Illegal Street-Drug Overdose as a Superseding Cause in Maritime Wrongful-Death Claims: The Fifth Circuit’s New Rule in Bommarito v. Belle Chasse Marine Transportation

Introduction

In Bommarito v. Belle Chasse Marine Transportation, L.L.C. (5th Cir. Nov. 13, 2025), the Fifth Circuit issued a significant admiralty decision arising from a workplace accident during the construction of a Mississippi River launch site. The case involves a welder, Bosit Bommarito, who suffered severe injuries when struck by a hook attached to a crane on a barge (OC160). Months later, after running out of prescribed pain medications and still in pain, he died from an overdose of fentanyl laced with xylazine (a veterinary sedative).

The district court, after a bench trial, found vessel negligence under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. § 905(b), and awarded wrongful-death damages to the decedent’s children and mother. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit resolved multiple issues:

Admiralty jurisdiction under the Admiralty Extension Act (AEA) and whether the crane-hook assembly was a vessel “appurtenance.”
Whether ownership is necessary for “appurtenance” status.
What law governs veil-piercing (alter ego) in an admiralty case and whether two affiliated companies (Marine and Land) are effectively a single entity.
Whether an illegal drug overdose is a superseding cause that severs proximate causation for wrongful-death damages in maritime tort claims—an issue of first impression in the Fifth Circuit.
Whether a non-dependent parent can recover loss-of-society/consortium damages in territorial waters.

The headline holding: the court held that, under the facts presented, the ingestion of illegal fentanyl mixed with xylazine was a superseding cause that broke the causal chain from the maritime injury to the death. It reversed wrongful-death damages while affirming admiralty jurisdiction, the appurtenance finding, and the veil-piercing conclusion. Judge Haynes dissented in part, arguing the wrongful-death ruling should be affirmed under the deferential clear-error standard.

Summary of the Opinion

The Fifth Circuit (Judge Richman) held:

Admiralty jurisdiction exists under the AEA because a defective hook used in crane rigging on a barge was an appurtenance of the vessel, and it proximately caused Bommarito’s initial injury.
Ownership of the equipment is not required for appurtenance status under admiralty law; temporary or third-party equipment can qualify if integrated into vessel operations.
Once admiralty jurisdiction is invoked, federal common law governs veil-piercing; based on operational integration and control, Belle Chasse Marine Transportation and Belle Chasse Land Transportation were properly treated as a single entity.
As a matter of maritime proximate cause and superseding cause doctrine, the decedent’s later ingestion of illegal, non-prescribed fentanyl with xylazine was not reasonably foreseeable to the defendants and constituted a superseding cause of death, severing the causal chain from the work injury. Wrongful-death damages were therefore reversed.
Separately, non-dependent parents of a longshore worker who dies in territorial waters cannot recover loss-of-society damages; the mother’s consortium award was reversed.

The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion—leaving in place the findings that establish jurisdiction and vessel negligence as to the initial injury, but eliminating damages “stemming from” the death.

Analysis

Precedents and Authorities Cited

The panel anchored its analysis in several distinct strands of maritime doctrine:

