Court Opinion

ID: 9421908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:00:28.051765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.786895
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter joins, dissenting.
Since The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398, it has been settled law that an action in personam for wrongful death occurring on navigable waters, not available under maritime law, The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199, may be brought under a state- wrongful death statute. In The Tungus v. Skovgaard, 358 U. S. 588, decided last Term, we held that such an action could be maintained only in accordance with the limitations placed upon it by state law. This case pre-' sents the further question, not involved in The Tungus, namely, whether such an action lies when the conduct said to give rise to liability is.measured under state law by greater substantive standards of duty than those which would have governed the same conduct under maritime law had death not occurred.1
The Court, if I read its opinion aright, holds that when a victim of a maritime tort dies as a result of such con*323duct the law of the State whose wrongful death statute is invoked wholly governs liability.2 At the same time the Court leaves open the question whether a state wrongful death act might contain “provisions so offensive to traditional principles of maritime law that the admiralty would decline to enforce them,” finding that this Oregon statute “presents no such problem.”
I cannot agree _ with the view that • wrongful death actions .growing out of maritime torts are so pervasively controlled by state law, or with the conclúsion that this state statute in its'substantive provisions is, in any event, not offensive to maritime law. Nor can I subscribe to ' the intimation that the question which the Court reserves is seriously open to debate. Because of the importance of the issue, a fuller statement of my views is justified than might be appropriate in a case of lesser general concern.
I.
It is surely beyond dispute that the Oregon Employers’ Liability Law, Ore. Rev. Stat. § 654.305, imposes a stricter standard of duty than that imposed by maritime-law. Under maritime law the basis of liability in cases like this is the failure to use reasonable care in light of the attendant circumstances, that is, negligence. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale, 358 U. S. 625, 630, 632. The state statute, oh the other hand, imposes the duty to use—
“every device, care and precaution which it is practicable to use for the protection and safety of life and limb, limited only by the necessity for preserv*324ing the efficiency of the . . . device, and without regard to the additional cost of suitable material or safety appliance [sic] and devices.” Ore. Rev. Stat. §654.305.
Oregon itself has recognized that this statute imposes a “much higher degree of care,” Hoffman v. Broadway Hazelwood, 139 Ore. 519, 524, 10 P. 2d 349, 351, 11 P. 2d 814, than that generally required of defendants in accident cases. See Camenzind v. Freeland Furniture Co., 89 Ore. 158, 172-173, 174 P. 139, 144. So much indeed I do not understand the Court to deny.
II.
Had this accident resulted in injuries short of death, it is. clear that the United States could not have been held liable except in accordance with the standards of “duty imposed by maritime law. This follows from the general constitutional doctrine of federal supremacy in maritime affairs, and more particularly from the rule first unmistakably announced in Chelentis v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 247 U. S. 372, which rejected the notion that the “saving clause” of § 9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 77, permitted the application in.maritime tort cases of state substantive rules in. derogation of maritime law.3 That *325case was a maritime tort action brought in a- state court by a seaman, seeking compensatory damages for injuries claimed to have been caused by the negligence of his employer. Historically, maritime law recognized no such cause of action. The duty of a shipowner to an injured crewman was only to provide for his maintenance and cure, and that irrespective of negligence; full indemnity was owing only for breach of the warranty of seaworthiness.4 The Court held, first, that § 20 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1915, 38 Stat. 1185,5 notwithstanding, such was still the rule. This being so, a state court was not free to apply any other rule to a maritime tort:
“Plainly, we think, under .the saving clause a right sanctioned by the maritime law may be enforced through any appropriate remedy recognized at common law; but we find nothing therein which reveals an intention to give the complaining party an election to determine whether the. defendant’s' liability shall be measured by common-law standards rather than those of the maritime law. Under the circumstances here presented, without regard to the court where he might ask relief, petitioner’s rights were those recognized by the law of the sea.” Id., at 384.
This rule was soon reiterated in two subsequent cases. The first was Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255, which, like Chelentis, was -a state court action by a crew member against the shipowner. Injury was allegedly caused by mislabeling of a can of gasoline and *326by the negligent failure to stock a life preserver on board. A judgment for plaintiff was affirmed, but on the'ground that the vessel was unseaworthy in the respects named; the existence of a causé of action for negligence was denied. “The general rules of the maritime law apply whether the proceeding be instituted in an admiralty or common-law court.” Id., at 259. The second case was Robins Dry Dock Co. v. Dahl, 266 U. S. 449, where the action, again in a state court for negligence’, was by an employee of an independent contractor against his employer for a shipboard injury. Such a right of action existed in admiralty, Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, and the question was as to the scope of the defendant’s duty. Here too the same principle of federal supremacy was upheld. An instruction permitting the jury to consider the requirements of a state safety statute on the issue of negligence was held erroneous. . “The rights and liabilities of,the parties .arose out of and depended upon the general maritime law and could not be enlarged or impaired by the state statute.” 266 U. S., at 457.
