The shipping industry scored a victory this week when the US Supreme Court ruled seafarers were barred from seeking punitive damages in unseaworthiness cases.
In a rare shipping-related decision, the court sided with the California marine construction company Dutra Group over Christopher Batterton in a 6-3 ruling that limits the legal liability shipowners face operating in the US.
"[The decision] means certainty," wrote William Wynne, a partner at law firm Jones Walker in New Orleans. "When case law is uncertain, it is difficult, if not impossible, to properly gauge risk."
Batterton was aboard a Dutra-owned vessel off California in 2014, when a hatch cover blew open and crushed his hand. He sued, and asked for punitive damages.
Dutra moved to dismiss that claim, appealing all the way to the Supreme Court.
The court took the case to settle a split between the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the US west coast, which held punitive damages were available, and the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit, which held punitive damages can only be sought for unpaid maintenance and cure — or day-to-day living expenses.
At the March arguments before the high court, Dutra attorney Seth Waxman argued he could not find a case where punitive damages were requested. The WilmerHale lawyer said this bolstered his client's assertion that claims under the Jones Act were the remedy for injured seafarers.
Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Samuel Alito agreed.
"The overwhelming historical evidence suggests that punitive damages are not available for unseaworthiness claims," his opinion read. "The lack of punitive damages in traditional maritime law cases is practically dispositive."
Alito was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
The majority said allowing punitive damages would create "bizarre disparities in the law" including allowing an injured mariner to claim punitive damages, but bar his estate from the same.
The dissent, written by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and joined by Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor said the only "bizarre disparity" was created by the majority opinion.
"[The decision says] punitive damages are available for wilful and wanton breach of the duty to provide maintenance and cure, but not for the similarly culpable breaches of duty to provide a seaworthy vessel," Ginsburg wrote.
John Kimball, a maritime lawyer at law firm Blank Rome, said the decision was mostly expected.
"I think it's very favourable to shipowners," he said. "It takes a cloud off the horizon."
He said the thousands of asbestos cases where seafarers sought punitive damages based on unseaworthiness claims would be affected.
"That has factored into settlement discussions," Kimball said. "It was something people had to take account of. It will definitely have an impact in that respect.
"We have some other pending claims where it has come up with just typical seamen injury claims. The volume of those claims have diminished in recent years."
