Amicus Curiae Brief — Laura Smith, as Duly Appointed Representative and Independent Administrator of the Estate of Andrea Manfredi, Deceased, et al., Petitioners v. The Boeing Company, et al.

Supreme Court briefMar 12, 2025

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No. 24-849

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

LAURA SMITH, as Duly Appointed Representative of

the Estate of Andrea Manfredi, et al.,

Petitioners,

THE BOEING CO., et al.,

Respondents.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari

to the United States Court of Appeals

for the Seventh Circuit

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR JUSTICE

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

KEVIN MAHONEY

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

LLP

485 Lexington Avenue

New York, NY 10017

(212) 687-8181

kmahoney@kreindler.com

JEFFREY R. WHITE

Counsel of Record

LORI ANDRUS

President

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

FOR JUSTICE

777 6th Street NW, #200

Washington, DC 20001

(202) 617-5620

jeffrey.white@justice.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

March 12, 2025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ....................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ........................... 1

INTRODUCTION AND

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT .................................. 2

ARGUMENT ................................................................ 3

Compelling a DOHSA Plaintiff to Proceed in

Admiralty When the District Court Has a

Non-Admiralty Basis for Subject-Matter

Jurisdiction Violates the Seventh

Amendment. ...................................................... 3

II. Compelling a DOHSA Plaintiff to Proceed in

Admiralty When the District Court Has a

Non-Admiralty Basis for Subject-Matter

Jurisdiction Violates the Saving-to-Suitors

Clause. ............................................................... 7

III. The Decision Below Undermines the Founders’

Well-Designed Framework of Concurrent

Jurisdiction, Extinguishing DOHSA Plaintiffs’

Right to Trial by Jury. .................................... 10

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 13

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Atlas Roofing Co. v.

Occupational Safety and Health Rev. Comm’n,

430 U.S. 442 (1977) .................................................. 7

Crowell v. Benson,

285 U.S. 22 (1932) .............................................. 7, 13

Curtis v. Loether,

415 U.S. 189 (1974) .................................................. 6

Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis,

584 U.S. 497 (2018) ................................................ 11

Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg,

492 U.S. 33 (1989) .................................................... 6

Jennings v. Rodriguez,

583 U.S. 281 (2018) ................................................ 13

Lewis v. Lewis & Clark Marine, Inc.,

531 U.S. 438 (2021) .................................................. 9

Mims v. Arrow Fin. Servs. LLC,

565 U.S. 368 (2012) ................................................ 12

Morris v. T E Marine Corp.,

344 F.3d 439 (5th Cir. 2003) .................................. 11

iii

New Jersey Steam Nav. Co. v.

Merchants’ Bank of Boston,

47 U.S. (6 How.) 344 (1848) ..................................... 9

Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire,

477 U.S. 207 (1986) ................................................ 12

Parsons v. Bedford,

28 U.S. 433 (1830) .................................................... 6

Romero v. Int'l Terminal Operating Co.,

358 U.S. 354 (1959) ................................................ 11

SEC v. Jarkesy,

603 U.S. 109 (2024) .............................................. 5, 6

State of Washington v. W.C. Dawson & Co.,

264 U.S. 219 (1924) ................................................ 12

United States v. Bank of New York & Trust Co.,

296 U.S. 463 (1936) ................................................ 12

United States v. Turkette,

452 U.S. 576 (1981) ................................................ 12

Wooddell v. Int’l Bhd. of Elec. Workers, Loc. 71,

502 U.S. 93 (1991) .................................................... 6

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const. art. III, § 1 ................................................ 8

U.S. Const. amend. VII ..................................... 6, 7, 13

Statutes & Rules

Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA),

46 U.S.C. §§ 30301–30308 (2006) ....... i, 1, 2, 3, 7, 10

Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 9, 1 Stat. 73, 77

(codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1)) ...................... 1, 8, 9

Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(h)....................................................... 1

Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(h) advisory committee’s note to

