CA5 (11.19.04)
Torts on the water

Brad Parker provides this summary of yesterday's decision in Scarborough v. Clemco Industries:

• First, admiralty jurisdiction exists over claims against product manufacturers when at least one other alleged tortfeasor was engaging in a traditional maritime activity. That traditional maritime activity, however, must have had a proximate-cause relationship to the incident. In a multiple-defendant case, this ruling extends admiralty jurisdiction over all claims - if one of the claims arises from a traditional-maritime activity.

• Second, when the decedent was a Jones Act seaman, non-pecuniary damages are not recoverable in a general-maritime-law-wrongful-death suit against non-employer-third-party tortfeasors.