## Facts

- Korean Air Lines Flight KE007 strayed into Soviet airspace and was shot down over the Sea of Japan on September 1, 1983, killing all 269 people aboard.
- Personal representatives of deceased passengers sued the airline in federal court, seeking damages including the decedents’ pre-death pain and suffering.
- Prior proceedings determined the airline engaged in willful misconduct, eliminating the Warsaw Convention’s damages cap.
- After a related Supreme Court decision held that for crashes on the high seas the applicable domestic law is the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), the airline argued DOHSA governed and limited damages.
- The district court dismissed claims for nonpecuniary damages, including pre-death pain and suffering, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether, in a death on the high seas governed by DOHSA, a decedent’s personal representative may recover damages for the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering through a general maritime law survival action.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit.
- DOHSA allows specified relatives to recover only their pecuniary losses and does not authorize recovery for a decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering.
- Because Congress did not authorize such recovery in DOHSA, courts may not create a general maritime survival action to provide it.

## Legal Principles

- For deaths occurring on the high seas, DOHSA supplies the exclusive wrongful-death remedy and limits recovery to the pecuniary losses of designated beneficiaries.
- Courts may not use general maritime law to supplement DOHSA’s remedial scheme by adding categories of damages the statute does not permit.
- DOHSA’s structure, including its limited survival provision, reflects Congress’s choices regarding beneficiaries, survival, and recoverable damages in high-seas death cases.

## Conclusion

In high-seas death cases governed by DOHSA, plaintiffs cannot obtain damages for a decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering through a general maritime survival action because DOHSA limits recovery to survivors’ pecuniary losses and courts may not expand that statutory design.


Dooley v. Korean Air Lines Co., 524 U.S. 116 (1998)