U.S. Supreme Court, Dutra Group v. Batterton, Docket No. 18-266

Admiralty Law

Maritime Law

Common Law

Equity

Jones Act

Punitive Damages

Exemplary Damages

Unseaworthiness Actions

Maritime Claim of Maintenance and Cure.

By granting federal courts jurisdiction over maritime and admiralty cases, the Constitution implicitly directs federal courts sitting in admiralty to proceed “in the man­ner of a common law court.” Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U. S. 471, 489–490 (2008). Thus, where Congress has not prescribed specific rules, federal courts must develop the “amalgam of traditional common-law rules, modifica­tions of those rules, and newly created rules” that forms the general maritime law. East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U. S. 858, 864–865 (1986). But maritime law is no longer solely the province of the Federal Judiciary. “Congress and the States have legis­lated extensively in these areas.” Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U. S. 19, 27 (1990). When exercising its inher­ent common-law authority, “an admiralty court should look primarily to these legislative enactments for policy guidance.” Ibid. We may depart from the policies found in the statutory scheme in discrete instances based on long-established history, see, e.g., Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend, 557 U. S. 404, 424–425 (2009), but we do so cautiously in light of Congress’s persistent pursuit of “uniformity in the exercise of admiralty jurisdiction.” Miles, supra, at 26 (quoting Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U. S. 375, 401 (1970)).

This case asks whether a mariner may recover punitive damages on a claim that he was injured as a result of the unseaworthy condition of the vessel. We have twice con­fronted similar questions in the past several decades, and our holdings in both cases were based on the particular claims involved. In Miles, which concerned a wrongful-death claim under the general maritime law, we held that recovery was limited to pecuniary damages, which did not include loss of society. 498 U. S., at 23. And in Atlantic Sounding, after examining centuries of relevant case law, we held that punitive damages are not categorically barred as part of the award on the traditional maritime claim of maintenance and cure. 557 U. S., at 407. Here, because there is no historical basis for allowing punitive damages in unseaworthiness actions, and in order to promote uniformity with the way courts have applied parallel statutory causes of action, we hold that punitive damages remain unavailable in unseaworthiness actions.

The seaman’s right to recover damages for personal injury on a claim of unseaworthiness originates in the admiralty court decisions of the 19th century. At the time, “seamen led miserable lives.” D. Robertson, S. Friedell, & M. Sturley, Admiralty and Maritime Law in the United States 163 (2d ed. 2008). Maritime law was largely judge­made, and seamen were viewed as “emphatically the wards of the admiralty.” Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 485 (No. 6,047) (CC Me. 1823). In that era, the pri­mary responsibility for protecting seamen lay in the courts, which saw mariners as “peculiarly entitled to”—and particularly in need of—judicial protection “against the effects of the superior skill and shrewdness of masters and owners of ships.” Brown v. Lull, 4 F. Cas. 407, 409 (No. 2,018) (CC Mass. 1836) (Story, J.).

Courts of admiralty saw it as their duty not to be “con­fined to the mere dry and positive rules of the common law” but to “act upon the enlarged and liberal jurispru­dence of courts of equity; and, in short, so far as their powers extended, they acted as courts of equity.” This Court interpreted the Constitution’s grant of admi­ralty jurisdiction to the Federal Judiciary as “the power to . . . dispose of a case as justice may require.” The Reso­lute, 168 U. S. 437, 439 (1897).

Courts used this power to protect seamen from injury primarily through two causes of action. The first, mainte­nance and cure, has its roots in the medieval and renaissance law codes that form the ancient foundation of mari­time common law.

The duty of maintenance and cure requires a ship’s master “to provide food, lodging, and medical services to a seaman injured while serving the ship.” Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc., 531 U. S. 438, 441 (2001). This duty, “which arises from the contract of employment, does not rest upon negligence or culpability on the part of the owner or master, nor is it restricted to those cases where the seaman’s employment is the cause of the injury or illness.” Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525, 527 (1938).

