On June 25, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Atlantic Sounding Co., Inc. v. Townsend, affirming the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, held that in an appropriate case, punitive damages remain an available remedy under the general maritime law for a failure to provide maintenance and cure. In a 5-4 decision, with the Opinion of the Court written by Justice Thomas, the Court held that where a vessel owner has demonstrated a "willful and wanton disregard of the maintenance and cure obligation", punitive damages are an available remedy.
Of course, maritime lawyers have long advised their clients that they withhold maintenance and cure payments at their peril. In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court in Vaughn v. Atkinson, had upheld an award of attorney's fees to a seaman where the shipowner was "callous", "willful", and "persistent" in its refusal to pay maintenance and cure. Thereafter, several lower courts had specifically held that punitive damages were available in such a case.
But this recent decision is more than a mere confirmation of those authorities. It can be taken as a sign that a majority of the present Court feels that the interpretation and announcement of general maritime law rules need not be hindered by statutes passed by Congress unless those statutes are specifically applicable. The vessel owner in Atlantic Sounding had argued that the unequivocal prohibition on punitive damages existing for cases filed by seamen under the Jones Act ought to be looked to in formulating the general maritime law as to maintenance and cure— the Jones Act being an important declaration of seaman's rights and remedies. This argument was ostensibly supported by the case of Miles v. Apex Marine, a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in 1990 which, in defining the types of damages available in a general maritime law wrongful death case, looked to the Congressional strictures on damages found in both the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act. The Miles case has been thought to announce an important trend for the maritime law in which Congressional statements of policy were to be taken as critical, if not mandatory guideposts for the formulation of analogous rules. Some important commentators criticized Miles as an abdication of the admiralty court's responsibility to mold and shape the maritime law.
In the Atlantic Sounding case, however, the Court has turned down an invitation to continue down the path of Miles. Justice Thomas recited a long litany of common law and maritime law cases allowing punitive damages and explained that the enactment of the Jones Act in 1920 had not disturbed that trend. And he saw no reason why a damages remedy theoretically available under the general maritime law ought to be disturbed by a statutory enactment which does not have specific applicability. Simply put, the Jones Act governs the negligence remedy for personal injuries and death, but speaks not at all to the duty to provide maintenance and cure. Therefore, limitations set down by the Jones Act need not be applied in fashioning remedies for violation of maintenance and cure obligations.
As to the amount of punitive damages which can be awarded, readers will recall the Supreme Court's recent maritime law decision in the EXXON VALDEZ litigation, declaring that a punitive damages award which exceeded the amount of provable compensatory damages would be deemed excessive.
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