Case Name: PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Louise E. SPENCE (widow of James T. Spence) and Terminal Shipping Company and Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1979-01-25
Citations: 591 F.2d 985
Docket Number: No. 78-1088
Parties: PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Louise E. SPENCE (widow of James T. Spence) and Terminal Shipping Company and Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter 2d Series
Volume: 591
Pages: 985–990

Head Matter:
PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Louise E. SPENCE (widow of James T. Spence) and Terminal Shipping Company and Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents.
No. 78-1088.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued Dec. 5, 1978.
Decided Jan. 25, 1979.
Louis G. Close, Jr., Baltimore, Md. (Whiteford, Taylor, Preston, Trimble & Johnston, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for petitioner.
Josua T. Gillelan, II, U. S. Department of Labor, Washington, D. C. (Carin Ann Clauss, Sol. of Labor, Laurie M. Streeter, Associate Sol., Linda L. Carroll, U. S. Dept, of Labor, Washington, D. C., on brief), for Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs.
A. Owen Hennegan, Towson, Md., for respondent Terminal Shipping Co.
I. Marshall Seidler, Baltimore, Md., for respondent Louise E. Spence.
Before WINTER, RUSSELL and WIDENER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge:
This appeal presents a controversy between an employer and its insurance carrier over which is liable for death benefits payable under the 1972 Amendments of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. 33 U.S.C. § 901, et seq.
The facts generating this controversy are not in dispute. On March 24, 1967, the employee, on account of whose death these benefits were claimed, suffered an injury on a vessel in navigable waters in the course of his employment by Terminal Shipping Company. This injury resulted in a compensation award for total and permanent disability under the Act. On November 11, 1973, over six years later, the employee died from causes unrelated to his injury, while he was receiving from the petitioner his compensation benefits as previously awarded him.
At the time of his injury, the employer's insurance carrier was the petitioner Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Company and it remained as such until the policy was terminated on or about February 1, 1971. On January 1, 1970, the employer Terminal Shipping Company was acquired by Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc. The latter became a self-insurer, as permitted under § 935, 33 U.S.C., after the termination of the Pennsylvania National's insurance policy.
Following the employee's death, the widow filed for death benefits under the Act. There is agreement between the parties at this stage of the proceedings that there is liability for death benefits under § 909, as amended in 1972, a point conclusively established in N., B. & C. Lines v. Director, Office of W.C.P. (4th Cir. 1976) 539 F.2d 378, cert. denied 429 U.S. 1078, 97 S.Ct. 823, 50 L.Ed.2d 798. The single question on appeal is whether the petitioner Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Company as the employer's insurance carrier at the time of the deceased's injury is also liable for the death benefits due on account of the death of the employee in 1973 or whether the liability is solely that of the Atlantic and Gulf Stevedores, Inc. as successor to the Terminal Shipping Company. The administrative law judge to whom the matter was referred found that the petitioner insurance carrier was liable both for death benefits and for a penalty award under § 914(e), 33 U.S.C. On appeal, the Benefits Review Board affirmed and the petitioner in due course has filed a petition for review of the decision of the Benefits Review Board under the terms of § 921(c), 33 U.S.C. We dismiss the petition and affirm the decision of the Benefits Review Board.
The argument of the insurance carrier for nonliability begins with the contention that, under Hampton Roads Stevedoring Corp. v. O'Hearne (4th Cir. 1950) 184 F.2d 76, the liability for death benefits under the Act is a separate and distinct right of action from that for disability compensation and arises only at the time of the death of the employee. From this premise it argues that it could not be held liable for any right of action for death benefits which only arose after its policy had been terminated. This is particularly so, it adds, because the liability for death benefits was substantially enlarged over those existing at the time of the employee's injury and at the time its policy was terminated, by the 1972 Amendments to the Act, which make such benefits payable even if death of the employee were unrelated to the compensable injury. On the basis of this argument, the insurance carrier contends the Benefits Review Board erred in holding it liable for death benefits in this case in which the employee's death and the consequent right of action for death benefits only arose in 1973 after its policy had been terminated in 1971.