1966 amendment .................................................... 10

Other Authorities

Carl Ubbelohde, The Vice-Admiralty Courts and the

American Revolution (1960) ..................................... 5

Charles Warren, New Light on the History of

the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789,

37 Harv. L. Rev. 49 (1923) ....................................... 8

Jeff Broadwater, George Mason, James Madison,

and the Evolution of the Bill of Rights,

15 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 547 (2017) ...................... 5

John Adams, Admiralty Notebook, in microfilms of

the Papers of John Adams, pt. III, reel 184 ............ 4

Kurt T. Lash, Becoming the “Bill of Rights”:

The First Ten Amendments from the Founding to

Reconstruction, 110 Va. L. Rev. 411 (2024) ............. 5

Matthew P. Harrington, The Legacy of the

Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts (Part II),

27 J. Mar. L. & Comm. 323 (1996) .......................... 4

Steven L. Snell, Courts of Admiralty and

the Common Law: Origins of the American

Experiment in Concurrent Jurisdiction

(2d ed. 2007) ................................................... 4, 8, 10

The Declaration of Independence (U.S. 1776) ............ 5

The Federalist No. 80 (Alexander Hamilton

(Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961) ...................................... 8

The Federalist No. 83 (Alexander Hamilton)

(Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961) ...................................... 5

Theodore M. Etting, The Admiralty Jurisdiction in

America (Fred B. Rothman & Co. ed. 1986) .......... 10

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE 1

The American Association for Justice (“AAJ”) is a

national, voluntary bar association established in

1946 to strengthen the civil justice system, preserve

the right to trial by jury, and protect access to the

courts for those who have been wrongfully injured.

With members in the United States, Canada, and

abroad, AAJ is the world’s largest plaintiff trial bar.

AAJ members primarily represent plaintiffs in personal injury actions, employment rights cases, consumer cases, and other civil actions, including major

air crash litigation. Throughout its 78-year history,

AAJ has served as a leading advocate for the right of

all Americans to seek legal recourse for wrongful conduct and for the preservation of the constitutional

right to trial by jury for all Americans.

AAJ believes that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals interpretation of the Death on the High Seas Act

(DOHSA), 46 U.S.C. §§ 30301–30308 (2006), denies

Petitioners and future victims of high-seas fatal accidents their Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury

and their associated right of election under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1333(1) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(h).

AAJ believes that the issues raised by Petitioners

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.2, all parties were timely notified of the

filing of this brief. Pursuant to Rule 37.6, amicus affirms that no

counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in part and

no person or entity, other than amicus, its members, or its counsel, has made a monetary contribution to its preparation or submission.

merit this Court’s attention and urges this Court to

grant the Petition for Writ of Certiorari.

INTRODUCTION AND

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Petitioners’ DOHSA claims are “suits at common

law” under the Seventh Amendment. Petitioners cannot be forced to proceed in admiralty, without a jury,

when the district court has a non-admiralty basis for

jurisdiction. The Seventh Amendment exists to prevent this very occurrence. The Founders created the

civil jury right in response to England’s abusive expansion of colonial vice-admiralty jurisdiction before

the Revolution. The same suspicion of admiralty gave

rise to the saving-to-suitors clause contained in the

Judiciary Act of 1789. To this day, that clause preserves a maritime plaintiff’s right to proceed with a

common law claim, before a jury, on the law side of a

federal district court where, as here, that court has a

non-admiralty basis for subject-matter jurisdiction.

The Seventh Circuit failed to interpret DOHSA

with these principles and history in mind. According

to the decision below, a DOHSA claim may be brought

at law in a state court but only in admiralty in federal

courts. This new species of quasi-exclusive jurisdiction

serves no purpose. Worse, it is fundamentally unfair.

Defendants can now remove DOHSA cases from state

courts if there is an independent basis for the court’s

subject-matter jurisdiction, such as diversity. But

plaintiffs are barred from invoking diversity to proceed at law, before a jury. This arbitrary new rule

turns the saving-to-suitors clause on its head and violates the Seventh Amendment.

