Source: https://openjurist.org/274/us/427
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:23:25+00:00

Document:
He was employed by the Foundation Company in September, 1919, as a helper to a boilermaker. He was sent with the boilermaker on board the steamship La Grange, then afloat on the Mississippi river at New Orleans. The task to be performed was to add 8 feet to the smokestack of the steamer. The two men were furnished ladders to ascend to the top of the stack and while engaged in the work Messel was brought directly over the mouth of the steam escape pipe running from the engine room. While he was so engaged, scalding steam was allowed to escape from the pipe. It overcame him, and inflicted serious injuries.
In his petition he attacks the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act, known as Act No. 20 of 1914, as invalid under the state Constitution. He says that when injured he was engaged in marine work in admiralty on the steamship on the navigable waters of the United States, and that this entitled him to an action in personam against the owner and master of the vessel, but that, as the owner and master had departed from the port for a foreign port before he was able to bring his action in admiralty, and as the Foundation Company holds indemnity against any loss to it on account of the damage claimed, he prays for judgment against his employer.
The Foundation Company excepted to the petition on the ground that it disclosed no legal cause of action, but, in the event that the exception should be overruled, the company admitted the averments of the petition, save that it charged that the petitioner was guilty of gross negligence, and assumed the risk, and that the injuries received were due to his own fault or were caused by the negligence of a fellow servant. It denied the extent of the damage; said that the petitioner was precluded from bringing his action under article 2315 of the Civil Code, but must bring it under the state Workmen's Compensation Act.
Messel amended his petition, reaffirming the averments of his original petition but in the alternative asked, if it should be held that the Workmen's Compensation Act of Louisiana was not unconstitutional and did apply, that he have compensation under that act in $4,000, or in $10 a week for 400 weeks provided in the act. This amendment was filed May 22, 1922, by order of court. An exception by respondent was taken on the ground that the amended petition had changed the issue and was an attempt, after the lapse of more than one year from the date of the injuries, to bring the suit under the Workmen's Compensation Act, while the original action was brought under Civil Code, art. 2315, for damages for a tort, that the claim was therefore prescribed under article 31 of Act No. 20 of 1914. By a judgment of July 19, 1922, the exceptions filed by the Foundation Company were sustained and the suit against it was dismissed.
The Court of Appeal of the Parish of Orleans, to which the case was then taken on appeal, held that the objections to the constitutionality of the Workmen's Compensation Act could not be sustained. It further decided that, if the petitioner's right of action was not under the Workmen's Compensation Act, the state courts had no jurisdiction of such demands ratione materiae; that it had twice decided that the state court was without Workmen's Compensation Act, where the Workmenhs Compensation Act, where the plaintiffs sustained injuries while aboard a ship under a maritime contract; that these decisions were in accord with the opinion of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in Lawson v. New York & P. R. Steamship Co., 148 La. 290, 86 So. 815, and with the decisions of this court in Southern Pacific v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 206, 37 S. Ct. 524, 61 L. Ed. 1086, L. R. A. 1918C, 451, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 900, affirmed in Knickerbocker v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 40 S. Ct. 438, 64 L. Ed. 834, 11 A. L. R. 1145, and State v. Dawson, 264 U. S. 219, 44 S. Ct. 302, 68 L. Ed. 646, and in Peters v. Veasey, 251 U. S. 121, 40 S. Ct. 65, 64 L. Ed. 180; and that an employee like Messel, who suffered injury upon a vessel under a maritime contract of employment, could not obtain compensation in a state court of Louisiana.
Application was then made to the Supreme Court of Louisiana for a writ of certiorari to review the decree of dismissal by the Court of Appeal. The writ was refused by the Supreme Court, on the ground that the judgment was correct, May 25, 1925.
The Workmen's Compensation Act, No. 20 of the Acts of 1914, as amended in subsequent acts, provides for the prosecution of claims for personal injuries in certain hazardous trades, businesses and occupations, includes the operation, construction, repair, removal, maintenance and demolition of vessels, boats and other water craft, and provides certain payments for such injuries. Section 34 of the act provides that the rights and remedies therein granted to an employee on account of personal injury, for which he is entitled to compensation under the act, shall be exclusive of all other rights and remedies of such employee, his personal representative, dependents, relations, or otherwise, on account of such injury.
'The work in which plaintiff was engaged at the time he was injured was maritime in its nature; his employment was a maritime contract, and his claim for damages was enforceable in the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. For that reason, before the passage of the Act of Congress of October 6, 1917 (U. S. Comp. St. §§ 991(3), 1233), the Employers' Liability Act was not pertinent, and did not deprive the plaintiff of the right of a common-law remedy. We say 'common-law,' because article 2315 of the Civil Code of this state is only an embodiment of the common-law right of action for tort, viz.: 'Every act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it."
The fact that Messel, in the alternative, asked for a recovery under the Workmen's Compensation Act, could not defeat him in his continuous request to proceed under article 2315, and as the original action invoked article 2315, and he is still invoking the remedy provided by that article, there would seem to be no opportunity for the operation of the prescription of one year provided by the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act. Messel's attack upon the Workmen's Compensation Act as unconstitutional under the Constitution of Louisiana was entirely irrelevant and should be rejected as surplusage.
As Messel has resorted to the state court, and there is nothing to prevent his recovery in the state court except the Workmen's Compensation Act, which is inapplicable to his case, in view of our decisions, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana must be reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
The principles applicable to Messel's recovery, should he have one, must be limited to those which the admiralty law of the United States prescribes, including the applicable section of the federal Employers' Liability Act, incorporated in the maritime law by section 33, c. 250, 41 Stat. 988, 1007 (Comp. St. § 8337a); Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Dahl, 266 U. S. 449, 45 S. Ct. 157, 69 L. Ed. 372; Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479, 480, 43 S. Ct. 418, 67 L. Ed. 756; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 40 S. Ct. 438, 64 L. Ed. 834, 11 A. L. R. 1145; The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 23 S. Ct. 483, 47 L. Ed. 760; Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375, 44 S. Ct. 391, 68 L. Ed. 748; Baltimore S. S. Co. v. Phillips (decided May 16, 1927) 274 U. S. 316, 47 S. Ct. 600, 71 L. Ed. 1069; Engel v. Davenport, 271 U. S. 33, 46 S. Ct. 410, 70 L. Ed. 813; Panama R. Co. v. Vasquez, 271 U. S. 557, 46 S. Ct. 596, 70 L. Ed. 1085.

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