Hackensmith v. Port City S.S. Holding Co.

• Decision Date: 09 April 2013
• Docket Number: Case No. 12–CV–786–JPS.
• Citation: 938 F.Supp.2d 824
• Parties: Jean HACKENSMITH, Special Administrator for the Estate of Ronald L. Hackensmith, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. PORT CITY STEAMSHIP HOLDING COMPANY and Port City Steamship Services, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin

938 F.Supp.2d 824

Jean HACKENSMITH, Special Administrator for the Estate of Ronald L. Hackensmith, Deceased, Plaintiff,

v.PORT CITY STEAMSHIP HOLDING COMPANY and Port City Steamship Services, Inc., Defendants.

Case No. 12–CV–786–JPS.

United States District Court,

E.D. Wisconsin.

April 9, 2013.

Donald B. Beaton, D. Bruce Beaton PLC, Marine City, MI, for Plaintiff.

John A. O'Donnell, Patrick Joseph Cullinan, Steven B. Belgrade, Belgrade & O'Donnell PC, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.

ORDER

J.P. STADTMUELLER, District Judge.

The plaintiff, Jean Hackensmith, filed this action against the defendants, Port City Steamship Holding Company (the “Holding Company”) and Port City Steamship Services, Inc. (“Steamship Services”), on August 1, 2012. (Docket # 1). Ms. Hackensmith's filing of this action followed the Holding Company's earlier filing of an admiralty limitation of liability complaint in the separate but related case In Re Port City Steamship Holding Company, filed in this Court on March 19, 2012, under case number 12–CV–266. ¹ Both actions stem from the same set of facts: in a tragic accident, Ms. Hackensmith's husband, Ronald, was trapped in a piece of machinery on a boat owned and operated by the defendants; he sustained substantial injuries and ultimately passed away.

Thus, Ms. Hackensmith brought suit against the defendants alleging various claims of liability against them. (Docket # 1). On February 15, 2013, the defendants filed a number of summary judgment motions, requesting that the Court dismiss Ms. Hackensmith's claims. (Docket # 30, # 33, # 36). Before filing her response briefs to those motions, Ms. Hackensmith filed a motion to amend her complaint to add a claim, to which the defendants object. (Docket # 39, # 41). The parties then stipulated to dismiss a number of Ms. Hackensmith's claims that were the subject of the defendants' motions for summary judgment. (Docket # 42). That stipulation left very limited issues open for resolution on defendants' summary judgment motion, but the parties nonetheless filed their response and reply briefs on those remaining issues, making the defendants' summary judgment motion ripe for decision. (Docket # 43, # 44, # 47).

At this stage, the parties do not wish for the Court to engage in an extensive factual analysis, and there is a very small (and generally agreed-upon) set of facts that is relevant to the limited issues remaining for disposition in this order. (Docket # 42, at 3–4). Therefore, the Court will avoid a lengthy factual recitation. Nonetheless, the Court will set forth a short background of the case and the parties' claims. Next, the Court will address the parties' stipulation (Docket # 42), and describe how that stipulation affects the outstanding summary judgment motions. The Court will then turn to its legal discussion of the remaining summary judgment issues. Finally, the Court will address Ms. Hackensmith's outstanding motion to amend (Docket # 39) at the conclusion of this order.

1. BACKGROUND

As the Court just noted, it will begin by discussing the factual background of this case and Ms. Hackensmith's claims, before turning to address the parties' stipulation.

1.1 Factual and Legal Background

The factual background of this case is relatively straightforward. Ms. Hackensmith's husband was fatally injured by machine equipment while working as a Jones Act seaman on a boat owned and operated by the defendants. There are other background facts that may be relevant for trial—for example, as may relate to the defendants' alleged willful, wanton, or reckless behavior—but the parties agree that those facts are not relevant to the summary judgment motions now before the Court. (Docket # 42, at 3–4).

Several months after her husband's injury, Ms. Hackensmith brought this suit against the defendants. In her Amended Complaint, she sued both defendants on the following claims:

(1) Jones Act negligence, for which she requested:

(a) pain and suffering damages on behalf of the deceased;

(b) financial damages on her own behalf for expenses related to her husband's death, as well as for lost support; and (c) such other damages as may be available; and

(2) unseaworthiness of the vessel on which the deceased was injured, for which she requested:

(a) pain and suffering damages on behalf of the deceased;

(b) financial damages on her own behalf for expenses related to her husband's death, as well as for lost support;

(c) punitive damages; and

(d) such other damages as may be available; and

(3) loss of consortium under General Maritime Law, for which she requested:

(a) damages resulting from her loss of society and other companionship;

(b) punitive damages; and

(c) such other damages as may be available.