The second claim, unseaworthiness, is a much more recent development and grew out of causes of action unre­lated to personal injury. In its earliest forms, an unsea­worthiness claim gave sailors under contract to sail on a ship the right to collect their wages even if they had re­fused to board an unsafe vessel after discovering its condi­tion. See, e.g., Dixon v. The Cyrus, 7 F. Cas. 755, 757 (No. 3,930) (Pa. 1789); Rice v. The Polly & Kitty, 20 F. Cas. 666, 667 (No. 11,754) (Pa. 1789). Similarly, unseaworthiness was a defense to criminal charges against seamen who refused to obey a ship master’s orders. See, e.g., United States v. Nye, 27 F. Cas. 210, 211 (No. 15,906) (CC Mass. 1855); United States v. Ashton, 24 F. Cas. 873, 874–875 (No. 14,470) (CC Mass. 1834). A claim of unseaworthiness could also be asserted by a shipper to recover damages or by an insurer to deny coverage when the poor condition of the ship resulted in damage to or loss of the cargo. See The Caledonia, 157 U. S. 124, 132–136 (1895) (cataloging cases).

Only in the latter years of the 19th century did unsea­worthiness begin a long and gradual evolution toward remedying personal injury. Courts began to extend the cases about refusals to serve to allow recovery for mari­ners who were injured because of the unseaworthy condi­tion of the vessel on which they had served. These early cases were sparse, and they generally allowed recovery only when a vessel’s owner failed to exercise due diligence to ensure that the ship left port in a seaworthy condition (…) Because a claimant had to show that he was injured by some aspect of the ship’s condition that rendered the vessel unseawor­thy, a claim could not prevail based on “the negligence of the master, or any member of the crew.” (…) Instead, a seaman had to show that the owner of the vessel had failed to exercise due diligence in ensuring the ship was in seaworthy condi­tion. See generally Dixon v. United States, 219 F. 2d 10, 12–14 (CA2 1955) (Harlan, J.) (cataloging evolution of the claim).

(It was only after the passage of the Jones Act that negligence by a fellow mariner provided a reliable basis for recovery (fn. 4)).

Tremendous shifts in mariners’ rights took place be­tween 1920 and 1950. First, during and after the First World War, Congress enacted a series of laws regulating maritime liability culminating in the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, §33, 41 Stat. 1007 (Jones Act), which codified the rights of injured mariners and created new statutory claims that were freed from many of the common-law limitations on recovery. The Jones Act provides injured seamen with a cause of action and a right to a jury. 46 U. S. C. §30104. Rather than create a new structure of substantive rights, the Jones Act incorporated the rights provided to railway workers under the Federal Employers’ liability Act (FELA), 45 U. S. C. §51 et seq. 46 U. S. C. §30104. In the 30 years after the Jones Act’s passage, “the Act was the vehicle for almost all seamen’s personal injury and death actions.” Gilmore & Black §6–20, at 327.

But the Jones Act was overtaken in the 1950s by the second fundamental change in personal injury maritime claims—and it was this Court, not Congress, that played the leading role. In a pair of decisions in the late 1940s, the Court transformed the old claim of unseaworthiness, which had demanded only due diligence by the vessel owner, into a strict-liability claim. In Mahnich v. South­ern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96 (1944), the Court stated that “the exercise of due diligence does not relieve the owner of his obligation” to provide a seaworthy ship and, in the same ruling, held that the fellow-servant doctrine did not provide a defense. Id., at 100, 101.

(…) Less than two years later, we affirmed that the duty of seaworthiness was “essentially a species of liability without fault . . . neither limited by conceptions of negligence nor contrac­tual in character. It is a form of absolute duty owing to all within the range of its humanitarian policy.” Seas Ship­ping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, 94–95 (1946).

From Mahnich forward, “the decisions of this Court have undeviatingly reflected an understanding that the owner’s duty to furnish a seaworthy ship is absolute and completely independent of his duty under the Jones Act to exercise reasonable care.” Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 362 U. S. 539, 549 (1960). As a result of Mah­nich and Sieracki, between the 1950s and 1970s “the unseaworthiness count was the essential basis for recov­ery with the Jones Act count preserved merely as a jury-getting device.”

