suit to recover damages for personal injuries in respect of such act, neglect, or default, the personal representative of the decedent may be substituted as a party and the suit may proceed as a suit under this chapter for the recovery of [pecuniary losses].”

 See n. 1, supra.

 G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty 308 (1957).

 E. g., Roberts v. Union Carbide Corp., 415 F. 2d 474 (CA3 1969) (New Jersey law); Schlavick v. Manhattan Brewing Co., 103 F. Supp. 744 (ND Ill. 1952) (Indiana law). The cases are reviewed in W. Prosser, The Law of Torts 911-912 (4th ed. 1971) (hereafter Prosser); 2 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 24.6 (1956 and Supp. 1968); Fleming, The Lost Years: A Problem in the Computation and Distribution of Damages, 50 Calif. L. Rev. 598, 599, 608-609 (1962) (hereafter Fleming). The latter commentator notes that “[a]t least twenty-three jurisdictions . . . have so held in the clearest terms and some half a dozen more have so indicated in dicta.” Id., at 608-609, n. 38. Nine or 10 contrary jurisdictions constitute a “substantial minority view” according to Prosser 912 and nn. 35-39. However, Prosser notes that this view is “largely confined to jurisdictions which do not allow the decedent to recover for his own curtailed life . . . .” Id., at 912. As the Court points out, ante, at 593-594, the Moragne cause of action is not subject to that limitation.

 E. g., 2 Harper & James, supra, at 1293-1294:
“If . . . deceased recovers before his death, his recovery for permanent injuries will be based, under the prevailing American rule, on *604his prospective- earnings for the balance of his life expectancy at the time of his injury undiminished by any shortening of that expectancy as a result of the injury. Presumably any settlement would reflect the legal liability under this rule. The danger of double recovery becomes clear when it is recalled that any benefits of which the survivors were deprived, by the death, would have come out of these very prospective earnings if deceased had lived. At least in the case of serious and apparently permanent injuries, therefore, there is real danger of double recovery if a wrongful death action is allowed after recovery or release by deceased during his lifetime.” (Emphasis in original; citations omitted.)
See id., at n. 14: “[Double recovery] is a ‘theoretical’ as well as a ‘practical’ danger. . . . The prevailing rules . . . seem therefore to be fully justified.” (Citation omitted.) See also Prosser 911: “The courts undoubtedly have been influenced by a fear of double recovery. This is of course possible in point of law, not only under the survival type of death act, but also in any jurisdiction where the decedent would be allowed to recover for the prospective earnings lost through his diminished fife expectancy.” (Citations omitted.) The latter appears to have been the measure of Mr. Gaudet’s recovery in his personal-injury action. 463 F. 2d 1331, 1333 n. 1 (CA5 1972); Tr. of Oral Arg. 20-21.

 E. g., Duffey, The Maldistribution of Damages in Wrongful Death, 19 Ohio St. L. J. 264, 273 (1958): In such cases, “[t]he recovery in the wrongful death action based on the decedent’s future earning capacity is . . . simply a portion or segment of the larger recovery obtained by the injured person himself in the personal injury action.” See n. 11, supra.

 Fleming 610. “ [The fear of duplication of damages] has force . . . whenever allowance was made for prospective loss of earnings [in the decedent’s own lawsuit], since this would have drawn on, or depleted, the fund contingently available to satisfy the depend-ants for loss of their expectancy -of support.” This commentator also states that the minority of state courts that do not view decedent recovery as a bar to a subsequent wrongful-death action and that *605are “content with the bland assertion that no duplication of damages can arise because the release or recovery by the decedent could not have covered the period beyond his death . . .” are relying on a “protestation of faith rather than a conclusion drawn from proven facts . . . .” Id., at 615 (emphasis in original).

 I do not address the correctness of the Court’s holding that Moragne allows the recovery of loss of services, see, e. g., Michigan C. R. Co. v. Vreeland, 227 U. S. 59, 71, 73 (1913), or funeral expenses. Compare Cities Service Oil Co. v. Launey, 403 F. 2d 537, 540 (CA5 1968), with Greene v. Vantage S. S. Corp., 466 F. 2d 159, 167 (CA4 1972).

 46 U. S. C. § 762. Section 762 provides:
“The recovery in such suit shall be a fair and just compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the persons for whose benefit the suit is brought and shall be apportioned among them by the court in proportion to the loss they may severally have suffered by reason of the death of the person by whose representative the suit is brought.”

 E. g., Igneri v. Cie. de Transports Oceaniques, 323 F. 2d, at 266 n. 21; Middleton v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 70 F. 2d 326, 330 (CA2), cert. denied, 293 U. S. 577 (1934). See Dugas v. National Aircraft Corp., 438 F. 2d 1386, 1392 (CA3 1971) (“The amount of recovery under the Death on the High Seas Act is determined by the actual pecuniary loss sustained by the beneficiary due to the wrongful death”).