Largely owing to the passage of the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. § 688,6 which bound nonadmiralty as well as admiralty courts,7 the issue was-not again raised in litiga-, tion here for several decades. Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239, however, demonstrates the pervasive scope given to,the same principle of-federal supremacy in the application of that Act.. There a State was denied power, by characterizing the matter as “procedural,”.to apply its own rules to the question of burden of proof of fraud in the obtaining of a release from an injured seaman. Rather the state court was required to *327apply the rule adopted by federal maritime law. The-case thus manifests the continued vitality of the supremacy principle in this area. 317 U. S., at 244, n. 10.
It remained for Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, unmistakably to demonstrate that the principle embodied in the Chelentis, Sandanger, and Robins Dry Dock decisions had not withered with time. There a shore-based carpenter, employed by an independent contractor, sought .a recovery against a shipowner based on negligence8 and unseaworthiness. The Court held that under federal law a right of action was available on both grounds, and that under the maritime rule the effect of plaintiff’s contributory negligence was to diminish, but not wholly defeat, his recovery. This being so, a State was debarred from applying another rule.
Finally, when, only last Term, the Court came to consider, in Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate, 358 U. S. 625, the scope of a shipowner’s duty of care toward a social guest of a crew member, it had no hesitation about the pr.oposition that federal law must govern an action within the jurisdiction of admiralty.
“The District Court was in error in ruling that the governing law in this case was that, of the State of New York. Kermarec was injured aboard a ship upon navigable waters. It was there that the conduct of which he complained occurred. The legal rights and liabilities arising from that conduct were therefore within the full reach of the admiralty jurisdiction and measurable by the standards of maritime law. ... If this action had been brought in a state court, reference to admiralty law would have been *328necessary to determine the rights and liabilities of the parties. Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255, 259. Where the plaintiff exercises the right conferred by diversity of citizenship to choose a federal forum, the result is no different, even though he exercises the further right to a jury trial. Whatever doubt may once have existed on that score was effectively laid to rest by Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, 410-11.” Id., at 628.
I think it is clear, then, that the supremacy principle established by this line of cases may not be shrugged off as a discredited relic of an earlier day.9 Indeed,' the Court’s total disregard of that principle in the present case is not grounded on the view that it is no longer generally viable. Rather, the Court appears to consider it inapplicable in an action for wrongful death. For r.easons now to be discussed I think this is a mistaken view.
III.
What I shall address myself to at this point is the reason why maritime law permits resort to state wrongful death statutes.10 For it is only through an understanding *329of that reason that light can be shed on the pivotal issue in this case.
Unfortunately such rationalization as has been made of .the problem in the wrongful death cases in this Court does not carry us very far. Mr. Justice Holmes in The Hamilton was content to say no more than that permitting state death statutes to be used would not produce “any. lamentable lack of uniformity” in the maritime law. 207 U. S., at 406. Mr. Justice McReynolds in Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, simply observed that the use of such statutes was “the logical result of prior decisions,” that “[t]he subject is maritime and local in character’” and that the innovation “will not work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, nor interfere *with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations.” Id., at 242.11
*330Other rationalizations of the subject leave much to Be desired. It has been said that the application of state wrongful death statutes is permitted to-“fill a void” in maritime law. See, e. g., 41 Va. L. Rev. 251, 252; 34 B. U. L. Rev. 365, 366; cf. The Tungus, supra, at 592. But there is a “void” only in the sense that there is an absence of a right of action in such cases; admiralty does not lack a rule on the subject. It has also been suggested that the Court permits the application of state death acts because it regards such statutes as wiser in this respect than maritime law, although it deems itself unable to alter the disfavored federal rule. See, e. g., Note, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 84, 148, 149. But if the rule of The Harrisburg ■is so firmly established that legislation is.the only available means of reform, cf. The Tungus, supra, at 590, 599, it is scarcely legitimate to turn, for that very reason, to state law.
•I think the fault with such explanations lies in the emphasis given .to .admiralty’s endeavor to find in state law a supplement to its own shortcomings, - something which federal power has always been fully competent to remedy internally on its own account. Instead, the proper point of departüfe is, I believe, to recognize that in permitting use of wrongful death statutes admiralty is endeavoring to accommodate itself to state policies represented by such statutes. That .'indeed appears to have' been the approach of * Congress in enacting the Death-on the High Seas Act, for as was said in The Tungus the legislative history of that Act “discloses á clear congressional purpose to leave 'unimpaired the rights under State statutes as to deaths on waters within the territorial jurisdiction of the States’ ” and “reflects' deep concern that the power of the States to create actions for wrongful ■death in no way be affected by enactment of the federal law.” 358 U. S., at 593. At the same time there was no suggestion that Congress contemplated that' the *331supremacy of admiralty law should be yielded to the Statés in maritime death cases. Cf. id., at 607-608, separate opinion.
