Dooley v. Korean Air Lines Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1998
• Docket Number: 97704
• Citation: 141 L.Ed.2d 102,118 S.Ct. 1890,524 U.S. 116
• Parties: Philomena DOOLEY, personal representative of the estate of Cecelio Chuapoco, et al., Petitioners, v. KOREAN AIR LINES CO., LTD
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

524 U.S. 116

118 S.Ct. 1890

141 L.Ed.2d 102

Philomena DOOLEY, personal representative of the estate of Cecelio Chuapoco, et al., Petitioners,

v KOREAN AIR LINES CO., LTD.

No. 97-704.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued April 27, 1998.

Decided June 8, 1998.

Syllabus^*

The Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) allows certain relatives of a decedent to sue for their own pecuniary losses, but does not authorize recovery for the decedent's pre-death pain and suffering. Petitioners, personal representatives of three passengers killed when Korean Air Lines Flight KE007 was shot down over the Sea of Japan, sued respondent airline (KAL) for, inter alia, damages for their decedents' pre-death pain and suffering. While their suit was pending, this Court decided in Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U.S. 217, 116 S.Ct. 629, 133 L.Ed.2d 596-which arose out of the same disaster-that the Warsaw Convention permits compensation only for legally cognizable harm, but leaves the specification of what constitutes such harm to applicable domestic law, id., at 231, 116 S.Ct., at 636-637; that DOHSA supplies the applicable United States law where an airplane crashes on the high seas, ibid.; and that where DOHSA applies, neither state nor general maritime law can permit recovery of loss-of-society damages, id., at 230, 116 S.Ct., at 636. Subsequently, the District Court in this case granted KAL's motion to dismiss petitioners' nonpecuniary damages claims on the ground that DOHSA does not permit recovery for such damages, including damages for a decedent's pre-death pain and suffering. In affirming, the Court of Appeals rejected petitioners' argument that general maritime law provides a survival action for pain and suffering damages, holding that Congress has decided who may sue and for what in cases of death on the high seas.

Held: Because Congress has chosen not to authorize a survival action for a decedent's pre-death pain and suffering in a case of death on the high seas, there can be no general maritime survival action for such damages. Before Congress enacted DOHSA, admiralty law did not permit an action to recover damages for a person's death. In DOHSA, Congress authorized such a cause of action for certain surviving relatives in cases of death on the high seas, 46 U.S.C.App. §761, but limited recovery to the survivors' own pecuniary losses, §762. DOHSA's limited survival provision also restricts recovery to the survivors' pecuniary losses. §765. In Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 2010, 56 L.Ed.2d 581, this Court held that, in a case of death on the high seas, a decedent's survivors could not recover damages under general maritime law for their loss of society, reasoning that, since DOHSA announced Congress' considered judgment on, inter alia, beneficiaries, survival, and damages, id., at 625, 98 S.Ct., at 2015, the Court had no authority to substitute its views for those expressed by Congress, id., at 626, 98 S.Ct., at 2015. Because Higginbotham involved only the scope of the remedies available in a wrongful death action, it did not address the availability of other causes of action. However, petitioners err in contending that DOHSA is a wrongful death statute with no bearing on the availability of a survival action. By authorizing only certain surviving relatives to recover damages, and by limiting damages to those relatives' pecuniary losses, Congress provided the exclusive recovery for deaths on the high seas. Petitioners concede that their action would expand the class of beneficiaries entitled to recovery and the recoverable damages; but Congress has already decided these issues and, thus, has precluded the judiciary from expanding either category. DOHSA's survival provision confirms the Act's comprehensive scope by expressing Congress' considered judgment on the availability and contours of a survival action in cases of death on the high seas. Congress has simply chosen to adopt a more limited survival provision than that urged by petitioners. Indeed, Congress did so in the same year that it incorporated a survival action similar to the one petitioners seek into the Jones Act, permitting seamen to recover damages for their own injuries. In the exercise of its admiralty jurisdiction, the Court will not upset the balance Congress struck by authorizing a cause of action with which Congress was certainly familiar but nonetheless declined to adopt. Pp. ____-____.

