Floyd v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 09 March 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1596,87-1596
• Citation: 844 F.2d 1044
• Parties: FLOYD, Maria E., individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Floyd, James H., Deceased, Appellant, v. LYKES BROS. STEAMSHIP CO., INC. . Submitted under Third Circuit Rule 12(6)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 1044

844 F.2d 1044

1988 A.M.C. 1805

FLOYD, Maria E., individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Floyd, James H., Deceased, Appellant, v. LYKES BROS. STEAMSHIP CO., INC.

No. 87-1596.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Submitted under Third Circuit Rule 12(6)

March 9, 1988.

Decided April 21, 1988.

Walter Z. Steinman, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.

John T. Biezup, Palmer, Biezup & Henderson, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellee.

Before WEIS ^*, GREENBERG, and ALDISERT, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.

The question for decision is whether the captain of a merchant ship violated applicable maritime law when he buried at sea a seaman who died of a heart attack on the return trip of the vessel eight days from its next port-of-call. After seaman James Floyd died, the captain conducted a burial-at-sea ritual. Maria Floyd, the seaman's daughter, for herself, as executrix of her father's estate, and for the next-of-kin, sued the vessel's owner for improperly disposing of her father's body. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Lykes Bros. Steamship Company. Maria Floyd has appealed. We will affirm.

Jurisdiction was proper in the district court based on 46 U.S.C. Secs. 688, 761. Jurisdiction on appeal is proper based on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. Appeal was timely filed under Rule 4(a)(1), F.R.App.P.

I.

James H. Floyd, an ordinary seaman, died on board the S.S. Shirley Lykes between 2000 and 2400 hours on August 19, 1983. The vessel was at sea passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, en route from Europe to Canada and the United States, eight days from her next port-of-call. The next morning, the crew prepared Floyd's body for burial and encased in it canvas, placing weights in the bottom of the canvas bag. At approximately 1320 hours on August 20, 1983, the crew carried Floyd's body to the fantail of the Shirley Lykes and draped an American flag over the bag containing the remains. A number of the crew and passengers assembled, and Captain Powell recited a short eulogy and prayer. Floyd's body was then consigned to the deep.

At 0810 and 1500 hours on August 20, crew members sent two brief messages to the Lykes Bros. Steamship Company, the owner of the Shirley Lykes, in New Orleans. The first reported that Floyd had died of a heart attack and would be buried at sea. App. at 234. The second indicated that Floyd was buried at sea at 1336 hours on that date. Id. at 235. Neither Captain Powell nor the shipping company notified Floyd's next-of-kin prior to burying the decedent at sea.

Maria Floyd subsequently filed a complaint in the district court against Lykes. Count one of the complaint alleged a cause of action for wrongful death. The district court granted Lykes' motion for summary judgment on Count one, ruling that there was no evidence that Floyd's death was caused by any acts or omissions of the company. Floyd v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 655 F.Supp. 380, 382-83 (E.D.Pa.1987).

Count two of the complaint alleged that Lykes was liable for improperly disposing of Floyd's body by burying it at sea. It sought damages for Maria Floyd, her mother, and her seven brothers and sisters. On March 11, 1987, the district court granted Lykes' motion to dismiss this count with respect to the decedent's mother, brothers, and sisters, stating that the only person entitled to bring a claim for the allegedly improper disposition of the remains of a decedent is the decedent's next-of-kin. Id. at 384-85. The district court subsequently granted Lykes motion for summary judgment, and entered an order dismissing plaintiff's complaint with prejudice. App. at 249. Maria Floyd appeals only from the district court's grant of summary judgment on Count two of the complaint.

II.

The standard of review is familiar. Summary judgment may be granted only if no genuine issue of material fact exists. Rule 56(c), F.R.Civ.P.; Goodman v. Mead Johnson & Co., 534 F.2d 566, 573 (3d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1038, 97 S.Ct. 732, 50 L.Ed.2d 748 (1977). An issue is "genuine" only if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could find for the nonmoving party. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2509, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). At the summary judgment stage, "the judge's function is not himself to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter, but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." Id., 106 S.Ct. at 2510. On review, this court applies the same test that the district court should have adopted. Dunn v. Gannett New York Newspapers, Inc., 833 F.2d 446, 449 (3d Cir.1987).

III.

