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Fifth Circuit Rules that Punitive Damages are Not Available to Seamen

Case: McBride v. Estis Well Serv., L.L.C.
          United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (en banc).
          768 F.3d 382 (5th Cir. La. 2014).

This personal injury case arises out of the collapse of a derrick on an inland waters drilling barge, owned and operated by Estis Well Service, LLC in Bayou Sorrell, Louisiana. Three crew members were injured, and a fourth was killed. The injured workers and the family of the decedent brought suit for unseaworthiness under general maritime law and negligence under the Jones Act, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. On motion by Estis, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims for punitive damages, finding they are not an available remedy where liability is based on unseaworthiness or the Jones Act. The District Court certified the judgment for immediate appeal due to the unsettled state of this issue.

The original three-judge Fifth Circuit panel found that punitive damages were an available remedy to seaman or their representatives in a cause of action for unseaworthiness under the general maritime law, relying on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Atlantic Sounding, Inc. v. Townsend, 557 U.S. 404, 129 S.Ct. 2561, 174 L.Ed.2d 382 (2009), McBride v. Estis Well Service, LLC, 731 F.3d 505 (2013). (The Townsend decision allowed recovery of punitive damages for the willful and wanton failure to pay maintenance and cure).

A petition to review the decision en banc was granted, and the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed the Panel’s decision, concluding that punitive damages are not available for a Jones Act seaman. The lengthy decision includes five separate opinions and provides a detailed history of treatment of punitive and non-pecuniary damages under the Jones Act and general maritime law. The majority opinion initially noted that when Congress enacted the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104, in 1920, it incorporated the remedy afforded to workers bringing suit under Federal Employers’ Liability Act, which limited recoverable damages to pecuniary losses. Accordingly, the majority held that punitive damages, which are not pecuniary in nature, were not available for the plaintiffs’ Jones Act claims.

Moreover, the majority held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miles v. Apex Marine Corp, 498 U.S. 19 (U.S. 1990), which limited the survivors to recovery of pecuniary losses, was “on all fours” with the facts of McBride. The Fifth Circuit rejected arguments that Miles (a wrongful death case) was inapplicable to the nonfatal personal injury plaintiffs and that punitive damages are a subset of pecuniary damages.

The 9-6 Decision included a dissent based on Townsend, 557 U.S. 404 (2009). The dissent opined that because punitive damages were available under general maritime law before the passage of the Jones Act, and because the Jones Act does not address unseaworthiness or limit its remedies, punitive damages should remain available to seamen.

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