It only confuses things to. say, as has sometimes been loosely remarked, that in maritime wrongful death cases admiralty absorbs state law, or that the States have embraced maritime law. State and maritime systems of law stand separately, even'though the two may not always be mutually exclusive, and when a conflict arises the latter, yields to the former only in face of a superior state interest. This, I think, is what Mr. Justice McReynolds had in mind when he stated in Garcia Bhat a wrongful death statute is a subject both “maritime and local in character.” The true inquiry thus becomes one involving the nature of the state interest .in a wrongful death statute, the extent to which such interest intrudes upon federal concerns, and the basis of the reasoning that led Mr. Justice Holmes to state summarily in The Hamilton that resort to such statutes would not result in “any lamentable lack of uniformity” in maritime law.
What no lesser authority in admiralty matters than Judge Addison. Brown said many years ago in The City of Norwalk, 55 F. 98,12 is highly illuminating. He gave these reasons for permitting a state death statute to apply to a maritime tort:
“(1) It is a general law of personal rights, not specially directed to commerce or navigation, but applying alike on sea or shore; (2) it is within the police power; for it is 'a statute intended to protect life/ (Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 675 . . .) through one of the most effectual of all sanctions, viz. by imposing on the offender a liability to pay a pecu*332niary indemnity; while in the interest of the public, it also tends to avert the dependency or pauperism of the survivors by shifting the burden of their support, in part at least, from the community to the authors of the wrong; (3) it is local in its scope and interferes in no way with any needful uniformity in the general law of the seas, or with international or interstate interests.” Id., at 108.
Where tortious conduct causes death, the decision of a State to provide a right of action in favor of the victim’s estate or beneficiaries represents a response to considerations peculiarly within traditional state competence: providing for the victim’s family, and preventing pauperism by shifting what would otherwise be a public responsi- . bility to those who committed the wrong. These are matters intimately concerned with the State’s interest in regulating familial relationships. .Moreover, where the injury' is wrongful under maritime law, this is the predominant, if indeed not the sole, purpose of the statute. In such instances the State is not legislating in order to affect the defendant’s conduct, since by hypothesis a federally imposed duty already exists. For merely because no federal action lies for wrongful death, one can hardly say that there is no duty not to kill through negligence, but there, is a duty not to injure. .The tortious conduct is the same in either case; and wrongful under federal law. The state statute therefore makes no meaningful inroads on federal interests. To quote further from Judge Brown:
“The state statute does not create the cause of action. It does, indeed, create a new right, and liability; but it does not create a single one of the ele- • ments that make up the fundamental cause of action, that is, the essential grounds of the' demand. All these elements exist independently of the statute, and are not in the least affected by it. It no more creates *333the wrong, or the damage, than it creates the negligence or the death; nor does it, as in. the pilotage and dpuble wharfage cases, add anything to the damages sustained. It authorizes no recovery except for ‘the pecuniary damages’ already existing. It is apparent, therefore, that, as suggested by Mr. Justice Clifford in Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 532, the statute does no more than ‘take the case out of the operation of the common-law maxim that an action for death dies with the person.’ ” 55 F., at 109.
“Before the statute, the case was damnum absque injuria; by the statute, it became at once a tort in the full legal sense, and a marine tort by réason of its place, its nature, and its circumstances . . . .” Id., at 110.
Thus, where the duty imposed by a state death act is no greater than' that already existing under federal law, the application of the statute is solely, or nearly sp, a reaction to strong, localized state interests, and there is no real encroachment on federal interests.13
*334Far different is the case when a State purports, as here, to impose a duty which under federal law a person does not bear. Then it can hardly be said that the State is not seeking to regulate conduct within federal maritime jurisdiction. The very purpose of a statute like the one here invoked is to induce those to whom it applies to take the precautions required by it. In such a case, the mere fact that it is a death act which imposes the duty cannot be thought to render the import of the matter of “local” concern only. The state interests given expression no longer are predominantly those peculiarly within state concern. By the same token the intrusion into federally regulated interests is no longer minimal..
I can find no justification, consistent with the course of adjudication in this Court, for upholding state power here, without so much as • even suggesting the need for an inquiry as to the extent of federal interest in the activity in question.14
IV.