History repeats itself in the Seventh Circuit. The

undue expansion of admiralty jurisdiction has extinguished Petitioners’ right to a jury trial. This Court

should grant the Petition to preserve DOHSA plaintiffs’ Seventh Amendment Rights and our centuriesold framework of concurrent maritime jurisdiction.

ARGUMENT

DOHSA provides that the personal representative

of a decedent’s estate “may bring a civil action in admiralty against the person or vessel responsible.” 46

U.S.C. § 30302. The Seventh Circuit concluded that a

“natural, ordinary” reading of this language gives federal courts the right to hear DOHSA cases on the admiralty side of the court only, where there is no right

to a jury trial. Pet. App. 14a. But that reading is unconstitutional. Petitioners seek money damages, the

prototypical common law remedy. And because the

district court has an independent basis for subjectmatter jurisdiction, forcing Petitioners into juryless

admiralty violates the Seventh Amendment. The language, history, and purpose of the Seventh Amendment—as well as this country’s tradition of concurrent

jurisdiction over maritime disputes—supports Petitioners’ request for a jury trial in the district court.

COMPELLING A DOHSA PLAINTIFF TO

PROCEED IN ADMIRALTY WHEN THE DISTRICT COURT HAS A NON-ADMIRALTY

BASIS FOR SUBJECT-MATTER JURISDICTION VIOLATES THE SEVENTH AMENDMENT.

To address maritime disputes in the colonial economy, England’s High Court of Admiralty established

vice-admiralty courts in the colonies. See Steven L.

Snell, Courts of Admiralty and the Common Law: Origins of the American Experiment in Concurrent Jurisdiction 145 (2d ed. 2007). Within the colonial justice

system, the courts of common law and the courts of

vice admiralty generally had overlapping jurisdiction.

Id. at 205. As they do today, maritime plaintiffs could

weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each court’s

unique procedures and choose where to proceed. “The

hallmark of colonial maritime jurisdiction was its flexibility,” and this flexibility “formed a valuable legacy

for the generation that met in Philadelphia in the

summer of 1787 to draft the Constitution.” Id.

Admiralty, however, was also a tool of imperial

power. To assert control over the colonies, Parliament

expanded vice-admiralty jurisdiction beyond that exercised by admiralty courts in England. See generally

Matthew P. Harrington, The Legacy of the Colonial

Vice-Admiralty Courts (Part II), 27 J. Mar. L. &

Comm. 323, 334 (1996). In the Townshend Acts, for example, Parliament taxed imports and created district

courts of vice-admiralty to enforce violations of those

unpopular acts without a jury. Id. at 335. Colonists

such as John Adams lambasted the “Brand of Infamy,

of Degradation and Disgrace fixed upon every American” by the use of admiralty courts over trade disputes

that would be resolved by juries in England. Id. at 336

(quoting John Adams, Admiralty Notebook, in microfilms of the Papers of John Adams, pt. III, reel 184).

The strife caused by the Crown’s expansion of admiralty jurisdiction is difficult to overstate. See Carl

Ubbelohde, The Vice-Admiralty Courts and the Amer-

ican Revolution 208 (1960) (“No other argument concerning the courts was more consistently debated nor

more indicative of the gulf separating the British and

colonials.”). Indeed, the denial of trial by jury in civil

cases was a direct cause of the Revolution. See SEC v.

Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109, 121 (2024) (“[W]hen the English continued to try Americans without juries, the

Founders cited the practice as a justification for severing our ties to England.”). After all, the Declaration of

Independence’s complaint of the Crown’s “[d]epriving

us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury” is an

explicit reference to the abuse of admiralty jurisdiction. The Declaration of Independence para. 20 (U.S.

1776).

When our Constitution was later ratified, however, the Founders did not explicitly guarantee the

right to a civil jury trial. See Jarkesy, 603 U.S. at 121

(“In the Revolution’s aftermath, perhaps the most successful critique leveled against the proposed Constitution was its want of a provision for the trial by jury in

civil cases.”) (quoting The Federalist No. 83, at 495

(Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961))

(cleaned up). This was unacceptable to antifederalists

who felt that the jury trial right should be explicit in a

Bill of Rights. See Kurt T. Lash, Becoming the “Bill of

Rights”: The First Ten Amendments from the Founding to Reconstruction, 110 Va. L. Rev. 411, 427 (2024).