(…) The shifts in plaintiff preferences between Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims were possible because of the significant overlap between the two causes of action. One leading treatise goes so far as to describe the two claims as “alternative ‘grounds’ of recov­ery for a single cause of action.” 2 R. Force & M. Norris, The Law of Seamen §30:90, p. 30–369 (5th ed. 2003). The two claims are so similar that, immediately after the Jones Act’s passage, we held that plaintiffs could not submit both to a jury. Plamals, supra, at 156–157 (“Sea­men may invoke, at their election, the relief accorded by the old rules against the ship, or that provided by the new against the employer. But they may not have the benefit of both”). We no longer require such election. See McAl­lister v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 357 U. S. 221, 222, n. 2 (1958). But a plaintiff still cannot duplicate his recovery by collecting full damages on both claims because, “whether or not the seaman’s injuries were occasioned by the un­seaworthiness of the vessel or by the negligence of the master or members of the crew, . . . there is but a single wrongful invasion of his primary right of bodily safety and but a single legal wrong.” Peterson, 278 U. S., at 138.

(The decline of Jones Act claims was arrested, although not reversed, by our holding that some negligent actions on a vessel may create Jones Act liability without rendering the vessel unseaworthy. See Usner v. Luckenbach Overseas Corp., 400 U. S. 494 (1971); see also 1B Benedict on Admiralty §23, p. 3–35 (7th rev. ed. 2018) (fn. 5)).

For claims of unseaworthiness, the overwhelming his­torical evidence suggests that punitive damages are not available.

(…) The lack of punitive damages in traditional maritime law cases is practically dispositive. By the time the claim of unseaworthiness evolved to remedy personal injury, punitive damages were a well-established part of the common law. Exxon Shipping, 554 U. S., at 491. Ameri­can courts had awarded punitive (or exemplary) damages from the Republic’s earliest days. See, e.g., Genay v. Nor­ris, 1 S. C. L. 6, 7 (1784); Coryell v. Colbaugh, 1 N. J. L. 77, 78 (1791). And yet, beyond the decisions discussed above, Batterton presents no decisions from the formative years of the personal injury unseaworthiness claim in which exemplary damages were awarded. From this we conclude that, unlike maintenance and cure, unseaworthiness did not traditionally allow recovery of punitive damages.

In light of this overwhelming historical evidence, we cannot sanction a novel remedy here unless it is required to maintain uniformity with Congress’s clearly expressed policies. Therefore, we must consider the remedies typi­cally recognized for Jones Act claims.

The Jones Act adopts the remedial provisions of FELA, and by the time of the Jones Act’s passage, this Court and others had repeatedly interpreted the scope of damages available to FELA plaintiffs. These early decisions held that “the damages recoverable under FELA are limited. . . strictly to the financial loss . . . sustained.”

(We also note that Congress declined to allow punitive damages when it enacted the Death on the High Seas Act. 46 U. S. C. §30303 (allowing “fair compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained” for a death on the high seas) (fn. 8)).

(…) Because unseaworthiness in its current strict-liability form is our own invention and came after passage of the Jones Act, it would exceed our current role to introduce novel remedies contradictory to those Congress has provided in similar areas. ((…) Declining to create remedy “that goes well beyond the limits of Congress’ ordered system of recovery”).

(…) The duty of mainte­nance and cure requires the master to provide medical care and wages to an injured mariner in the period after the injury has occurred. Calmar S. S. Corp., 303 U. S., at 527–528. By contrast, both the Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims compensate for the injury itself and for the losses resulting from the injury. Peterson, supra, at 138. In such circumstances, we are particularly mindful of the rule that requires us to promote uniformity between mari­time statutory law and maritime common law.

(…) Unseaworthiness claims run against the owner of the vessel (…) See Sieracki, 328 U. S., at 100 (The duty of seaworthiness is “peculiarly and exclusively the obligation of the owner. It is one he cannot delegate”).

Finally, because “noncompensatory damages are not part of the civil-code tradition and thus unavailable in such countries,” Exxon Shipping, 554 U. S., at 497, allow­ing punitive damages would place American shippers at a significant competitive disadvantage and would discour­age foreign-owned vessels from employing American sea­men. See Gotanda, Punitive Damages: A Comparative Analysis, 42 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 391, 396, n. 24 (2004) (listing civil-law nations that restrict private plaintiffs to compensatory damages).

(…) In light of these changes and of the roles now played by the Judiciary and the political branches in protecting sailors, the special solicitude to sailors has only a small role to play in contemporary maritime law.

Secondary sources: Benedict on Admiralty (7th rev. ed. 2018); R. Force & M. Norris, The Law of Seamen (5th ed. 2003).

(U.S. Supreme Court, June 24, 2019, Dutra Group v. Batterton, Docket No. 18-266, J. Alito)