Nothing in the wrongful death cases on which the Court relies calls for today’s holding. None of them involved, as here, the assertion of any local rules of substantive law going beyond those applicable under federal standards.15 *335The essential failing in the Court’s use of these cases is its view that, because rights asserted under a state death statute are manifestly rights created by the State, no federal element is involved in their assertion. The truth is, however, that, where the tort is maritime and the action is brought under the “saving clause,” state-created rights may be asserted only by federal permission. That is the premise on which The Hamilton, and its offspring, proceeded When such a right is asserted, the plaintiff must, however, show more than that a State can give *336him right to recover; he must also show that it has-done so. Thus,, if a State has chosen not to provide a right of action to one who does not sue within a stated period, The Harrisburg, supra; Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, supra; Levinson v. Deupree, 345 U. S. 648, 651-652; to one who does not have a stated relationship to the decedent, id., at 651; to one whose decedent’s negligence contributed to the fatal injury, United Pilots Assn, v. Halecki, 358 U. S. 613, 615; or to one whose right of action is based on breach of the uniquely maritime duty to provide a seaworthy ship, The Tungus v. Skovgaard, supra, there can be no right of recovery, for neither federal nor state law affords it.16 For this reason, when asking whether a plaintiff has made out a cause of action under a state death act, the Court approaches the statute “as it would one originating in any foreign jurisdiction,” Levinson v. Deupree, supra, at 652, in an “endeavor to determine the issueá\in accordance with the substantive law of the State,” Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S., at 245. This, Pecause the State having created the right, one must look to state law to “determine the circumstances under which that.right exists.” The Tungus, supra, at 594.
But none of these cases is apposite when the question is not whether a federally permitted state right of action has in fact been conferred by the State, but whether fed*337eral maritime law permits the State to create an asserted right of action. It is surely fallacious to reason that, because the principle of the supremacy of federal maritime law has been held not to bar a right of action for death caused by a defendant’s failure to take reasonable precautions to avoid exposing those to whom the duty is owed to an undue risk of harm, it follows that such principle does not bar a right of action for death caused by failure to(“use every device, care and precaution which it is practicable to use,” Ore. Rev. Stat. § 654.305. When the Court, in The Hamilton and its successors, held that the federal supremacy principle did not prevent a State from giving any right''of action for wrongful death caused by a maritime tort, it did not thereby eschew forever Sll federal limits on the content of substantive obligations appearing in statutes bearing the label “wrongful death act.”
It may be that the Court does not intend to go so far. It asserts, albeit almost as an afterthought, that some state doctrines might be 'constitutionally inapplicable to maritime torts, notwithstanding that they are embodied in a death statute.17 It then summarily finds the possible reservation inapplicable in this instance on the ground that other provisions of the Oregon Employers’ Liability Law, not here involved, resemble some admiralty doctrines, with which also we are not now concerned, more than do comparable provisions in the State’s general" wrongful death statute, which presumably can be constitutionally applied to a maritime tort. With all deference, I must say that the total irrelevance of that fact seems plain. We are not reviewing the general constitutionality *338of the Employers’ Liability Law; we are concerned only with the constitutionality of the standard-of-care provisions of that law, as applied to an employee of an independent contractor injured on navigable waters and seeking to impose liability upon the owner and operator of a dam. The Court does not find that, the federal interest in regulating the conduct of the dam owner is so minimal — whether by reason of the fixed situs of the dam or on some other ground — that the federal supremacy principle may reasonably be found inapplicable. Neither does the Court assert, for it could scarcely do so, that the standard of care required by this statute is not significantly greater than that imposed by federal law. Thus, if the principle of the supremacy of maritime, law calls .for anything more than an empty nod, it calls for ajesult contrary to that reached today.
■ It is suggested that a contrary decision will láek “even-handedness,” apparently for the reason that, since those invoking state dea,th statutes must sometimes bear the burden of comparatively unfavorable provisions, it is only fair that, when more favorable provisions obtain, they be able to enjoy the benefits of such rules. But, as the Court points out, “[w]e are concerned with constitutional adjudication, not with reaching particular results in given cases.” S.uch unevenhandedness as there may be in this area is the consequence of the rule of The Harrisburg, to which this Court has steadfastly adhered for nearly 75 years,18 and which Congress, when it enacted the Death on the High Seas Act, saw fit to change only in a limited way. See The Tungus, supra, at 592-593. When federal law permits the application of state death acts, those on whom the state statute confers a right of action may escape the harsh consequences of that rule. Those whom the state *339law has declined to benefit are left as they were. Certainly we should not, in the name of “evenhandedness,” permit a State to exceed constitutional limitations merely ■because in some instances it may have chosen not to do all it might under the Constitution.19
I would affirm.
Memorandum of
Mr. Justice Whittaker.,
Except,for its implication, or conclusion if it may be intended to be such, that maritime torts committed on the navigable waters of a State which result in death are governed by the general substantive tort law of the State — not by the general federal maritime law as remedially supplemented only by the State’s Wrongful Death Act-^-which conflicts with my views as expressed in my dissent in Goett v. Union Carbide Corp., decided today, post, p. 345, I join my Brother Harlan’s dissent.

