206
Opinion of the Court
III
Because this case involves a watercraft collision on navigable waters, it falls within admiralty's domain. See Sisson v. Ruby, 497 U. S. 358, 361-367 (1990); Foremost Ins. Co. v. Richardson, 457 U. S. 668, 677 (1982). "With admiralty jurisdiction," we have often said, "comes the application of substantive admiralty law." East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U. S. 858, 864 (1986). The exercise of admiralty jurisdiction, however, "does not result in automatic displacement of state law." Jerome B. Gru-bart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U. S. 527, 545 (1995). Indeed, prior to Moragne, federal admiralty courts routinely applied state wrongful-death and survival statutes in maritime accident cases.3 The question before us is whether Moragne should be read to stop that practice.
Our review of maritime wrongful-death law begins with The Harrisburg, 119 U. S. 199 (1886), where we held that the general maritime law (a species of judge-made federal common law) did not afford a cause of action for wrongful death. The Harrisburg Court said that wrongful-death actions are statutory and may not be created by judicial decree. The Court did not question the soundness of this view, or examine the historical justifications that account for it. Instead, the Court merely noted that common law in the United States, like the common law of England, did not allow recovery "for an injury which results in death," id., at 204 (internal quotation marks omitted), and that no country had "adopted a different rule on this subject for the sea from that which it maintains on the land," id., at 213. The Court did not consider itself free to chart a different course by crafting a judge-made wrongful-death action under our maritime law.
Federal admiralty courts tempered the harshness of The Harrisburg's rule by allowing recovery under state
3 Throughout this opinion, for economy, we use the term wrongful-death remedies or statutes to include survival statutes.
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