Case Information
*2 Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and BARKSDALE and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.
HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge:
The principal question presented by this case is whether seamen may recover punitive damages for their employer’s willful and wanton breach of the general maritime law duty to provide a seaworthy vessel. Answering in the affirmative, we REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
The consolidated cases arise out of an accident aboard Estis Rig 23, a barge supporting a truck-mounted drilling rig operating in Bayou Sorrell, a navigable waterway in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. As crew members were attempting to straighten the monkey board—the catwalk extending from the derrick—which had twisted the previous night, the derrick pipe shifted, causing the rig and truck to topple over. One crew member, Skye Sonnier, was fatally pinned between the derrick and mud tank, and three others, Saul Touchet, Brian Suire, and Joshua Bourque, have alleged injuries. At the time of the incident, Estis Well Service, L.L.C. (“Estis”) owned and operated Rig 23, and employed Sonnier, Touchet, Suire, and Bourque (collectively, the “crew members”).
Haleigh McBride, individually, on behalf of Sonnier’s minor child, and as administratrix of Sonnier’s estate, filed suit against Estis, stating causes of action for unseaworthiness under general maritime law and negligence under the Jones Act and seeking compensatory as well as “punitive and/or exemplary” damages. [1] The other crew members filed separate actions against Estis alleging the same causes of action and requesting the same relief. Upon the crew members’ motion, thе cases were consolidated into a single action over which a Magistrate Judge presided with the parties’ consent. [2] Estis moved to dismiss the claims for punitive damages, arguing that punitive damages are not an available remedy for unseaworthiness or Jones Act negligence as a matter of law. Treating it as a motion for judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), the Magistrate Judge granted the motion, and correspondingly entered judgment dismissing all claims for punitive damages. Recognizing that the issues presented were “the subject of national debate with no clear consensus,” the court granted plaintiffs’ motion to certify the judgment for immediate appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). This interlocutory appeal followed.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Whether punitive damages are an available remedy under maritime law is a question of law reviewed de novo. See Atl. Sounding Co., Inc. v. Townsend , 496 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2007) (citations omitted), aff’d , 557 U.S. 404 (2009).
BACKGROUND
I. Sources of maritime law
There are two primary sources of federal maritime law: common law developed by federal courts exercising the maritime authority conferred on them by the Admiralty Clause of the Constitution (“general maritime law”), and statutory law enacted by Congress exercising its authority under the Admiralty Clause and the Commerce Clause (“statutory maritime law”). See U.S. C ONST . art. III, § 2, cl. 1 (extending the judicial power of the United States “to all [c]ases of admiralty and maritime [j]urisdiction”); Romero v. Int’l Terminal Operating Co. , 358 U.S. 354, 360–61 (1959) (explaining that the Admiralty Clause “empowered the federal courts in their exercise of the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction which had been conferred on them, to draw on the substantive law ‘inherent in the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,’ [] to continue the development of this law within constitutional limits[,]” and “empowered Congress to revise and supplement the maritime law within the limits of the Constitution”) (citation omitted).
II. Causes of action under maritime law
Traditionally, general maritime law afforded ill and injured seamen two
causes of action against shipowners and employers. If a seaman became ill or
injured while in the service of the ship, the seaman’s employer and the ship’s
owner owed the seaman room and board (“maintenance”) and medical care
(“cure”) without regard to fault, and, if not provided, the seaman had a claim
against them for “maintenance and cure.” If a seaman was injured by a ship’s
operationаl unfitness, the seaman had a cause of action for “unseaworthiness.”
General maritime law did not provide seamen with a separate cause of action for
personal injury resulting from employer negligence,
The Osceola
,
To remedy those perceived gaps in general maritime law, which, until
then, had been filled by a patchwork of state wrongful death statutes,
[4]
Congress
in 1920 enacted the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act (“DOHSA”),
which created causes of action for employer negligence in navigable waters and
on the high seas, respectively, and authorized survival and wrongful death
remedies.
See
46 U.S.C. § 688 (1920) (codified as amended at 46 U.S.C. § 30104
(2006));
[5]
46 U.S.C. §§ 761–68 (1920) (codified as amended at 46 U.S.C. §§
30301–08 (2006)).
