Lacourse v. Pae Worldwide Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 November 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-13883,19-13883
• Citation: 980 F.3d 1350
• Parties: Patricia LACOURSE, Individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Lt. Colonel Matthew LaCourse, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PAE WORLDWIDE INCORPORATED, et al., Defendants, Defense Support Services LLC, Witness 7, Witness 8, Witness 9, John Does, 1 through 10 inclusive, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

980 F.3d 1350

Patricia LACOURSE, Individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Lt. Colonel Matthew LaCourse, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. PAE WORLDWIDE INCORPORATED, et al., Defendants,Defense Support Services LLC, Witness 7, Witness 8, Witness 9, John Does, 1 through 10 inclusive, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-13883

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

November 17, 2020

John Joseph Gagliano, Arthur Alan Wolk, The Wolk Law Firm, Philadelphia, PA, Rachael R. Gilmer, Troy Alan Rafferty, Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty & Proctor, PA, Pensacola, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant

Michael J. Schofield, Clark Partington Hart Larry Bond & Stackhouse, Pensacola, FL, for Defendant-Appellee

Before WILSON, NEWSOM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether and to what extent the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 30301 –08, applies to Patricia LaCourse's wrongful-death action, in which she alleges that PAE Worldwide Incorporated failed to properly service and maintain the F-16 that her husband was flying when it crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. We must also determine whether PAE, which was operating under a services contract with the United States Air Force, is shielded from liability by the so-called "government contractor" defense.

For the reasons that follow, we hold that DOHSA governs LaCourse's action, that it provides LaCourse's exclusive remedy and preempts her other claims, and that PAE is entitled to the protection of the government-contractor defense.

I

A

The tragic story underlying this appeal began when an Air Force F-16 fighter jet departed Tyndall Air Force Base, east of Panama City, Florida, for a continuation-training sortie. The only person on board was the pilot, Matthew LaCourse, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel employed as a civilian by the Department of Defense. The plan was for Lt. Col. LaCourse to take the jet out over the Gulf of Mexico, perform a series of training maneuvers, and then return to Tyndall. Unfortunately, he never came back. During the flight—for reasons the parties dispute—the F-16 crashed into the Gulf more than twelve nautical miles offshore. Sadly, Lt. Col. LaCourse was killed.

Five years prior to the accident, PAE's predecessor—Defense Support Services—had been awarded a contract with the Air Force to provide aircraft service and maintenance at Tyndall, including, as it turns out, on the F-16 that Lt. Col. LaCourse was flying when he crashed. In performing under the contract, PAE was required to follow detailed guidelines and adhere to specific standards, including Air Force Instructions (AFIs), Technical Orders (TOs), and Job Guides (JGs), all of which were prepared by or on behalf of the Air Force.

F-16s are equipped with two hydraulic systems: A and B. The systems operate independently of one another and are designed to allow the plane to continue to fly in the event that one of them fails. Beginning two months before the crash, the jet at issue here experienced a succession of problems that implicated one or both of its hydraulic systems. In particular, on separate occasions: (1) hydraulic fluid was discovered in the outboard flight-control accumulator gauge; (2) System B's hydraulically actuated landing gear twice failed to retract during flight; (3) a hydraulic system pressure-line clamp on System A broke; (4) System B's reservoir accumulator was found to be depleted; (5) a pre-flight control check revealed a hydraulic leak; (6) System A's cockpit indicator showed no pressure and System B's flight-control accumulator pre-charge was low; and (7) both systems failed a "confidence run."¹ The F-16 was serviced and parts were repaired or replaced as these problems were identified.

On the day of the crash, the F-16 experienced two issues shortly before takeoff. First, the emergency-power unit took longer than expected to activate during the pre-flight check. Second, and more importantly for our purposes, the jet initially failed the "pitch-override check"—in which the pilot applies full pressure to the stick and presses a switch to make the stabilizers at the tail move a few inches or degrees in a nose-down direction. Despite these two "hiccups," as one witness called them, the jet ultimately passed all of its pre-flight checks, which indicated no problem with the hydraulic systems. The PAE mechanics who conducted the pre-flight checks were satisfied that the plane was safe to operate, and they released it for flight.