117 F.3d 1477, affirmed.

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Juanita Madole, Irvine, CA, for petitioners.

Andrew J. Harakas, New York City, for respondent.

Jeffrey P. Minear, for United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court.

Justice THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In a case of death on the high seas, the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C.App. §761 et seq., allows certain relatives of the decedent to sue for their pecuniary losses, but does not authorize recovery for the decedent's pre-death pain and suffering. This case presents the question whether those relatives may nevertheless recover such damages through a survival action under general maritime law. We hold that they may not.

I

On September 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight KE007, en route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, South Korea, strayed into the airspace of the former Soviet Union and was shot down over the Sea of Japan. All 269 people on board were killed.

Petitioners, the personal representatives of three of the passengers, brought lawsuits against respondent Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd. (KAL), in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. These cases were consolidated in that court, along with the other federal actions arising out of the crash. After trial, a jury found that KAL had committed "willful misconduct,'' thus removing the Warsaw Convention's $75,000 cap on damages, and in a subsequent verdict awarded $50 million in punitive damages. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the finding of willful misconduct, but vacated the punitive damages award on the ground that the Warsaw Convention does not permit the recovery of punitive damages. In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1, 1983, 932 F.2d 1475, cert. denied, 502 U.S. 994, 112 S.Ct. 616, 116 L.Ed.2d 638 (1991).

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation thereafter remanded, for damages trials, all of the individual cases to the District Courts in which they had been filed. In petitioners' cases, KAL moved for a pretrial determination that the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 46 U.S.C.App. §761 et seq., provides the exclusive source of recoverable damages. DOHSA provides, in relevant part:

"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 . . . '' §761.

"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 . . . '' §762.

KAL argued that, in a case of death on the high seas, DOHSA provides the exclusive cause of action and does not permit damages for loss of society, survivors' grief, and decedents' pre-death pain and suffering. The District Court for the District of Columbia disagreed, holding that because petitioners' claims were brought pursuant to the Warsaw Convention, DOHSA could not limit the recoverable damages. The Court determined that Article 17 of the Warsaw Convention "allows for the recovery of all "damages sustained,''' meaning any "actual harm'' that any party "experienced'' as a result of the crash. App. 59.

While petitioners' cases were awaiting damages trials, we reached a different conclusion in Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., 516 U.S. 217, 116 S.Ct. 629, 133 L.Ed.2d 596 (1996), another case arising out of the downing of Flight KE007. In Zicherman, we held that the Warsaw Convention "permit[s] compensation only for legally cognizable harm, but leave[s] the specification of what harm is legally cognizable to the domestic law applicable under the forum's choice-of-law rules,'' and that where "an airplane crash occurs on the high seas, DOHSA supplies the substantive United States law.'' Id., at 231, 116 S.Ct., at 637. Accordingly, the petitioners could not recover damages for loss of society: " [W]here DOHSA applies, neither state law, see Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 232-233, 106 S.Ct. 2485, 2499-2500, 91 L.Ed.2d 174 (1986), nor general maritime law, see Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 625-626, 98 S.Ct. 2010, 2015, 56 L.Ed.2d 581 (1978), can provide a basis for recovery of loss-of-society damages.'' Id., at 230, 106 S.Ct., at 2498. We did not decide, however, whether the petitioners in Zicherman could recover for their decedents' pre-death pain and suffering, as KAL had not raised this issue in its petition for certiorari. See id., at 230, n. 4, 116 S.Ct., at 636, n. 4.

After the Zicherman decision, KAL again moved to dismiss all of petitioners' claims for nonpecuniary damages. The District Court granted this motion, holding that United States law (not South Korean law) governed these cases; that DOHSA provides the applicable United States law; and that DOHSA does not permit the recovery of nonpecuniary damages-including petitioners' claims for their decedents' pre-death pain and suffering. In Re Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1, 1983, 935 F.Supp. 10, 12-15 (1996).

On appeal, petitioners argued that although DOHSA does not itself permit recovery for a decedent's pre-death pain and suffering, general maritime...