[6]
The Supreme Court has since recognized a parallel cause of
action under general maritime law for employer negligence resulting in injury
or death.
See Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. Garris
,
III. Punitive damages under maritime law
“Historically, punitive damages,” though not always designated as such,
[7]
“have been available and awarded in general maritime actions.” , 557
U.S. at 407;
see also id.
at 414 (citing as examples of early punitive damages
awards
The City of Carlisle
, 39 F. 807, 817 (D. Or. 1889) (adding $1,000 to
plaintiff’s damages award for “gross neglect and cruel maltreatment”), and
The
Troop
,
Over the next century and a half, the availability of punitive damages for
unseaworthiness claims arising under general maritime law was largely
unquestioned. In
Complaint of Merry Shipping, Inc.
,
In
Miles v. Melrose
,
The Supreme Court affirmed in a decision most significant for its announcement of a new age of maritime law:
We no longer live in an era when seamen and their loved ones must look primarily to the courts as a source of substantive legal protection from injury and death; Congress and the States have legislated extensively in these areas. In this era, an admiralty court should look primarily to these legislative enactments for policy guidance. We may supplement these statutory remedies where doing so would achieve the uniform vindication of such policies consistent with our constitutional mandate, but we must also keep strictly within the limits imposed by Congress. Congress retains superior authority in these matters, and an admiralty court must be vigilant not to overstep the well-considered boundaries imposed by federal legislation. These statutes both direct and delimit our actions.
Miles v. Apex Marine Corp. (“Miles”)
,
Miles
addressed the availability of loss of society damages to non-seamеn
under general maritime law, not punitive damages, but the general principle
appearing to underlie its analysis—that if a category of damages is unavailable
under a maritime cause of action established by statute, it is similarly
unavailable for a parallel claim brought under general maritime law—began to
be extended by lower courts to cover punitive damages claims by seamen.
See,
e.g.
,
Miller v. Am. President Lines, Ltd.
,
Similarly applying the “
Miles
uniformity principle,” as it came to be
known, our court, sitting en banc, held that “effectively overruled”
Merry
Shipping
, concluding that “punitive damages [are not] available in cases of
willful nonpayment of maintenance and cure under the general maritime law.”
Guevara v. Maritime Overseas Corp
., 59 F.3d 1496, 1513 (5th Cir. 1995) (en
banc),
abrogated by Atl. Sounding Co. v. Townsend
,
Momentum in that direction was sea-tossed by
Atlantic Sounding Co., Inc.
v. Townsend
,
The Supreme Court clarified that its interpretation of Miles did not represent an “ ‘abrup[t]’ change of course.” at 422 n.8, 418–22. Rather, the Court explained, reliance on the Miles uniformity principle to bar punitive damages recovery under general maritime causes of action would read Miles “far too broad[ly].” Id. at 418–19. Miles , which addressed loss of society damages in maritime wrongful death actions, prеsented an issue of a different nature than the one presented in , which addressed punitive damages in the maintenance and cure setting:
Unlike the situation presented in Miles , both the general maritime cause of action (maintenance and cure) and the remedy (punitive damages) were well established before the passage of the Jones Act. Also unlike the facts presented by , the Jones Act does not address maintenance and cure or its remedy. It is therefore possible to adhere to the traditional understanding of maritime actions and remedies without abridging or violating the Jones Act; unlike wrongful-death actions, this traditional understanding is not a matter to which “Congress has spoken directly.” Indeed, the Miles Court itself acknowledged that “[t]he Jones Act evinces no gеneral hostility to recovery under maritime law,” and noted that statutory remedy limitations “would not necessarily deter us, if recovery . . . were more consistent with the general principles of maritime tort law.” The availability of punitive damages for maintenance and cure actions is entirely faithful to these “general principles of maritime tort law,” and no statute casts doubt on their availability under general maritime law.
Id. at 420–21 (citations omitted). Thus, it concluded more generally, “[t]he laudable quest for uniformity in admiralty does not require the narrowing of available damages to the lowest common denominator approved by Congress for distinct causes of action.” Id. at 424. [12]
DISCUSSION
The crux of this dispute lies in the parties’ competing theories of stаtutory displacement of general maritime law.
