Brown v. Brown

This appeal involves the death of a shipyard worker on the navigable waters of the Commonwealth and presents a choice-of-law question with respect to the distribution of a fund paid in settlement of a wrongful death claim. Finding that the trial court erred in applying admiralty law to include the unadopted stepson of the decedent among the distributees of the fund, we reverse.

Edward Carol Brown (Brown) was killed on March 17, 1975, when a tank barge owned by Allied Towing Corporation (Allied) exploded and burned as it lay alongside Allied’s dock on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk. Brown, a…