Admiralty jurisdiction and appurtenances:
- Grubart v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. (U.S. 1995) and In re Louisiana Crawfish Producers (5th Cir. 2014): Location and connection tests for maritime torts. The “connection” prong was uncontested; the “location” prong was satisfied because the injury on land was caused by a vessel or its appurtenances.
- Egorov v. Terriberry (5th Cir. 1999) and Victory Carriers v. Law (U.S. 1971): Emphasize causation by a vessel or its appurtenance. The district court properly required the defective equipment be an extension of the vessel.
- Margin v. Sea-Land Services (5th Cir. 1987): The defective appurtenance must itself be the cause of the injury.
- Drachenberg v. Canal Barge Co. (5th Cir. 1978): Temporary, non-ship-owned equipment can still be an appurtenance if intertwined with vessel operations in a way “fundamentally related to traditional maritime activities.”
- Alaska Steamship v. Petterson (U.S. 1954) and Rogers v. U.S. Lines (U.S. 1954): Seaworthiness and appurtenance cases reinforcing that ownership is not determinative.
- Hufnagel v. Omega Service Industries (5th Cir. 1999): Equipment affixed to a platform rather than the vessel may defeat the AEA location test—distinguished here because the defective hook was part of the crane rigging on the barge.
Veil-piercing in admiralty:
- State of La. ex rel. Guste v. M/V TESTBANK (5th Cir. 1985) and Executive Jet (U.S. 1972): Invocation of admiralty jurisdiction brings substantive admiralty law.
- Chan v. Society Expeditions, Inc. (9th Cir. 1997) and Blue Whale Corp. v. Grand China Shipping (2d Cir. 2013): Federal maritime common law generally governs corporate identity issues in admiralty to ensure uniformity.
- Kirno Hill Corp. v. Holt (2d Cir. 1980) and United States v. Jon-T Chemicals, Inc. (5th Cir. 1985): Alter-ego standards and the familiar “laundry list” of factors (shared officers, financing, business integration, failure of corporate formalities, etc.).
Superseding cause and proximate cause in maritime:
- Exxon Co., U.S.A. v. Sofec, Inc. (U.S. 1996) and Stolt Achievement, Ltd. v. Dredge B.E. LINDHOLM (5th Cir. 2006): The common-law doctrines of proximate and superseding cause apply in admiralty; a later, independent, unforeseeable cause can break the chain.
- In re Kinsman Transit Co. (2d Cir. 1964): There must be a terminus of liability; foreseeability is a continuum.
- Scarborough v. Clemco Industries (5th Cir. 2004): The defective appurtenance must be the proximate cause, not merely a but-for cause.
- State law guidance (as invited by Sofec): Vance v. Trimble (Ohio), Williams v. White Castle (Ky.), In re Death of Sade (Kan.), Sapko v. Connecticut (Conn.) support treating a voluntary drug overdose—particularly one involving non-prescribed or excessive dosages—as a superseding cause. The Fifth Circuit contrasted Thompson v. State Farm (10th Cir.) (jury question under Colorado law) and cited Phelps v. Delphi Behavioral Health Group (S.D. Fla., aff’d 11th Cir.) where overdoses were deemed intervening causes as a matter of law.
Damages for loss of society in territorial waters:
- Moore v. M/V ANGELA (5th Cir. 2003) and In re American River Transport (5th Cir. 2007): Reinforce limits on loss-of-society/consortium damages; non-dependent parents cannot recover for a longshore worker’s death in territorial waters.

Legal Reasoning

1) Admiralty jurisdiction and appurtenance

The court held that the defective hook was an appurtenance of the barge-mounted crane: it was rigged to the crane, stored on the barge, and used in an operation “fundamentally related to traditional maritime activities.” The “location test” under the AEA is satisfied because the injury on land (to the rigger working off a walkway) was caused by a vessel appurtenance. On proximate cause for the initial accident, the district court found that the hook’s lack of a safety latch required the rigger to stand close to maintain tension; the hook then came loose and struck him. That finding had ample record support (including testimony and standards requiring safety latches), so the panel affirmed the jurisdictional and liability predicates as to the initial injury.

Crucially, the court clarified that ownership is not a prerequisite to appurtenance status. Equipment not owned by the vessel, even temporarily deployed, can be an appurtenance when integrated with vessel operations—a point drawn from Drachenberg and mid-century Supreme Court decisions (Petterson, Rogers).

2) Veil-piercing under federal maritime law

Because admiralty jurisdiction was properly invoked, the court applied federal common law to the alter-ego analysis. The factual record showed extensive integration between Marine and Land: common officers and human resources, shared policies and financing, Land’s exclusive service to Marine without independent income, and Marine’s dominion over the OC160 without formal intercompany agreements. Applying the Jon‑T Chemicals factors, the court affirmed the district court’s conclusion that the two were, in substance, the same entity for purposes of LHWCA vessel negligence. This promotes uniformity in maritime law and reduces forum-dependent variability in corporate-identity questions.

