Foundering On “Sea-Tossed” Waters? The Fifth Circuit Grants En Banc Rehearing in Estis
After making a splash in October of 2013 with a landmark ruling in McBride v. Estis Well Service, L.L.C., 731 F.3d 505, 517 (5th Cir. 2013) “that punitive damages remain available to seamen as a remedy for the general maritime law claim of unseaworthiness” – which departed from the Fifth Circuit’s prior en banc opinion in Guevara v. Mar. Overseas Corp., 59 F.3d 1496, (5th Cir. 1995) – the Fifth Circuit has decided to revisit en banc the issue of punitive damages for unseaworthiness. The panel decision in Estis, following the analytical path of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Atlantic Sounding Co. v. Townsend, 557 U.S. 404 (2007) (an equally historic opinion that abrogated Guevara, and least in part, and validated a seaman’s punitive damage claim for an employer’s willful failure to pay maintenance and cure), charted the history of punitive damages (or their rough analog) in maritime jurisprudence, and held that such damages are available for the seaman’s ancient general maritime law remedy for breach of the warranty of unseaworthiness. In particular, the Estis court held that punitive damages forgeneral maritime law unseaworthiness are available notwithstanding that punitive damages are expressly barred in the context of a seaman’s closely related – but technically distinct – statutory remedy for negligence under the Jones Act and/or the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA). (more…)