The crew members read Miles and Townsend as providing, narrowly, that federal courts, in exercising their maritime lawmaking authority, cannot authorize a more expansive remedy for a general maritime cause of action than exists for a parallel statutory maritime cause of action if, at the time the statutory cause of action or remedy was enacted, the parallel cause of action or remedy did not exist under general maritime law. Applying that principle, they urge that punitive damages remain available as a remedy for the general maritime law cause of action for unseaworthiness because, like maintenance and cure, unseaworthiness was established as a cause of action before the passage of the Jones Act, courts traditionally awarded punitive damages under general maritime law, and the Jones Act does not address unseaworthiness or purport to limit its remedies.
Estis reads those cases as providing, more broadly, that where claimants seek redress for a type of harm compensable under both general and statutory maritime law, they are limited in their recovery to the class of damages authorized by the Jones Act and DOHSA. That is, punitive damages are available only where there is no remedial overlap between general and statutory maritime claims. In its view, punitive damages were available in Townsend , but not Miles , because the Miles plaintiffs sought redress for physical injury and wrongful death, harms compensable under both general and statutory maritime law, whereas the plaintiffs sought redress for harm caused by wrongful deprivation of maintenance and cure that did not result in physical injury, a type of harm compensable under general maritime law but not under statutory maritime law, which does not separately provide for a cause of action for maintenance and cure or a remedy for its deprivation. Applying that reasoning here, Estis argues that because the crew members seek redress for wrongful death and personal injuries arising from a maritime accident—types of harm compensable under both general and statutory maritime law—and punitive damages are not available under statutory maritime law, punitive damages аre not available in the present action.
To the extent that its focus is on the case’s factual setting and not the specific cause of action alleged, Estis’s proposed test for determining whether the Miles uniformity principle limits the damages recoverable in a maritime case mirrors the one previously adopted by the en banc court in Guevara :
In order to decide whether (and how) applies to a case, a court must first evaluate the factual setting of the case and determine what statutory remedial measures, if any, apply in that context. If the situation is covered by a statute like the Jones Act or DOHSA, and the statute informs and limits the available damages, the statute directs and delimits the recovery availablе under the general maritime law as well.
We disagree.
Townsend
abrogated
Guevara
’s holding because of
Guevara’
s
interpretation of
Miles
, not in spite of it. The petitioners in
Townsend
urged the
Supreme Court to adopt the factual setting approach of
Guevara
, but the Court
in
Townsend
declared that reading was “far too broad.”
To give effect to that principle, Townsend established a straightforward rule going forward: if a general maritime law cause of action and remedy were established before the passage of the Jones Act, and the Jones Act did not address that cause of action or remedy, then that remedy remains available under that cause of action unless and until Congress intercedes. [13] Estis does not dispute that the rule’s premises are sаtisfied in this case: the cause of action (unseaworthiness) and the remedy (punitive damages) were both established before the passage of the Jones Act, and that statute did not address unseaworthiness or its remedies. [14] Seeking to avoid the conclusion that follows, Estis attempts to distinguish Townsend in two ways.
Estis first attempts to distinguish on the ground that it involved
a maintenance and cure claim, as opposed to an unseaworthiness claim. It is
true that unseaworthiness claims are more closely related to negligence claims
than they are to maintenance and cure claims. But as we noted in
Guevara—
the
primary case upon which Estis relies
—
the displacement analysis for
unseaworthiness claims is “wholly applicable to maintenance and cure cases as
well.”
Guevara
,
Unlike the situation presented in Miles , both the general maritime cause of action ([unseaworthiness]) and the remedy (punitive damages) were well established before the passage of the Jones Act. Also unlike the facts presented by , the Jones Act does not address [unseaworthiness] or its remedy. It is therefore possible to adhere to the traditional understanding of maritime actions and remedies without abridging or violating the Jones Act; unlike wrongful-death actions, this traditional understanding is not a matter to which “Congress has spoken directly.” Indeed, the Miles Court itself acknowledged that “[t]he Jones Act evinces no general hostility to recovery under maritime law,” and noted that statutory remedy limitatiоns “would not necessarily deter us, if recovery . . . were more consistent with the general principles of maritime tort law.” The availability of punitive damages for [unseaworthiness] actions is entirely faithful to these “general principles of maritime tort law,” and no statute casts doubt on their availability under general maritime law.