To assuage these critiques, James Madison drafted

the Bill of Rights’ ten amendments, which were added

to the Constitution in 1791. See Jeff Broadwater,

George Mason, James Madison, and the Evolution of

the Bill of Rights, 15 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 547, 561

(2017). The Seventh Amendment provides:

In Suits at common law, where the value

in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall

be otherwise re-examined in any Court of

the United States, than according to the

rules of the common law.

U.S. Const. amend. VII. Today, as throughout our history, this Court regards any encroachment upon this

prized and sacred right “with great jealousy.” Jarkesy,

603 U.S. at 122 (quoting Parsons v. Bedford, 28 U.S.

433, 434 (1830)).

The application of the Seventh Amendment here

is straightforward. The Amendment “preserve[s]” the

right to a jury in causes of action cognizable in English

common law courts as of 1791, when the Seventh

Amendment came into force. U.S. Const. amend. VII;

Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33, 41

(1989). This right, however, is not “limited to the ‘common-law forms of action recognizes when the Seventh

Amendment was ratified.’” Jarkesy, 603 U.S. at 122

(quoting Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 193 (1974)).

Statutory causes of action “require[] a jury trial upon

demand, if the statute creates legal rights and remedies, enforceable in an action for damages in the ordinary courts of law.” Curtis, 415 U.S. at 194.

Petitioners’ suit is a personal injury action: “a prototypical example of an action at law, to which the Seventh Amendment applies.” Wooddell v. Int’l Bhd. of

Elec. Workers, Loc. 71, 502 U.S. 93, 98 (1991). And

they seek only money damages, “the prototypical common law remedy.” Jarkesy, 603 U.S. at 123; see also

Curtis, 415 U.S. at 196 n.11 (“If the action is properly

viewed as one for damages only, our conclusion that

this is a legal claim obviously requires a jury trial on

demand.”). Accordingly, the dispositive question is:

Can a federal district court exercise law-side jurisdiction over a DOHSA claim? Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Rev. Comm’n, 430 U.S.

442, 450 n.7 (1977) (“On the common-law side of the

federal courts, the aid of juries is not only deemed appropriate but is required by the Constitution itself.”)

(quoting Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 51–52 (1932)).

The history and purpose of the Seventh Amendment

requires an affirmative answer to this question. To

hold otherwise means a court can force a “Suit at common law” into an admiralty court without a jury, the

very evil the Seventh Amendment aims to prevent.

U.S. Const. amend. VII. And this result also harmonizes DOHSA with our tradition of concurrent jurisdiction over maritime disputes.

II. COMPELLING A DOHSA PLAINTIFF TO

PROCEED IN ADMIRALTY WHEN THE DISTRICT COURT HAS A NON-ADMIRALTY

BASIS FOR SUBJECT-MATTER JURISDICTION VIOLATES THE SAVING-TO-SUITORS CLAUSE.

The Judiciary Act of 1789, enacted just two years

before the ratification of the Seventh Amendment, reflects the Founders’ intentions to insulate common law

claims from admiralty bench trials.

After the Revolution, the dysfunctional state system of admiralty jurisprudence adopted under the Articles of Confederation made it clear that uniform

rules enforced by national admiralty courts were essential to a nascent American economy that was dependent on marine commerce. See Snell, supra, at 207

(“The most bigoted idolizers of State authority have

not thus far shown a disposition to deny the national

judiciary the cognizance of maritime causes.”) (quoting The Federalist No. 80, at 478 (Alexander Hamilton

(Clinton Rossiter ed. 1961)). Thus, Article III of the

Constitution granted the federal judiciary jurisdiction

over admiralty and maritime disputes and empowered

Congress to “ordain and establish” the federal judiciary. U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. Congress did so in the

Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, § 9, 1 Stat. 73, 77 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1333(1)).