3) Superseding cause: illegal street-drug ingestion breaks the causal chain to death

The key doctrinal development is the court’s treatment of the decedent’s later overdose as a superseding cause of death. The panel framed this as an issue of first impression in the Fifth Circuit under admiralty law, drew guidance from state decisions, and held that the ingestion of illegal fentanyl mixed with xylazine (a non-human drug), in an amount exceeding six times a lethal dose, was not reasonably foreseeable to the original tortfeasor. Although Bommarito was in pain and had previously been prescribed opioids, at the time of death he had no active fentanyl prescription, and the toxicology established street procurement and extreme dosing.

Applying Sofec and Stolt Achievement, the court concluded that the overdose was “a later cause of independent origin that was not foreseeable,” thereby severing proximate causation for wrongful-death damages. The court emphasized that foreseeability has a terminus: even when pain follows from a work injury, illicit conduct of this kind—illegal street procurement and massive overdose—was beyond the scope of risks fairly traceable to the initial maritime negligence.

4) Damages

Because the death was not proximately caused by the vessel negligence, the court reversed wrongful-death damages. It also independently held that a non-dependent parent of a longshore worker cannot recover loss-of-society damages in territorial waters, reversing the mother’s consortium award.

The Dissent’s View (Standard of Review and Foreseeability)

Judge Haynes concurred with the jurisdiction, appurtenance, and veil-piercing rulings, and agreed that the mother’s consortium award must be vacated because she is a non-dependent parent. She dissented, however, from the reversal of wrongful-death damages on the superseding cause ground.

Her core points:

Proximate cause and superseding cause findings in a bench trial are reviewed for clear error, not de novo. If the district court’s finding is “plausible in light of the record,” appellate courts must affirm even if they would weigh the evidence differently.
Under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 447 (as applied in Fifth Circuit precedent), an intervening act is not superseding if the original actor should have realized such conduct might occur, if it is not “highly extraordinary,” or if it is a normal consequence of the situation created. Evidence suggested chronic-pain patients sometimes turn to fentanyl; thus, the district court’s foreseeability finding was at least plausible.
The decedent had no documented history of illegal drug use and took fentanyl only after he ran out of prescriptions; the medical examiner testified that a fatal overdose could occur after a single use. On this record, the district court’s causation findings should have been affirmed.

The dissent thus spotlights a tension between the majority’s doctrinal articulation (which sounds categorical) and the deference owed to trial-level causation findings in admiralty bench trials.

Impact and Practical Implications

Doctrinal impacts

Superseding cause in admiralty: The Fifth Circuit has now clearly signaled that an illegal street-drug overdose—especially where non-prescribed and egregiously dosed—will ordinarily break the chain of causation to death, even if pain from a maritime injury persists. This aligns the circuit with state-law lines of authority deeming such conduct a superseding cause and with district- and circuit-level decisions outside the Fifth Circuit that treat overdoses as intervening causes in analogous contexts.
Appurtenance without ownership: The opinion reinforces that equipment integrated into vessel operations can be an appurtenance regardless of ownership, preserving uniformity in admiralty and preventing artificial avoidance of maritime responsibility through corporate or logistical structuring.
Veil-piercing in maritime: The decision confirms that federal maritime common law governs alter-ego questions in admiralty cases, promoting uniform rules for corporate separateness covering vessel negligence claims under § 905(b). Operational integration (shared officers, finances, exclusive service, lack of formalities) creates real risk of “fusion.”

Litigation and settlement dynamics

Defense leverage on wrongful-death exposure: Defendants can now argue more forcefully that post-injury illegal drug use severs causation for death, reducing settlement values where overdose evidence shows street procurement, absence of prescription, and extreme dosing.
Plaintiff strategy: Plaintiffs will press foreseeability by developing records of pain management gaps, prior lawful opioid regimens, provider access problems, and expert testimony on predictable patient behavior under untreated pain. They may also explore causation theories against parties responsible for medical management where appropriate (though this case proceeds under § 905(b), not Jones Act negligence or maintenance and cure).
Evidentiary priorities: Toxicology (including non-human substances like xylazine), prescription histories, medical records, and efforts to obtain care will be pivotal. The presence of non-prescribed, street-origin substances and dosage multiples will loom large.

