00-346 Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. Garris

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“[In Moragne, we] declared a new rule of maritime law: ‘We … hold that an action does lie under general maritime law for death caused by violation of maritime duties.’ Id., at 409, 90 S.Ct. 1772.

“As we have noted in an earlier opinion, the wrongful-death rule of Moragne was not limited to any particular maritime duty, Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A. v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199, 214, n. 11, 116 S.Ct. 619, 133 L.Ed.2d 578 (1996) (dictum), but Moragne ‘s facts were limited to the duty of seaworthiness, and so the issue of wrongful death for negligence has remained technically open. We are able to find no rational basis, however, for distinguishing negligence from seaworthiness. It is no less a distinctively maritime duty than seaworthiness: The common-law duties of care have not been adopted and retained unmodified by admiralty, but have been adjusted to fit their maritime context. … Consequently the ‘tensions and discrepancies’ in our precedent arising ‘from the necessity to accommodate state remedial statutes to exclusively maritime substantive concepts’ – which ultimately drove this Court in Moragne to abandon The Harrisburg, see 398 U.S., at 401, 90 S.Ct. 1772 – were no less pronounced with maritime negligence than with unseaworthiness. … It is true, as petitioner observes, that we have held admiralty accommodation of state remedial statutes to be constitutionally permissible … but that does not resolve the issue here: whether requiring such an accommodation by refusing to recognize a federal remedy is preferable as a matter of maritime policy. We think it is not.”

Affirmed.

Local Effect:

The Seventh Circuit has not considered the issue in depth, but has assumed that the Moragne decision already did extend to negligence: Glenview Park Dist. v. Melhous, 540 F.2d 1321, 1323 (7th Cir.1976); First Nat. Bank of Chicago v. Material Service Corp., 597 F.2d 1110 (7th Cir.1979).

Scalia, J.; Ginsburg, J., concurring in part.

Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 210 F.3d 209.