Acknowledgment of the practical benefits of a federal admiralty court did not dispel the Founders’ suspicions of civil law procedures, however. To the contrary, the language of the Judiciary Act (like the Seventh Amendment) was informed by the fear that expansive admiralty jurisdiction could extinguish the

cherished jury right, as it did in the colonies. See

Charles Warren, New Light on the History of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 49, 79

(1923) (“[O]ne of the chief fears as to the new Federal

Government was lest it might infringe on the right to

jury trial, so cherished by the American colonists and

their descendants, and lest it might adopt the obnoxious equity powers of the British royal Governors.”);

see also Snell, supra, at 305 n.67 (“The ‘slippery slope’

argument—in essence that federal courts established

as civil-law admiralty tribunals would for expediency’s

sake utilize civil-law procedures in common-law

cases—was a popular feature of antifederalist pamphlets from the onset of the debate over ratification.”).

The saving-to-suitors clause within Section 9 of

the Judiciary Act addressed these concerns. While

granting federal courts “exclusive original cognizance

of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,” it also sav[ed] to suitors, in all cases, the right of

a common law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.” § 9, 1 Stat. at 77. Under that clause,

Congress’s exclusive jurisdiction over admiralty disputes does not prevent a law court from asserting concurrent jurisdiction over a common law cause of action

that is maritime in nature. See Lewis v. Lewis & Clark

Marine, Inc., 531 U.S. 438, 444 (2021) (“The saving to

suitors clause was ‘inserted, probably, from abundant

caution, lest the exclusive terms in which the power is

conferred on the District Courts might be deemed to

have taken away the concurrent remedy which had before existed. This leaves the concurrent power where

it stood at common law.’”) (quoting New Jersey Steam

Nav. Co. v. Merchants’ Bank of Boston, 47 U.S. (6

How.) 344, 390 (1848)).

The practical effects of the clause have been well

understood for centuries. As one commentator noted

in 1879:

To suitors there is preserved the right in

all cases where a concurrent remedy exists, to elect between that afforded by the

admiralty or by the common law, and in

the case the latter be deemed preferable

to pursue it in the appropriate court

wherein that jurisprudence prevails, either State or national, according to their

residence.

Snell, supra, at 312 (quoting Theodore M. Etting, The

Admiralty Jurisdiction in America 85 (Fred B. Rothman & Co. ed. 1986)) (emphasis added). This right of

election still exists and is embodied today in Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 9(h). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(h)

advisory committee’s note to 1966 amendment (“Many

claims . . . are cognizable by the district courts whether

asserted in admiralty or in a civil action, assuming the

existence of a nonmaritime ground of jurisdiction.”).

Under the saving-to-suitors clause, a maritime plaintiff has three potential venues for their claim: (1) state

court; (2) a federal court sitting in admiralty; or (3) a

federal court sitting at law, provided there is an independent basis for subject-matter jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit now purports to extinguish this third option in DOHSA cases.

III. THE DECISION BELOW UNDERMINES

THE

FOUNDERS’

WELL-DESIGNED

FRAMEWORK OF CONCURRENT JURISDICTION, EXTINGUISHING DOHSA PLAINTIFFS’ RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY.

As interpreted by the Seventh Circuit, DOHSA

cannot exist in the same universe as the Seventh

Amendment and the saving-to-suitors clause. The

Seventh Circuit’s incorrect reading of DOHSA has profound consequences on Petitioners’ Seventh Amendment rights and the careful design of our concurrent

system of maritime jurisdiction. Permitting DOHSA

actions to proceed on the law side of federal district

courts when there is a non-admiralty basis for jurisdiction is the only way to apply DOHSA and comply

with the requirements of the Seventh Amendment and

the saving-to-suitors clause.

The court below claimed it did not need to “neatly

harmonize [DOHSA] with other areas of admiralty

law.” Pet. App. 17a. But, to the contrary, courts interpreting federal statutes must seek “harmony over conflict in statutory interpretation.” Epic Sys. Corp. v.

