## Facts

- A pleasure boat sank during a storm off the Florida coast on March 13, 1993, killing all four aboard: Charles and Betty Muer and George and Lynne Drummey.
- Charles Muer had transferred title of the vessel to C.A. Muer Corporation but served as captain on the fatal voyage; he was the corporation’s founder and principal shareholder.
- The Drummey estates, through their representative, sued the Estate of Charles Muer and C.A. Muer Corporation in Michigan state court for wrongful death under general maritime law and alternatively under the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA).
- The estate and corporation filed a federal petition under the Limitation of Liability Act (LOLA) seeking to limit liability to the value of the vessel and pending freight, asserting lack of “privity or knowledge.”
- The Drummey representative sought summary judgment in the limitation proceeding, arguing Muer’s presence and conduct as captain necessarily established negligence and “privity or knowledge,” defeating limitation.
- The district court denied summary judgment terminating the limitation action, granted partial summary judgment restricting aspects of the general maritime remedies, and addressed DOHSA within the limitation proceeding, treating DOHSA as exclusive and barring pre-death pain-and-suffering damages.

## Issues

1. Whether Muer’s role as captain and his relationship to the corporate owner established “privity or knowledge” as a matter of law, requiring summary judgment denying limitation under LOLA.
2. Whether the district court properly decided DOHSA remedial questions within the limitation proceeding and correctly treated DOHSA as exclusive so as to bar recovery for pre-death pain and suffering.
3. Whether partial summary judgment limiting recovery under the pleaded general maritime law theories was proper.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part.
- The court upheld the denial of summary judgment against limitation, holding that “privity or knowledge” in this owner-operator/corporate-control setting required a fact-specific inquiry and was not resolved as a matter of law by Muer’s mere presence aboard.
- The court rejected the district court’s categorical approach to DOHSA exclusivity and damages, concluding that the remedial analysis required closer attention to the interaction between DOHSA and general maritime law.
- The court left intact some limitations imposed by the district court but vacated or narrowed others where legal error regarding DOHSA/maritime remedies or unresolved material disputes made summary disposition improper.
- A separate opinion concurred in part and dissented in part on remedial questions, reflecting disagreement over the proper scope of damages and DOHSA’s displacement effect.

## Legal Principles

- A limitation action proceeds in two steps: (1) determine whether negligence or unseaworthiness caused the loss, and (2) if so, determine whether the owner had “privity or knowledge” of the causal fault or condition; limitation is denied if privity/knowledge is shown.
- “Privity or knowledge” is not defeated or established automatically by the owner’s presence aboard; when the captain is closely tied to the corporate owner, imputation and privity/knowledge typically require a fact-intensive analysis.
- DOHSA supplies a high-seas wrongful-death remedy limited to beneficiaries’ pecuniary losses, but its relationship to overlapping general maritime law theories requires careful conflict analysis rather than blanket displacement assumptions.
- Summary judgment is improper where material factual disputes remain on negligence, causation, or privity/knowledge, or where the governing remedial framework (including DOHSA’s effect on maritime-law damages) is misapplied.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit allowed the limitation proceeding to continue because “privity or knowledge” could not be resolved as a matter of law on the existing record, but it rejected the district court’s across-the-board treatment of DOHSA as wholly exclusive and its categorical damages bar, reversing in part and remanding for a corrected remedial analysis and further proceedings.


In re Muer, 146 F.3d 410 (6th Cir. 1998)