Note by B. Richard Moore, Jr.
Respondent brought suit in federal district court for the wrongful death of her husband, an oil worker killed when the helicopter in which he was a passenger plunged into the Gulf of Mexico more than one hundred miles beyond the Louisiana shore. The district court accepted admiralty jurisdiction and found petitioner liable. In a separate proceeding, the court awarded damages in the amount of respondent's loss of support and services, but declined to permit recovery for loss of society or mental grief and anguish on the theory that these were not compensable damages in a general maritime wrongful death action. The court of appeals, relying on a recent United States Supreme Court decision, did not agree. It determined that respondent was entitled to damages for loss of society, even though the tort in question occurred outside state territorial waters. The United States Supreme Court reversed and held that damages recoverable for a nonseaman's wrongful death occurring more than one marine league from shore are governed exclusively by the Death on the High Seas Act which limits recovery to the survivors' pecuniary loss. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618 (1978).
About the Author
B. Richard Moore, Jr.
Citation
53 Tul. L. Rev. 254 (1978)