The Act does provide, as the carrier urges, for two separate rights and types of recovery, the beneficiaries of which are different. One embraces the compensation payable to the disabled employee by way of disability benefits; the other represents death benefits payable to certain statutorily designated beneficiaries. But both types of recovery derive their basis from the same event, i. e., the employee's injury. It is that event which gives both a right to compensation payments under § 908 and a right to death benefits under § 909. Neither right of action, whether for compensation payments or for death benefits, exists apart from the critical fact of injury; each is dependent for its basis on the injury. It is inaccurate, therefore, to state that the right to the death benefits has its origin solely in the event of death; the real source of the liability for such benefits under the Act traces directly back to the injury itself.
The petitioner accepts this reasoning so far as it represents a basis for finding liability on the part of the employer. It thus concedes that the employer is liable, even though death occurred long after the employee had ceased to work for the employer and even though the death benefits had been increased between the time of injury and the time of death by the 1972 Amendments. In making such concession, however, it overlooks the fact that when it became the employer's insurance carrier, it put itself in the place of the employer so far as compensation benefits under the Act, whether for disability or for death, were concerned. That is the necessary construction of § 935, 33 U.S.C. Accordingly, when it is admitted that the petitioner was the employer's insurance carrier under § 935 at the time of the employee's injury in 1967, it necessarily follows that the petitioner carrier is subject to all liabilities attaching to the employer on account of the injury, both by way of compensation payments to the employee and by way of death benefits in favor of the statutory beneficiaries under § 909. It is immaterial to its liability for death benefits arising out of the injury in 1967 that its policy was later terminated in 1971. Just as the employer remained liable for the death benefits, even though death occurred after the employee ceased to work for the employer, so did the liability of the insurance carrier under its policy in favor of the employee continue for death benefits originating in the injury occurring when it was the employer's compensation carrier, even though it thereafter ceased to be the employer's carrier. That was the petitioner carrier's agreement under its policy. The Benefits Review Board, in holding that the petitioner carrier was liable for the death benefits in this case was merely enforcing the obligation which the petitioner had assumed when it issued its compensation insurance policy.
It is too late to argue, as does the petitioner insurance carrier, that the enlargement of liability for insurance benefits by the 1972 Amendments is either illegal or unjust. Those issues were examined and decided adversely to the petitioner's contention in N., B. & C. Lines v. Director, Office of W. C. P., supra, 539 F.2d at 380-381. In that decision, it was pointed out (1) that death benefits were allowable under the Act long prior to the 1972 Amendments and (2) that such benefits could be validly increased by Congress after the injury and before death. Hampton Roads Stevedoring Corp., supra 184 F.2d at 78, the very authority on which the petitioner pins its argument, had decided that almost thirty years ago. Nor can the action of Congress in increasing such benefits by the 1972 Amendments be assailed on constitutional grounds or on grounds of fairness because "the employer and the insurer may have believed they had contractual rights in the limitation of benefits called for by the Act when, prior to 1972, they assumed these obligations." (Italics added) Any claim of unfairness in holding an insurance carrier liable years afterwards for death benefits based on a finding of injury during the period of the carrier's policy is no more appealing than would be the claim of the employer to be relieved of a liability that only becomes compensable years after the employee has left its employment. The petitioner insurance carrier finds no merit in the claim of the employer for relief. By the same token, its own claim of immunity lacks appeal. The liability of the petitioner insurance carrier for the death benefits is plain.
It might not be amiss to comment that, in asserting a right to immunity for a liability arising out of an injury occurring during its coverage as against its own insured, the petitioner is assuming a position unlike that taken in any reported cases by any insurance carrier under the 1972 Amendments. In Nacirema Operating Co. v. Lynn (3d Cir. 1978) 577 F.2d 852, and State Ins. Fund v. Pesce (2d Cir. 1977) 548 F.2d 1112, both of which follow Norfolk, Baltimore and Carolina Lines, Inc., the carrier stood with the employer, recognizing that, so far as death benefits under the 1972 Amendments, it took the place of the employer under its policy and assumed the employer's liability.
The petitioner insurance carrier has, also, challenged the penalty imposed on it under § 914(e), 33 U.S.C. The finding, however, is amply supported in the record and may not be disturbed.
The petition for review will be denied and the order of the Benefits Review Board will be affirmed.
. The amendment of § 909 became effective on November 26, 1972. 86 Stat. 1265.
. There were various other proceedings not germane to the issues presented by this appeal.
. For the procedure before the Benefits Review Board and on appeal by petitioner for review to the Court of Appeals, see Presley v. Tinsley Maintenance Service (5th Cir. 1976) 529 F.2d 433 at 435-136.
. 539 F.2d at 381.