RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME LAW

The Court was unpersuaded that policy grounds required allowing punitive damages for unseaworthiness claims because (1) it was the Court's overriding objective "to pursue the policy expressed in congressional enactments, and because unseaworthiness in its current strict-liability form is our own invention and came after passage of the Jones Act, it would exceed our current role to introduce novel remedies contradictory to those Congress has provided in similar areas"; (2) the Court was wary to depart from the practice under the Jones Act because a claim of unseaworthiness serves as a duplicate and substitute for a Jones Act claim; (3) allowing punitive damages on unseaworthiness claims would also create bizarre disparities in the law; and (4) allowing punitive damages would place American shippers at a significant competitive disadvantage and frustrate the fundamental interest served by federal maritime jurisdiction: "the protection of maritime commerce. Law 205-e, seeking to recover for personal injuries he allegedly sustained as a result of the unseaworthiness of defendant's vessel and/or defendant's negligence.16 The court denied plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability on his Jones Act and unseaworthiness and granted defendant's application to dismiss under N.Y. Gen. Mun. Blackmer Pump Co.,18 the executor of the estate of the decedent who died from lung cancer brought an action in state court against the manufacturers of pumps used aboard the vessels on which the decedent worked, alleging that asbestos exposure caused the decedent's cancer.19 The action was removed to federal court and the district court denied defendants' motions for summary judgment.20 The district court determined that its maritime law jurisdiction could be invoked because the locality test was satisfied, given that the decedent worked as an electrician aboard the vessel while serving in the Navy and aboard various other Naval vessels in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.21 Furthermore, the connection test was satisfied because (1) the asbestos exposure had a potentially disruptive impact on maritime commerce; and (2) the defective products bore a substantial relationship to traditional maritime activity.22 B.Maintenance and Cure In In re 4-K Marine, L.L.C., a crew member was injured during an allision between two vessels, and the court was presented with the question whether "the owner of the stationary, 'innocent' vessel must be reimbursed for the me