Corporate structuring and vessel operations

Alter-ego risk: Maritime companies using separate affiliates for shoreside and vessel operations should expect federal maritime veil-piercing scrutiny when admiralty jurisdiction is invoked. Shared resources and blurred separateness can expose the parent to vessel negligence.
Equipment standards: OSHA and industry standards requiring safety latches on hooks mattered to the initial liability analysis. Companies should ensure rigging practices and equipment meet maritime safety norms, as violations can establish defect and proximate cause for the initial injury.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Admiralty Extension Act (AEA): Extends federal maritime jurisdiction to injuries “caused by” a vessel or its appurtenances, even if the harm is consummated on land.
Appurtenance: Equipment sufficiently integrated into a vessel’s operations (like crane rigging stored and used on a barge). Ownership is not decisive; function and integration are.
Proximate cause vs. superseding cause: Proximate cause limits liability to harms reasonably connected to the negligence. A superseding cause is a later, independent, unforeseeable event that breaks the chain—here, an illegal, non-prescribed overdose.
Veil-piercing / Alter ego: Disregarding corporate separateness when one entity so controls another that it acts as its instrumentality, or when the subsidiary primarily does the parent’s business. In admiralty, federal common law governs.
LHWCA § 905(b): Allows longshore workers to sue a “vessel” for negligence; the employer’s liability remains generally limited to workers’ compensation benefits, but the vessel (including an alter ego) can be sued in tort.
Territorial waters loss-of-society limits: Non-dependent parents cannot recover loss-of-society damages for a longshore worker’s death in territorial waters.
Standards of review in bench trials: Factual findings (like negligence and proximate cause) are reviewed for clear error; legal conclusions de novo. The dissent argued the majority did not adequately defer to the district court’s foreseeability findings.

Unresolved Questions and Watch-List Issues

Scope of the new rule: The court repeatedly framed its holding as tied to the “circumstances” here (illegal, non-prescribed fentanyl, xylazine admixture, extreme dosing). Future cases may test boundaries where overdose involves prescribed medications taken in excess, or where medical providers negligently manage pain.
Standard-of-review tension: Given the dissent’s emphasis on clear-error review for proximate cause, parties may seek en banc review or Supreme Court clarification on how appellate courts should treat superseding-cause determinations following bench trials.
Comparative fault vs. superseding cause: After Sofec, superseding cause remains a narrow doctrine. Litigants will argue whether particular drug-use fact patterns are better treated as comparative fault (reducing damages) rather than as chain-breaking superseding causes.
Causation where defendants impede care: If evidence shows defendants contributed to gaps in medical access or pain management (e.g., by withholding benefits or care approval), foreseeability analyses may tilt against superseding-cause findings.

Conclusion

Bommarito delivers three durable teachings for maritime practitioners:

Illegal, non-prescribed street-drug overdoses—especially with non-human additives and extreme dosing—will likely be treated as superseding causes that sever proximate causation for wrongful-death damages under admiralty law in the Fifth Circuit.
Equipment used and stored aboard a vessel can be an “appurtenance” regardless of ownership, supporting AEA jurisdiction and vessel negligence theories where the defect in that equipment proximately causes injury.
When admiralty jurisdiction is invoked, alter-ego questions are governed by federal maritime common law, and operationally fused affiliates risk being treated as a single entity for § 905(b) purposes.

While the majority’s causation holding powerfully narrows wrongful-death liability in overdose scenarios, the dissent underscores the fact-intensive nature of foreseeability and the importance of appellate deference to trial findings. Going forward, litigants should expect close scrutiny of toxicology, prescription histories, pain-management records, and corporate structure. In the Fifth Circuit, Bommarito will be the leading case on superseding cause in the context of post-injury illegal drug use, and it is poised to shape maritime wrongful-death litigation and settlement dynamics for years to come.