 E. g., Igneri v. Cie. de Transports Oceaniques, supra, at 266 (“[I]t is established . . . that the damages recoverable by a seaman’s widow suing for wrongful death under the Jones Act do not include recovery for loss of consortium”). Cf. Cities Service Oil Co. v. Launey, supra, at 540. See Gulf, C. & S. F. B. Co. v. McGinnis, 228 U. S. 173, 175 (1913); Michigan C. R. Co. v. Vreeland, supra, at 68, 70-71; G. Gilmore & C. Black, The Law of Admiralty 306 (1957): “Recovery under the High Seas Act like that under FELA § 51 [and thus the Jones Act] is based on pecuniary loss to the beneficiaries as a result of the wrongful death. The damage calculation therefore involves an estimate of what the decedent’s life expectancy would have been, his probable earnings during that period and the amounts he would have contributed to beneficiaries.”

 E. g., Simpson v. Knutsen, 444 F. 2d 523 (CA9 1971); Petition of United States Steel Corp., 436 F. 2d 1256, 1279 (CA6 1970), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 987 (1971); In re Cambria S. S. Co., 353 F. Supp. 691, 697-698 (ND Ohio 1973); Green v. Boss, 338 F. Supp. *607365, 367 (SD Fla. 1972); Petition of Canal Barge Co., 323 F. Supp. 805, 820-821 (ND Miss. 1971). The state courts of Louisiana, the State where Mr. Gaudet’s injuries occurred, have reached the same result. Strickland v. Nutt, 264 So. 2d 317, 322 (La. App.), aff’d sub nom. DeRouen v. Nutt, 262 La. 1123, 266 So. 2d 432 (1972). (“The Moragne case, with the desire for uniformity in maritime death actions' announced therein, precludes loss of love and affection as an element of damage here.'’)
Only one Fifth Circuit case, other than the instant case, and two cases from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana have concluded that Moragne signaled a break with settled admiralty wrongful-death damages rules. Dennis v. Central Gulf S. S. Corp., 453 F. 2d 137, cert. denied, 409 U. S. 948 (1972); In re Farrell Lines, Inc., 339 F. Supp. 91 (1971); In re Sincere Navigation Corp., 329 F. Supp. 652 (1971). In the latter case, the court candidly admitted that its decision “may conflict with Moragne’s goal of uniformity of recovery for all who perish on navigable waters.” Id., at 657.

 The majority’s opinion, apparently in an effort to avoid the force of precedent contrary to its view, contrasts disparagingly these statutes with the more “humane” judge-made rule of Moragne. Ante, at 581-583. But the majority ignores the extent to which the Court in Moragne expressly identified its holding with the policy and principles of the very statutes now criticized:
“The policy thus established [by the state and federal wrongful-death statutes] has become itself a part of our law, to be given its appropriate weight not only in matters of statutory construction *608but also in those of decisional law.” 398 U. S., at 390-391. And, again:
“Both the Death on the High Seas Act and the numerous state wrongful-death acts have been implemented with success for decades. The experience thus built up counsels that a suit for wrongful death raises no problems unlike those that have long been grist for the judicial mill.” Id., at 408.
Contrary to the Court’s intimations, there is no basis for suggesting a tension between these statutes and Moragne. Indeed, it is clear from the Moragne opinion that the Court relied upon the statutes in its analysis, sought only to fill a narrow gap in the law left by them, and considered that the statutes afforded “persuasive analogy for guidance” in developing the Moragne cause of action. Ibid.

 Prosser 912 (footnote omitted).

 The theory probably creates more problems than it resolves. What are the boundaries of the class of potential beneficiaries who are estopped to relitigate loss of support? If a seriously injured person is the fiduciary for an undefined class of potential beneficiaries, may he be enjoined from wasting his assets or disinheriting members *609of his family? There will also be some nice questions under the majority’s approach about whether a particular item of proof at the second trial is to be introduced with regard to the forbidden issue of support or the permissible issue of, say, services.

 Moragne v. States Marine Lines, 398 U. S., at 399. Cf., Comment, Maritime Wrongful Death After Moragne: The Seaman’s Legal Lifeboat, 59 Geo. L. J. 1411 n. 4 (1971).

 Stein v. Sea-Land, Services, Inc., 440 F. 2d 1181 (CA5 1971). It might be noted that because Gaudet’s death intervened between the jury verdict and the appeal, his recovery went directly to his estate, not to him personally.

 Pet. for Cert. 17.

 Although the majority fails to address the point, presumably its result means that Mrs. Gaudet must at least amend her complaint upon remand to the District Court.