Personal injuries happen. In Florida, they often happen on the water on a boat or cruise ship.
Unlike traditional personal injury cases (e.g. car accidents), maritime injury claims can involve a volatile mix of federal maritime and state law and jurisdictional principles. How it all applies can change based on where injuries occur (state waters or high seas), who’s injured (passenger or crew member), and what happened (injury or death), It may also depend on who you are suing (owner or operator) and where you sue (state or federal court).
Maritime injury law is a deceptively complex area of practice, and filing a lawsuit should involve a good deal of thought and planning. This is very different from a typical personal injury case, which usually follows a standard pleadings playbook.
This complexity can have real consequences: miss the correct substantive law and you risk asserting barred claims, relying on inapplicable remedies, or running afoul of procedural traps. This is particularly true where the case is pending in federal court and the opportunity to fix pleadings isn’t so liberal.
A solid understanding of the complexities of maritime injury law and an academic approach to each case is required. Even our trial courts can seem flummoxed sorting through the ancient doctrines, antiquated statutes, and ever-changing U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
For the experienced maritime injury lawyer, these complexities can be an advantage, but for the inexperienced, they’re a disaster waiting to happen.
Understanding the Extent of the Maritime Maze
When considering the merits and strategy for bringing a maritime injury lawsuit, the first step is to understand that maritime law is primarily federal common law developed by federal courts. See, e.g., Air & Liquid Sys. Corp. v. DeVries, 586 U.S. 446, 452 (2019) (“When a federal court decides a maritime case, it acts as a federal “common law court,” much as state courts do in state common-law cases.”).
The second step is correctly identifying the binding federal precedent that governs your case. This is where things get tricky fast and for several reasons.
One reason is it matters where you’re litigating. If you’re in federal court, there is likely to be a lot of binding precedent specific to your circuit, especially in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits which see their fair share of maritime litigation. If you’re in state court, the only truly binding federal precedent comes from the Supreme Court and you will have more leeway in choosing persuasive precedent from a variety of lower federal courts to make your point, which can be a real advantage. (Many personal injury lawyers avoid federal court like the plague, but this is often not an option in maritime injury cases.)
A second reason is you’re likely going to have to rely directly on Supreme Court opinions, and, unless you are a Supreme Court practitioner or a First Amendment lawyer—most personal injury lawyers aren’t—you’re probably not used to parsing through lengthy or century-old U.S. Supreme Court opinions to draft a complaint, respond to a motion to dismiss, or draft jury instructions. What’s worse, the Supreme Court has heavily modified and clarified its own maritime precedent over the years, leaving many bad-case-law traps for the unwary. Compare The Harrisburg, 119 U.S. 199, 213 (1886) (recognizing no maritime cause of action for wrongful death) with Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375 (1970) (recognizing a remedy for wrongful death under the maritime law in a case involving a seaman) and with Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A. v. Calhoun, 516 U.S. 199, 216 (1996) (clarifying that state law wrongful death remedies remain available to non-seaman in state territorial waters) and with Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. Garris, 532 U.S. 811, 820 (2001) (clarifying that federal maritime also recognizes a wrongful death remedy in state territorial waters for non-seaman).
A third reason is that it’s almost impossible to understand any single maritime injury precedent if you don’t understand all the relevant maritime injury principles. For example, a plaintiff’s lawyer reading Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573, 587 (1974), or cases citing it, might be glad to see that the Supreme Court precedent permitted “recovery for loss of society” as part of “the maritime wrongful death remedy” without taking careful note that Gaudet was a case involving a longshoreman, who died from injuries suffered while onboard a vessel in Louisiana waters. Change one of these subtle but critical facts and the law changes. Had such a death occurred outside territorial waters as in Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618, 624 (1978), or to a “true,” non-longshoreman seaman, as in Miles v. Apex Marine Corp., 498 U.S. 19, 32 (1990), no such damages are recoverable. Each case is like a piece of
The final step is understanding where the federal common law has been supplemented, modified, limited or abrogated by federal statute or state law. Congress can alter maritime law just as a state legislature can alter state common law. For example, Congress has provided for certain limited wrongful death remedies on the high seas under the Death on the High Seas Act, Title 46 United State Code, Chapter 303. And within state territorial waters, state law can supplement (but not conflict with essential features of) federal maritime law. See, e.g., Just v. Chambers, 312 U.S. 383, 388 (1941) (“With respect to maritime torts we have held that the State may modify or supplement the maritime law by creating liability which a court of admiralty will recognize and enforce when the state action is not hostile to the characteristic features of the maritime law or inconsistent with federal legislation.”).
Planning your Route and Navigating the Maritime Maze
With an understanding of the extent of the maze, you can begin to route the most favorable course through it. This often begins with deciding whether to file in federal or state court—a topic worthy of its own article. As mentioned above, your decision, at least in part, should be based on a comparison of the relevant binding precedent in each.
In the case of local boating accidents and maritime injuries in state waters, this work often involves sorting out which substantive and procedural state tort principals will apply. Comparative negligence? Pre-judgment interest? Collateral source rule? Many things taken for granted in typical personal injury cases may not apply at all in the maritime injury context. If you’re still missing the Erie Doctrine from law school, you’ll enjoy the reverse Erie Doctrine here.
In the case of cruise accidents, often in state or foreign waters, this work will often center around the passenger ticket and its choice of venue, choice of law, and limitations of liability provisions and their enforceability.
All in all, there are countless other unique maritime pitfalls and trump-cards to be avoided and played by a savvy maritime injury lawyer, but you must know what they are and plan for them.