## Facts

- Two offshore drilling-platform workers were traveling by helicopter from a Gulf of Mexico platform to Louisiana.
- The helicopter crashed into the high seas about 35 miles off the Louisiana coast, killing the workers.
- The widows sued the helicopter operator and related parties for wrongful death, asserting claims under the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), and Louisiana wrongful-death law.
- The district court held DOHSA supplied the exclusive remedy for deaths on the high seas, dismissed the OCSLA and Louisiana-law theories, and limited damages to DOHSA pecuniary losses (excluding loss-of-society damages).
- The Fifth Circuit reversed in part, reasoning that DOHSA § 7 preserved the applicability of Louisiana’s wrongful-death statute and could allow nonpecuniary damages.

## Issues

1. Whether OCSLA governs a fatal helicopter crash occurring on the high seas during transportation connected to offshore platform work.
2. Whether DOHSA § 7 permits applying a state wrongful-death statute to supplement DOHSA and allow nonpecuniary damages for a death occurring on the high seas.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and reinstated the district court’s judgment.
- OCSLA did not apply because the accident occurred on the high seas, not on the outer continental shelf’s subsoil, seabed, or fixed structures.
- DOHSA governed and supplied the exclusive remedy for the deaths.
- DOHSA’s damages limitation to “pecuniary loss” controlled; state law could not be used to obtain nonpecuniary damages.

## Legal Principles

- DOHSA provides a uniform federal wrongful-death cause of action for deaths “occurring on the high seas” and limits recovery to “fair and just compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained.”
- OCSLA extends federal law (and, in certain circumstances, adjacent state law) only to the outer continental shelf’s subsoil, seabed, and fixed structures; an off-structure transportation दुर्घटना on the high seas is outside OCSLA’s geographic scope.
- DOHSA § 7 functions as a saving provision for state statutes and state-court jurisdiction where DOHSA does not apply; it does not authorize using state wrongful-death law to alter DOHSA’s remedial limits for high-seas deaths.
- Allowing state statutes to expand damages for DOHSA-governed deaths would defeat Congress’s objective of uniform maritime remedies for high-seas wrongful deaths.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a helicopter crash 35 miles offshore was governed by DOHSA rather than OCSLA, and that DOHSA is the exclusive wrongful-death remedy for high-seas fatalities, limiting recovery to pecuniary damages and precluding supplementation by state wrongful-death law.


Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207 (1986)