During the sortie, the F-16 performed a number of aerial maneuvers leading up to a "pitch-back"—an over-the-shoulder tactical maneuver in which the pilot uses the pitch axis to rejoin another aircraft. By all accounts, everything leading up to the pitch-back appeared normal—i.e. , no gauge, light, warning, or caution indicated any problem, and there were no reports of any vibrations, shakes, etc. The issue that led to the crash occurred at the end of the pitch-back maneuver—Lt. Col. LaCourse appeared to level off and there followed, as one witness described it, "a period of no data, no inputs, no control or ... no maneuvers," at which point the jet entered a "pitch-down" from about 12,000 feet. There is no evidence that Lt. Col. LaCourse made any effort to eject or radio for help during his final descent.²

B

Lt. Col. LaCourse's widow and personal representative, Patricia LaCourse, filed this wrongful-death action and jury demand in Florida state court alleging state-law claims for negligence, breach of warranty, and breach of contract. PAE removed the case to federal court based on federal-officer jurisdiction, diversity jurisdiction, and jurisdiction under DOHSA—which, in relevant part, confers admiralty jurisdiction "[w]hen the death of an individual is caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas." 46 U.S.C. § 30302. Resisting PAE's removal, LaCourse disputed that federal jurisdiction existed on any basis.

Once in federal court, PAE moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that DOHSA governed LaCourse's suit and, accordingly, that any potential recovery should (per the statute) be limited to pecuniary damages. The district court granted PAE's motion and held that DOHSA applies and "provides the exclusive remedy for death on the high seas, preempts all other forms of wrongful death claims, and only permits recovery for pecuniary damages."

PAE then filed a motion to strike—or, in the alternative, for partial summary judgment—asking the district court to strike LaCourse's state-law breach-of-warranty and breach-of-contract claims, as well as her jury demand. The district court again granted PAE's motion, concluding that because DOHSA preempts all other wrongful-death causes of action, LaCourse's warranty and contract claims had to be stricken. The district court further held that because all that remained was the DOHSA claim, LaCourse was not entitled to a jury trial.

PAE subsequently moved for final summary judgment, contending that it was protected by the "government contractor" defense, which extends the United States’ sovereign immunity to a federal-government contractor, thereby shielding it from civil liability, provided that, among other things, the contractor complies with reasonably precise government specifications. The district court once again agreed with PAE and granted it summary judgment on government-contractor grounds.

This is LaCourse's appeal.³

II

Before us, LaCourse argues that the district court erred in several ways. First, she contends that the court wrongly held that DOHSA governs this case—both (1) because by its plain terms DOHSA applies only when a death is caused by "wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas," whereas the alleged negligence here occurred on land, and (2) because, in any event, her husband's plane crash lacked a "maritime nexus." Second, LaCourse argues that the district court erred in striking her breach-of-warranty and breach-of-contract claims because they don't seek a remedy broader than DOHSA and therefore aren't preempted. Finally, she asserts that the district court improperly applied the government-contractor defense because PAE failed to show that it complied with the Air Force's reasonably precise specifications for maintaining the F-16.⁴

We will examine each contention in turn.⁵

A

The first question we must address is whether DOHSA applies to LaCourse's suit. The district court held that it does; LaCourse insists that it doesn't.

In relevant part, DOHSA's operative provision states that

[w]hen the death of an individual is caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas ... the personal representative of the decedent may bring a civil action in admiralty against the person or vessel responsible.

46 U.S.C. § 30302. DOHSA's applicability matters, among other reasons, because it limits a plaintiff's recovery to "compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by the individuals for whose benefit the action is brought" and thereby forecloses recovery for emotional injury and punitive damages. Id . § 30303.

LaCourse first argues that the district court erred in holding that DOHSA applies because the "wrongful act, neglect, or default" asserted here—PAE's negligent maintenance of the F-16—did not "occur[ ] on the high seas," as the Act's plain language requires. Rather, she says, the alleged negligence occurred on land—when the jet was improperly serviced at Tyndall Air Force Base. Accordingly, LaCourse contends, DOHSA doesn't apply to her suit.

If we were writing on a clean slate, we would almost certainly agree. LaCourse is exactly right that, according to its language, DOHSA applies only when the "death of an individual is caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas." And she is also right that the alleged "wrongful act, neglect, or default" here occurred not "on the high seas," but on terra firma. Unfortunately for LaCourse, though, we are...