Lewis, 584 U.S. 497, 511 (2018). They are “not at liberty to pick and choose among congressional enactments and must instead strive to give effect to both.”

Id. (cleaned up). Petitioners have common-law claims

under the Seventh Amendment and the district court

has law-side jurisdiction. Two words—“in admiralty”—cannot extinguish Petitioners’ jury trial

rights.

Holding otherwise would create a gaping procedural loophole in DOHSA cases. Following this Court’s

decision in Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354, 371–71 (1959), courts hold that

the saving-to-suitors clause prevents a maritime claim

from removal to federal court absent an independent

basis for the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., Morris v. T E Marine Corp., 344 F.3d

439, 444 (5th Cir. 2003). Yet, as occurred below, a defendant can now invoke a non-admiralty basis for jurisdiction to remove a DOHSA case from a law court,

while a maritime suitor cannot rely on the same jurisdictional statute to proceed at law once removed. Pet.

59a. This turns the maritime election on its head, defeating the purpose of the saving-to-suitors clause.

DOHSA must be read in harmony with that statute,

particularly when doing so preserves Petitioners’ sacred right to a jury trial.

The Seventh Circuit’s reading of DOHSA does not

even comport with the plain meaning rule the court

claimed it was applying. A statute permitting suitors

to bring DOHSA claims “in admiralty” does not bar

them from proceeding outside of admiralty. See, e.g.,

Mims v. Arrow Fin. Servs. LLC, 565 U.S. 368, 380

(2012) (“[T]he grant of jurisdiction to one court does

not, of itself, imply that the jurisdiction is to be exclusive.”) (quoting United States v. Bank of New York &

Trust Co., 296 U.S. 463, 479 (1936)). Indeed, we already know that the phrase “in admiralty” does not

grant federal courts exclusive admiralty jurisdiction

over DOHSA cases. This Court held decades ago that

DOHSA cases may proceed in state courts, which cannot exercise admiralty jurisdiction under Article III of

the Constitution. See Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 224 (1986) (“[DOHSA] ensured that

state courts exercising concurrent jurisdiction could,

as under the ‘saving to suitors’ clause, apply such state

remedies as were not inconsistent with substantive

federal maritime law.”).

If Congress wished to create mandatory admiralty

jurisdiction in federal courts, it would not have permitted state courts to hear DOHSA cases. Allowing for

state-court jurisdiction over DOHSA cases defeats the

very purpose of exclusive admiralty jurisdiction: maritime uniformity. State of Washington v. W.C. Dawson

& Co., 264 U.S. 219, 227–28 (1924) (“The grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction looks to uniformity

. . . .”). And there is no evidence that Congress intended to create the unique species of quasi-exclusive

jurisdiction that now exists in the Seventh Circuit

where state courts can hear DOHSA cases but federal

courts sitting in diversity cannot. See United States v.

Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 580 (1981) (“[A]bsurd results

are to be avoided and internal inconsistencies in the

statute must be dealt with.”).

Finally, the worrying constitutional implications

of the Seventh Amendment’s interpretation of DOHSA

cannot be overlooked. The historical lessons underlying the Seventh Amendment are clear: Congress cannot force a “Suit at common law” into juryless admiralty. U.S. Const. amend. VII. Thus, even assuming

Congress wished to require DOHSA cases to proceed

at law in state courts but only in admiralty in federal

courts, there are serious doubts that it would be permitted to do so. DOHSA can be construed to avoid this

question. Under the canon of constitutional avoidance,

when a statute is subject to two plausible readings,

one of which raises “a serious doubt” about its constitutionality, the court should favor a “fairly possible”

interpretation that avoids the constitutional issue.

Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U.S. 281, 296 (2018) (quoting Crowell, 285 U.S. at 62). Petitioners’ interpretation of DOHSA harmonizes the statute with the language, history, and purpose of the Seventh Amendment. The Seventh Circuit’s does not.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the American Association for Justice urges this Court to grant the Petition

for Writ of Certiorari.