Townsend
,
Estis argues also that the “chronological” framework announced in
Townsend
is inapt because of the evolution of claims of unseaworthiness. Unlike
maintenance and cure, which has remained unchanged in substance for centuries,
the claim of unseaworthiness has evolved over the years. Although it was well
established before the passage of the Jones Act, it did not become a strict liability
claim until 1944,
Mahnich v. Southern S.S. Co.
,
We agree that this case differs from in that respect. That is,
punitive damages for the willful violation of the duty to provide maintenance
and cure appear to have been available, if sparingly awarded, during the pre-
Jones Act era.
See Townsend
,
Our task is not to reconstruct maritime law as it existеd in 1920, but to
assess whether Congress, in passing the Jones Act and DOHSA, intended to
displace pre-existing maritime remedies or foreclose them going forward.
See
Townsend
,
Estis goes on to argue that allowing seamen to recover punitive damages under general maritime law would create a number of anomalies. Though one acknowledged function of maritime courts is to reconcile anomalies that present themselves in the law, e.g. , Moragne , 398 U.S. at 395–409 (overruling The Harrisburg , 119 U.S. at 205 to remedy three maritime law anomalies), we perceive no anomalies arising from our holding.
Estis argues that our decision would allow plaintiffs to circumvent the
pecuniary damages limitation in the Jones Act by pleading a claim for
unseaworthiness. This is not an anomaly, as the Supreme Court has
highlighted; it is a traditional feature of maritime law designed to protect
seamen, the wards of admiralty. By design, seamen have always had the “right
to choose among overlapping statutory and common-law remedies” for their
injuries.
Townsend
, 557 U.S. at 423 (citation omitted);
see also Cortes v.
Baltimore Insular Lines
, 287 U.S. 367, 374–75 (1932) (A seaman’s “cause of
action for personal injury created by the [Jones Act] may have overlapped his
cause of action for breach of the maritime duty of maintenance and cure, just as
it may have overlapped his cause of action for injury caused through an
unseaworthy ship. In such circumstances it was his privilege, in so far as the
causes of action covered the same ground, to sue indifferently on any one of
them.”) (citations omitted);
Hlodan v. Ohio Barge Line, Inc.
,
Estis argues, similarly, that it would be anomalous for the law to allow
different remedies for what amounts to the same cause of action. Though they
are similar, Jones Act negligence and unseaworthiness are “separate and
distinct” claims with different elements and standards of causation.
Chisholm
v. Sabine Towing & Transp. Co., Inc.
,
Finally, Estis argues that it would make little sense to permit thе recovery
of punitive damages for unseaworthiness, which imposes liability without regard
to fault, while denying such relief on a Jones Act claim, which requires a finding
of negligence.
See Merry Shipping
,
CONCLUSION
Like maintenance and cure, unseaworthiness was established as a general
maritime claim before the passage of the Jones Act, punitive damages were
available under general maritime law, and the Jones Act does not address
unseaworthiness or limit its remedies. We conclude, therefore, that punitive
damages remain available to seamen as a remedy for the general maritime law
claim of unseaworthiness.
See Townsend
,
Notes
[1] “Punitive damages” and “exemplary damages” are synonymous. They reflect two principal purposes of such damages: to punish the wrongdoer and thereby make an example of him in the hopes that doing so will deter him and others from wrongdoing. David W. Robertson, Punitive Damages in American Maritime Law , 28 J. M AR . L. & C OM . 73, 82–83 (1997). For ease of reference, we refer to all such damages as “punitive damages.”
[2] In March 2012, Bourque settled his claims against Estis.
[3] For a discussion of the division of maritime rulemaking authority between Congress and the federal courts, see David W. Robertson, Our High Court of Admiralty and Its Sometimes Peculiar Relationship With Congress , 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 491, 494–513 (2011).
[4] “These statutes were often unwieldy and not designed to accommodate maritime
claims; moreover, because they varied from state to state, the representatives of similarly
situated deceased seamen might be awarded widely varying sums based on the fortuity of
whether the accident occurred within or without the three-mile limit and, if it were within
that limit, based on the laws of the particular state where the casualty occurred.”
