On January 29, CCL filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the American Association for Justice supporting a Petition for Certiorari in McBride v. Estis Well Service, S. Ct. Docket No. 14-761. The case arises out of an accident aboard a barge supporting a truck-mounted drilling rig. The rig toppled over, killing one of the crew and injuring several others. The decedent’s representative and two injured workers alleged that Estis, their employer and owner of the barge, willfully ignored warnings concerning the dangerous condition of the rig. The central issue for the Supreme Court is whether seamen may recover punitive damages for willful and wanton breach of the general maritime law duty to provide a seaworthy vessel.

A federal magistrate judge dismissed the McBride claim for punitive damages, based on prior Fifth Circuit precedent. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the prior precedent had been overruled by Townsend v Atlantic Sounding (2009), a Supreme Court decision written by Justice Thomas, which upheld recovery of punitive damages under general maritime law for willful failure to provide an injured seaman with maintenance and cure.  However, on rehearing en banc, the entire Fifth Circuit reversed the panel decision by a 9-6 vote. The circuit court extended the Supreme Court’s decision in Miles v Apex Marine Corp. (1990), which held that non-pecuniary damages, such as loss of society, were not recoverable in a Jones Act suit, to bar recovery of punitive damages. There is a split in authority among the federal circuits on this issue.

The AAJ amicus brief, authored by CCL  Senior Counsel Jeffrey White, urged the Court should to grant McBride’s cert petition. The Court has historically safeguarded the rights of seamen as “wards of the admiralty.” In addition, the case is controlled by Townsend, which held that Congress intended the continued availability of existing remedies, such as punitive damages, rather than Miles, which declined to make new remedies available under general maritime law. Finally, CCL suggested that the federal courts draw upon the reasoning and experience of state common law courts in recognizing the availability of punitive damages in products liability suits which, like unseaworthiness actions, are grounded in strict liability.