220
Opinion of the Court
ages. In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1, 1983, 932 F. 2d 1475, 1479-1481, 1484-1490, cert. denied, 502 U. S. 994 (1991). The individual cases were then remanded by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to the original transferor courts for trial of compensatory damages issues.
At petitioners' damages trial in the Southern District of New York, KAL moved for determination that the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA), 41 Stat. 537, 46 U. S. C. App. § 761 et seq. (1988 ed.), prescribed the proper claimants and the recoverable damages, and that it did not permit damages for loss of society. The District Court denied the motion and held, inter alia, that petitioners could recover for loss of "love, affection, and companionship." In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of Sept. 1, 1983, 807 F. Supp. 1073, 1086-1088 (1992). The jury awarded loss-of-society damages in the amount of $70,000 to Zicherman and $28,000 to Mahalek.1
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit set aside this award. Applying its prior decisions in In re Air Disaster at Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, 928 F. 2d 1267, 1278-1279 (Lockerbie I), cert. denied sub nom. Rein v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 502 U. S. 920 (1991), and In re Air Disaster at Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, 37 F. 3d 804 (1994) (Lockerbie II), cert. denied sub nom. Pan American World Airways, Inc. v. Pagnucco, 513 U. S. 1126 (1995), it held that general maritime law supplied the substantive law of compensatory damages to be applied in an action under the Warsaw Convention. 43 F. 3d 18, 21-22 (1994). Then, following its decision in Lockerbie II, it held that, under general maritime law, a plaintiff is entitled to recover loss-of-society damages, but only if he was a depend-1 The jury also awarded petitioners $161,000 in survivors' grief, $16,000 to Zicherman for loss of support and inheritance and $100,000 to Zicherman for the decedent's pain and suffering. The Second Circuit has set aside the award of grief damages and has remanded for further proceedings on the award for loss of support and inheritance. None of these awards is at issue here.
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