 The Court in The Tungus was concerned only with possible limitations imposed by New Jersey law on the assertion of causes of action for unseaworthiness and negligence, both of which the Court, accepting the views of the Court of Appeals, considered were embraced by the state wrongful death statute. The case did not present the question whether such a statute might confer enlarged substantive rights not afforded by maritime law.

 I agree with the Court that the provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act rendering the United States liabld in accordance with the “law of the place where the act or omission occurred,” 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (b)., manifests no intention to convert a maritime tort into a land tort, and that this case must be treated as one falling within maritime jurisdiction. See p. 318, and note 7, ante.

 While discussions of the current maritime supremacy doctrine usually commence with Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, the Chelentis case seems a more appropriate point of beginning in this instance. Jensen was of course a workmen’s compensation .case, and might be thought to have rested on the view that the “common law remedy” preserved by the “saving' clause” did not embrace the compensation remedy; “of-a character wholly unknown to the common law.” 244 U. S., at 218. It remained for later cases to establish that Jensen reflected' a broader principle.
It should be added' that, while the results in Jensen and some of its progeny have been widely criticized, there is general recognition of the validity of its premise. As Gilmore and Blank .put it, The Law of Admiralty, § 1-17: “If there is any sense at all in making maritime *325law a federal subject, then there must be some limit set to the power of the states to interfere in the field of its working.” See also Stevens, Erie R. R. v. Tompkins and the Uniform General Maritime Law, 64 Harv. L. Rev. 246.