(Am. Compl. ¶¶ 5 (Jones Act negligence claim against the Holding Company), 6 (unseaworthiness claim against the Holding Company), 7 (loss of consortium claim against the Holding Company), 9 (Jones Act negligence claim against Steamship Services), 10 (unseaworthiness claim against Steamship Services), and 11 (loss of consortium claim against Steamship Services)).

After a period for discovery, the defendants filed three separate motions for summary judgment: Docket # 30, Docket # 33, and Docket # 36. Each motion addresses separate portions of Ms. Hackensmith's claims.

1.2 Stipulation

However, before the court addressed any of those motions, the parties entered a stipulation, noting Ms. Hackensmith's dismissal of a number of her claims that were the subject of those motions. (Docket # 40). Accordingly, by the parties' stipulation, Ms. Hackensmith agreed to dismiss a number of her claims while the defendants' agreed to dismiss their corresponding motions for summary judgment. (Docket # 40).

More specifically, Ms. Hackensmith agreed to dismiss the following claims with prejudice:

(1) her Jones Act negligence claim against the Holding Company (Docket # 42, at ¶ 2);

(2) her unseaworthiness claim against Steamship Services (Docket # 42, at ¶ 1);

(3) her General Maritime Law loss of consortium claim against Steamship Services (Docket # 42, at ¶ 1);

(4) any loss of consortium claim she may have had against Steamship Services under her Jones Act negligence claim (Docket # 42, at ¶ 4(b)); and

(5) any claim for future loss of wages against either defendant in both her Jones Act negligence and unseaworthiness claims (though Ms. Hackensmith notes that she is not dismissing any loss of support claims she may have against the defendants pursuant to those claims) (Docket # 42, at ¶ 4(a)).

Therefore, given the dismissal of a number of those claims, the parties further stipulated that the defendants would withdraw their summary judgment motions filed at Docket # 33 and Docket # 36. (Docket # 42, at ¶ 3).

2. DISCUSSION

Thus, there exists only one summary judgment motion outstanding: Docket # 30, for partial summary judgment barring recovery of punitive or loss of consortium damages. The parties have further stipulated that there is only one issue remaining that the Court must decide at this juncture: whether Ms. Hackensmith may recover punitive, loss of consortium,or other non-pecuniary damages under her remaining Jones Act negligence or unseaworthiness claims against Steamship Services and the Holding Company, respectively. (Docket # 42, at 3–4).

Summary judgment on that issue is appropriate because the parties do not disagree as to the relevant facts or evidence on that issue, and the Court may determine on the basis of those items whether “the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Thomas v. H & R Block Eastern Enters., 630 F.3d 659, 663 (7th Cir.2011); Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).

Having extensively reviewed the parties' briefs and the case law on the topics presented therein, the Court is obliged to determine that the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law on this issue. Under the state of current law, Ms. Hackensmith may not recover punitive, loss of consortium, or other non-pecuniary damages under either her Jones Act or unseaworthiness claims.

However, the Court notes that it encountered much difficulty in reaching this decision. The law on the topic is somewhat unsettled. (At the very least, given a recent Supreme Court decision, the law appears to be unsettled.) Moreover, this is an issue of first impression in the Seventh Circuit.

Two Supreme Court cases are particularly important to the Court's analysis: Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 111 S.Ct. 317, 112 L.Ed.2d 275 (1990), and Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend, 557 U.S. 404, 129 S.Ct. 2561, 174 L.Ed.2d 382 (2009). Both cases deal with the recoverability of forms of non-pecuniary damages under maritime law, and have been interpreted by lower courts some to reach differing results. Which is to say that, following Townsend, many lower courts reexamined their application of Miles' holding.

In Miles, the Supreme Court held that the administrator of a deceased seaman's estate could not collect non-pecuniary damages, such as for loss of society, when bringing a general maritime action for wrongful death. Miles, 498 U.S. at 33, 111 S.Ct. 317. In reaching that decision, the Miles Court noted that it had previously created a general maritime claim for wrongful death based on unseaworthiness in a prior case, Moragne v. States Marine Lines.Miles, 498 U.S. at 27, 111 S.Ct. 317 (citing Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 402, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339 (1970)). However, to ensure uniformity across general maritime law and the Jones Act, the Miles Court prohibited the recovery of non-pecuniary damages in general maritime wrongful death actions, just as Jones Act recovery is limited to non-pecuniary damages under its incorporation of the Federal Employees Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. § 51, et seq. (1908). Miles, 498 U.S. at 36, 111 S.Ct. 317.

Lower courts began applying the Miles decision to preclude all non-pecuniary damages, including punitive damages, in general maritime...