On appeal, Floyd contends that state tort law has established that the spouse or next-of-kin is entitled to possession of a body for the purpose of arranging for final disposition of the remains, see, e.g., Blanchard v. Brawley, 75 So.2d 891, 893 (La.Ct.App.1954), and that violation of the right of possession and burial is an actionable tort. See, e.g., Papieves v. Lawrence, 437 Pa. 373, 263 A.2d 118, 120 (1970). She argues that this state law tort precept should be incorporated into general maritime law. She says that currently recognized maritime authority deems burial at sea anachronistic and improper when the next-of-kin are not notified in advance.

Lykes responds that this case is not governed by state tort concepts, but by federal maritime law. Relying on Brambir v. Cunard White Star, Ltd., 37 F.Supp. 906 (S.D.N.Y.1940), aff'd mem., 119 F.2d 419 (2d Cir.1941), Lykes argues that maritime law does not provide a cause of action for burial at sea.

IV.

We are satisfied that maritime law controls this case, and that the following maritime law precepts steer us to an appropriate result. Although common law originated in the customs on land, 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *63; see also materials collected in R. Aldisert, The Judicial Process 286-94 (1976), maritime law derives from customs at sea and therefore constitutes a separate and distinct body of law. See E. Jhirad, A. Sann, B. Chase & M. Chynsky, Benedict on Admiralty Sec. 104, at 7-8, 7-9 (7th ed.1985). Only when there are no clear precedents in the law of the sea may courts "look to the law prevailing on the land." Igneri v. Cie de Transports Oceaniques, 323 F.2d 257, 259 (2d Cir.1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 949, 84 S.Ct. 965, 11 L.Ed.2d 969 (1964).

Section 2 of Article III of the Constitution extends the judicial power of the United States to "all Cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." U.S. Const. art. III Sec. 2. It should prove helpful to refer briefly to the purpose and scope of this constitutional provision. The Supreme Court has reviewed its history:

As there could be no cases of "admiralty and maritime jurisdiction" in the absence of some maritime law under which they could arise, the provision presupposes the existence in the United States of a law of that character. Such a law or system of law existed in Colonial times and during the Confederation and commonly was applied in the adjudication of admiralty and maritime cases. It embodied the principles of the general maritime law, sometimes called the law of the sea, with modifications and supplements adjusting it to conditions and needs on this side of the Atlantic. The framers of the Constitution were familiar with that system and proceeded with it in mind. Their purpose was not to strike down or abrogate the system, but to place the entire subject--its substantive as well as its procedural features--under national control because of its intimate relation to navigation and to interstate and foreign commerce. In pursuance of that purpose the constitutional provision was framed and adopted. Although containing no express grant of legislative power over the substantive law, the provision was regarded from the beginning as implicitly investing such power in the United States. Commentators took that view; Congress acted on it, and the courts, including this Court, gave effect to it. Practically therefore the situation is as if that view were written into the provision. After the Constitution went into effect, the substantive law theretofore in force was not regarded as superseded or as being only the law of the several States, but as having become the law of the United States,--subject to power in Congress to alter, qualify or supplement it as experience or changing conditions might require.

Panama R.R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 385-86, 44 S.Ct. 391, 393-94, 68 L.Ed.2d 748 (1924). Sixty-two years later the Court summarized the context and application of admiralty law:

With admiralty jurisdiction comes the application of substantive admiralty law. See Executive Jet Aviation, [Inc. v. Cleveland,] 409 U.S. [249, 255, 93 S.Ct. 493, 498, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (1972) ]. Absent a relevant statute, the general maritime law, as developed by the judiciary, applies. United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U.S. 397, 409 [95 S.Ct. 1708, 1714, 44 L.Ed.2d 251] (1975); Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149, 160-161 [40 S.Ct. 438, 440, 64 L.Ed.2d 834] (1920). Drawn from state and federal sources, the general maritime law is an amalgam of traditional common-law rules, modifications of those rules, and newly created rules. See Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 630 [79 S.Ct. 406, 409, 3 L.Ed.2d 550] (1959); Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354, 373-375 [79 S.Ct. 468, 480-482, 3 L.Ed.2d 368] (1959). This Court has developed a body of maritime tort principles, see e.g., Kermarec, supra, [358 U.S.] at 632 ; see generally Currie, Federalism and the Admiralty: "The Devil's Own Mess," 1960 S.Ct.Rev. 158, 164 ....

East River S.S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval, Inc., 476 U.S. 858, 864-65, 106 S.Ct. 2295, 2298-99, 90 L.Ed.2d 865 (1986) (footnote omitted). Added to the foregoing are the familiar precepts that state law may supplement maritime law when maritime law is silent or where a...