Court Opinion

ID: 9777876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:26:35.254881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:37.703307
License: Public Domain

*762OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
On rehearing, appellant asks us to address an issue which was not brought up in either its brief, reply brief, or oral argument. Such issue involves the relevance of two cases, Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 317, 112 L.Ed.2d 275 (1990), and Texaco Refining & Marketing Inc. v. Estate of Dau Van Tran, 808 S.W.2d 61 (Tex.1991). Miles was decided in November 1990, prior to submission of this case,1 and held that recovery for non-pecuniary loss is excluded under general maritime claims for wrongful death, the Jones Act, and the Death on the High Seas Act. In Miles, the plaintiff, the administratrix of the deceased seaman’s estate, sued a vessel’s operators, alleging negligence under the Jones Act and breach of the warranty of seaworthiness under general maritime law.
In Dau Van Tran, which was decided approximately one month after oral argument in this case, the Texas Supreme Court held that where applicable and properly invoked, general maritime law preempts state causes of action and remedies. In that case, the decedent was crushed to death when a large wave, purportedly caused by a Texaco tanker’s excessive speed, washed ashore just as he exited the water between a dock barge and a shrimp boat. The decedent’s estate sued Texaco under the Texas Wrongful Death and Sur-vivorship Statutes. The Texas Supreme Court stated that general maritime jurisdiction was appropriate under the Admiralty Extension Act of 1948, 46 U.S.C.A.App. § 740: “[t]he admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States shall extend to and include all cases of damage or injury, to person or property, earned by a vessel on navigable water, notwithstanding that such damage or injury be done or consummated on land.” Dau Van Tran, 808 S.W.2d at 63. The court stated that where properly invoked by pleadings and litigated at trial, a trial court’s failure to award damages consistent with maritime law constitutes reversible error (emphasis added). In that case, Texaco raised maritime law in its fourteenth proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and in its motion for new trial. Moreover, during oral argument, the parties conceded that a maritime tort had occurred. By contrast, in the instant case, the parties tried the entire case on state law principles of negligence and strict product liability. General Chemical even submitted its own issues based on Texas law regarding loss of companionship, conscious pain and suffering, and exemplary damages. No objection was made to any of the proposed jury questions on the basis that general maritime law governed. This issue was not raised in General Chemical’s motion for new trial. The parties never conceded that a maritime tort had occurred. Paradoxically, in a responsive motion before this court, General Chemical stated:
[t]he judgment against appellant herein is not under the Jones Act but rather under common law and statutory law of the State of Texas. Appellant is not appealing any claim under the Jones Act but rather a claim under the Texas common law of negligence and strict product liability. The Jones Act ... has the purpose of allowing seamen injured in the course of employment or their representatives to maintain action in federal court without requiring diversity of citizenship [citations omitted] It is for the benefit of seamen against their employers, [citations omitted] ... Here the suit against the employer and shipowner, Gayman Prawns, Inc., the only possible Jones Act claim, was severed and made the subject of a separate action.
Accordingly, we conclude that appellant, General Chemical, waived any preemption argument and accordingly we need not address the merits of the applicability of Miles and Texaco. In addition, we agree that the case was one of negligence and strict product liability and was not a maritime law case. Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.

. This case was submitted in March 1991.