 The classic formulation is that found in The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 175.

 Providing that “seamen having command shall not be held to be felloW-sérvants with those under their authority.”

 See the account in Gilmore and Black, op. cit., supra, 376-377.

 See Socony-Vacuum Co. v. Smith, 305 U. S. 424; Beadle v. Spencer, 298 U. S. 124; The Arizona v. Anelich, 298 U. S. 110.

 The cause of action-for negligence did not of course rest on the Jones Act, since Hawn was not a seaman, but on the traditional admiralty doctrine imposing on a shipowner a duty to use reasonable care to avoid injuring an invitee. See, e. g., The Max Morris, 137 U. S. 1.

 Nothing in Caldarola v. Eckert, 332 U. S. 155, may properly be taken as impinging upon the continued vitality' of the supremacy principle as enunciated, in the Chelentis ease and its successors. Cf. Stevens, Erie R. R. v. Tompkins and the Uniform General Maritime Law, 64 Harv. L. Rev. 246, 263. Nor has this doctrine otherwise become diluted as seems to be suggested by Hart and Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System, 482-483. Any doubts which might have existed on this score were “effectively laid to rest by Pope & Talbot, Inc., v. Hawn, 346 U. S. 406, 410-411.” Kermarec v. Compagnie Generate, supra, at 628.

 Prior to the.decision in The Harrisburg, supra, the Court had rejected claims that maritime tort actions in state courts based upon a local death statute were not within the “saving clause,” Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 522, or were offensive to the Commerce Clause, Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U. S. 99, 102-103. Subsequently, in The Ham*329ilton, supra, it was, with little difficulty, held that a plaintiff could assert in admiralty a right of action grounded on a state wrongful death act. See also La Bourgogne, 210 U. S. 95, 138. Jensen recognized the doctrine of these cases, 244 U. S., at 216, and in Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, the post-Jensen Court expressly held that the rule of The Hamilton had not been displaced. See also Great Lakes Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479; Spencer Kellogg Co. v. Hicks, 285 U. S. 502, 512-513.
The significance of such early cases as Chase and Ailing in the history of the uniformity principle has now become largely academic, -in view of the twentieth century developments.

 This ■ analysis leaves unexplained the- sense in which wrongful death actions are local. That attribute obtains irrespective of the character of the décedent’s activities, although the “maritime -but local” doctrine generally turned on the- nuances. of exactly that element. E. g., Grant Smith-Porter Co. v. Rohde, 257 U. S. 469; see Robinson, Admiralty, 103; 2 Larson, Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 89.22. Put another way, an action for wrongfúl death is “local” although, had the victim lived, his action for damages would, by reason of the nature of his activities, not have been “local.” Thus, 'it is some characteristic of a wrongful death action itself which permits application of state law. ■

 The decision was affirmed as to this ground sub nom. The Transfer No. 4, 61 F. 364, 367-368, certificate dismissed on motion sub nom. McCullough v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 163 U. S. 693.

 This reasoning has found reflection in maritime cases outside the realm of wrongful death actions. Just v. Chambers, 312 U. S. 383, permitted the application to a maritime tort of a state statute providing for survival of an action against a deceased tortfeasor.. Here, too, decedent had breached a federal duty for .which, had he lived, he would have had to answer. The State’s decision to protect plaintiffs from loss in this way reflected only local interests, and made no encroachment on maritime interests.
Red Cross Line v. Atlantic Fruit Co., 264 U. S. 109, a contract action, involved the question of the validity, as applied to a maritime contract, of- a state statute making agreements to arbitrate specifically enforceable. The decision proceeded from the premise that arbitration agreements were valid obligations under maritime law, and that the statute merely added the remedy of specific performance to the -traditional remedy of damages. See, id., at 123-125. While there the state interest in enforcing such agreements was not as peculiarly local as is true of wrongful death eases, the fact that admiralty *334acknowledged the validity of arbitration' clauses in contracts, and recognized a duty to live up to them, rendered the'intrusion -into federal interests' so minimal as to justify the result.

