477 U.S. 207 (1986)
The husbands of respondents Corrine Taylor and Beth Tallentire worked on drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.1 On August 6, 1980, they were killed when a helicopter owned and operated by petitioner Air Logistics crashed into the high seas approximately 35 miles offshore while transporting them from a platform to Houma, Louisiana.2
Respondents each filed wrongful death suits in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.3 They asserted claims under the Death on the High Seas Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and Louisiana law, and the actions were later consolidated.4
Upon petitioner's pretrial motion for partial summary judgment, the district court ruled that the Death on the High Seas Act provided the exclusive remedy. It dismissed respondents' claims based on the Louisiana wrongful death statute.5 Petitioner admitted liability, the trial was limited to damages, and the court awarded only pecuniary losses.6
Respondents appealed the dismissal of their state-law claims to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.7 The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's ruling and held that Louisiana law applied either through the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act or by virtue of section 7 of the Death on the High Seas Act.8
The Supreme Court granted certiorari because the Fifth Circuit decision created potential disunity in wrongful death remedies for accidents on the high seas and conflicted with the prevailing view in other circuits.9
Whether the Death on the High Seas Act provides the exclusive remedy for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas more than three miles from shore?10
Yes. The Act applies directly because the helicopter crash occurred approximately 35 miles off the coast of Louisiana on the high seas while the decedents were being transported from drilling platforms. The district court therefore correctly ruled that the Act supplied the exclusive remedy, dismissed the Louisiana claims, and limited the awards to pecuniary losses under the statutory standard.13
The Death on the High Seas Act therefore provides the exclusive remedy for these deaths on the high seas.14
Whether the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act adopts Louisiana law as surrogate federal law for deaths occurring during helicopter transport from offshore drilling platforms on the high seas?15
No. The crash took place on the high seas approximately 35 miles offshore during helicopter transport rather than on any artificial island or fixed structure covered by the Act. Because the fatalities did not arise within the geographic area defined by the statute, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act does not govern the action or authorize the incorporation of Louisiana law.18
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act therefore does not adopt Louisiana law as surrogate federal law for these deaths.19
Whether section 7 of the Death on the High Seas Act preserves the applicability of state wrongful death statutes to deaths occurring on the high seas?20
Section 7 of the Death on the High Seas Act functions as a jurisdictional saving clause that preserves concurrent state-court jurisdiction to adjudicate claims under the federal statute. It does not preserve the substantive operation of state wrongful death statutes on the high seas where they would conflict with the federal measure of recovery.21
No. The language of section 7, read together with section 4 of the Act and its legislative history, shows that the provision was intended only to ensure state courts could entertain Death on the High Seas Act actions without altering the substantive federal standards that Congress enacted to achieve uniformity. The Court of Appeals therefore erred in construing the section to allow Louisiana's nonpecuniary damages on the high seas.22
Section 7 of the Death on the High Seas Act therefore does not preserve the applicability of state wrongful death statutes to deaths occurring on the high seas.23
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Brennan, Marshall, And Stevens
Justice Powell dissented from the majority's reading of section 7.24 He maintained that the plain language of the provision expressly preserves state statutes giving or regulating rights of action or remedies for death without any territorial qualification.25 In his view the Mann Amendment removed the original limitation to territorial waters, and the legislative history did not support converting the section into a mere jurisdictional saving clause.26
Powell concluded that the Court should respect the policy choice Congress made when it enacted the amendment rather than impose an exclusive federal remedy that Congress had declined to enact.27
Whether Louisiana's wrongful death statute applies of its own force to a helicopter crash on the high seas approximately thirty-five miles offshore?28
State wrongful death statutes do not apply of their own force to deaths occurring on the high seas. The Death on the High Seas Act supplies the exclusive federal remedy and preempts conflicting state substantive law in the area of its operation.29
No. The Death on the High Seas Act governs this action because the crash occurred on the high seas. The uniformity concerns that animated the statute therefore preclude the independent application of Louisiana's wrongful death statute to a crash occurring thirty-five miles offshore. The district court's dismissal of the state-law claims was therefore required.30
Louisiana's wrongful death statute therefore does not apply of its own force to this helicopter crash on the high seas.31