Ivy v.
Security Barge Lines, Inc.
,
[5] The Jones Act provides, in pertinent part: A seaman injured in the course of employment or, if the seaman dies from the injury, the personal representative of the seaman may elect to bring a civil action at law, with the right of trial by jury, against the employer. Laws of the United States regulating recovery for personal injury to, or death of, a railway employee apply to an action under this section. 46 U.S.C. § 30104.
[6] DOHSA provides, in pertinent part: When the death of an individual is caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas beyond 3 nautical miles from the shore of the United States, the personal representative of the decedent may bring a civil action in admiralty against the person or vessel responsible. The action shall be for the exclusive benefit of the decedent’s spouse, parent, child, or dependent relative. 46 U.S.C. § 30302.
[7] See Townsend , 557 U.S. at 414 n.3 (citing awards of punitive damages in early maritime cases and pointing out that “[a]lthough these cases do not refer to ‘punitive’ or ‘exemplary’ damages, scholars have characterized the awards authorized by these decisions as such”); Robertson, Punitive Damages in American Maritime Law , supra , at 88 (noting that eighteenth and nineteenth century maritime courts used a variety of terms to designate damages intended to punish and deter).
[8] At the time Merry Shipping was decided, the Second and Sixth Circuits had held that punitive damages were available in unseaworthiness actions, and no circuit court had ruled
[10] This pecuniary-loss limitation arose out of the Jones Act’s incorporation of the remedial provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (“FELA”), 46 U.S.C. § 30104
[11] The court in Guevara went on to hold, in addition, that punitive damages are not available for the willful and wanton refusal to pay maintenance and cure even when personal injury does not result. Id. at 1512. The court noted that it was not constrained by the Miles uniformity principle in its second inquiry because there was no overlap between statutory and general maritime law: neither the Jones Act nor DOHSA, as does the general maritime law, provides for a cause of action for maintenance and cure not resulting in personal injury. Id. The court nevertheless exercised its maritime authority to bar punitive damages in such actions as a matter of policy. at 1513.
[12] This shift from
Miles
to
Townsend
was foreshadowed in
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker
,
554 U.S. 471 (2008), which presented the issue of whether the Clean Water Act (“CWA”)
implicitly preempted maritime causes of action by fishermen, Alaska Natives, and others with
property rights in the resources of the ocean.
[13] at 414–15 (“The settled legal principles discussed above establish three points central to resolving this case. First, punitive damages have long been available at common law. Second, the common-law tradition of punitive damages extends to maritime claims. And third, there is no evidence that claims for maintenance and cure were excluded from this general admiralty rule. Instead, the pre-Jones Act evidence indicates that punitive damages remain available for such claims under the appropriatе factual circumstances. As a result, respondent is entitled to pursue punitive damages unless Congress has enacted legislation departing from this common-law understanding. As explained below, it has not.”) (footnote omitted); id. at 420 (“Unlike the situation presented in Miles , both the general maritime cause of action (maintenance and cure) and the remedy (punitive damages) were well established before the passage of the Jones Act. Also unlike the facts presented by , the Jones Act does not address maintenance and cure or its remedy. It is therefore possible to adhere to the traditional understanding of maritime actions and remedies without abridging or violating the Jones Act.”) (citations and footnote omitted); id. at 424 (“Because punitive damages have long been an accepted remedy under general maritime law, and because nothing in the Jones Act altered this understanding, such damages for the willful and wanton disregard of the maintenance and cure obligation should remain available in the appropriate case as a matter of general maritime law.”).
[14] Additionally, we note that Estis does not ask us to bar punitive damages in
unseaworthiness cases as a matter of policy.
E.g.
,
Guevara
,
[15] Seamen have long been characterized as “wards of admiralty” deserving special
protection under maritime law.
See, e.g.
, ,
[16] Having so concluded, we decline to revisit whether punitive damages are available to seamen bringing claims for negligence under the Jones Act. See id. at 424 n.12 (declining to decide whether punitive damages are available to a seaman in a cause of action for negligence under the Jones Act after ruling that such damages are available to a seaman in a cause of action for maintenance and cure).