 It may be that the existence of an overriding federal interest is not to be inferred solely from the fact that the tort is maritime, in the sense that admiralty has jurisdiction over it. Cases may be put in which the connection with maritime activities is so remote or fortuitous that state law should readily be accepted by admiralty .where it is otherwise applicable. The Court does not purport to treat this case on any such basis.

 See, in this Court: The Harrisburg, supra, (“negligence” under Massachusetts and Pennsylvania death statutes); The Hamilton, supra (“negligence” under Delaware wrongful death statute); West*335ern Fuel v. Garcia, supra (“negligence” under California wrongful death statute); La Bourgogne, 210 U. S. 95 (“fault” under French wrongful death law); Levinson v. Deupree, 345 U. S. 648 (“negligence or wrongful .act” under Kentucky wrongful death statute); The Tungus v. Skovgaard, supra (“wrongful act, neglect or default” under New Jersey wrongful death statute); United Pilots Assn. v. Halecki. 358 U. S. 613 (same New Jersey statute as in The Tungus).
See, in the lower federal courts: Curtis v. A. Garcia y Cia., 241 F. 2d 30 (“unlawful violence or negligence” under Pennsylvania wrongful death statute); The H. S., Inc., No. 72, 130 F. 2d 341 (“wrongful act, neglect or default” under New Jersey wrongful death statute); Klingseisen v. Costanzo Transp. Co., 101 F. 2d 902 (same Pennsylvania wrongful death statute as in the Curtis case); Graham v. A. Lusi, Ltd., 206 F. 2d 223 (“wrongful act, negligence, carelessness or default” undfer Florida wrongful death statute); Truelson v. Whitney & Bodden Shipping Co., 10 F. 2d 412 (“wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskilfulness [sic], or- default” under Texas wrongful death’statute); Quinette v. Bisso, 136 F. 825 (“fault” under Louisiana wrongful death statute); Lee v. Pure Oil Co., 218 F. 2d 711 (“wrongful act, omission, or killing” under Tennessee wrongful death statute); Feige v. Hurley, 89 F. 2d 575 (“negligence or wrongful act” under Kentucky wrongful death statute); Holley v. The Manfred Stansfield, 269 F. 2d 317 (“wrongful act, neglect, or default” under Virginia wrongful death statute).
- Thus, in not Due of the foregoing cases, either here or in the lower courts, did the standard of liability under the respective state laws exceed the standard of liability in admiralty had the injury not resulted in death.

 See also The H. S., Inc., No. 72, supra, where recovery rested on the appellate court’s decision that the State whose wrongful death statute was sought to be made the basis of recovery imposed liability upon the defendant, in the circumstances there presented, for the tort of its employee. There was no suggestion that application of substantive federal martime standards would have led to a different result.
The remaining lower court cases relied on by the Court, and referred to in note 15, supra, involved the same issues as those presented in the Halecki and Tungus cases.

 In such a case, of course, not only would “the admiralty . . . decline to enforce,” ante, p. 320, the challenged provision, but federal law would inhibit a common-law court, state or federal, from applying it to a maritime tort action.

 See cases cited, note 15, supra.

 It ought not to have been necessary to say explicitly that this opinion rests upon evenhanded application of a rule of constitutional law which permits the enforcement of state-afforded substantive rights under state wrongful death statutes only so long as such rights do not offend those established by the maritime law. Faithful'adherence to that rule of course may lead to different results in different situations, depending upon the extent of the rights 'given by state law. In The Tungus, the rights accorded by state law were permitted to prevail because they were not offensive to those recognized by maritime law. Here the state-created right cannot prevail because it is flatly opposed to that éxisting under maritime law. In short, these opposite results are not attributable to any differences in the constitutional rule applicable in the two cases — a .rule which remains the same in all wrongful death cases — but to differences in the character of the substantive rights afforded by the two wrongful death statutes involved.