Opinion ID: 468570
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: applicability of the lhwca.

Text: 12 Neither Reynolds nor Litton disputes that the LHWCA applies to shipfitters such as Reynolds. To hold that the Act ceased to apply merely because Reynolds was injured while the Ticonderoga was more than three miles offshore would be to impart an exceedingly parochial meaning to a statute which is to be construed liberally to protect injured maritime workers. 13 Reynolds argues that since his injury occurred while the Ticonderoga was on the high seas, he falls outside the coverage of the LHWCA. 5 The LHWCA extends only to the navigable waters of the United States, and Reynolds asserts that the high seas are not navigable waters of the United States. We conclude, however, that navigable waters of the United States may include the high seas, and that both the legislative history of the LHWCA as well as the congressional objectives underlying the Act mandate that the Act apply to Reynolds. 14
15 We begin with the language of the Act itself. [C]ompensation shall be payable ... if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any adjoining pier ... or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing, dismantling, or building a vessel). 33 U.S.C. Sec. 903(a). The Act does not define the phrase navigable waters of the United States, but the phrase has been often construed in admiralty cases. See, e.g., The Plymouth, 70 U.S. (3 Wall.) 20, 33, 18 L.Ed. 125 (1865) (referring to the high seas, or other navigable waters within admiralty cognizance); The Eagle, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 15, 20-21, 19 L.Ed. 365 (1868) (public navigable waters include lakes, and waters connecting them, ... the high seas, bays, and rivers navigable from the sea); The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. (10 Wall.) 557, 563 (1871) 19 L.Ed. 999 (waters constitute navigable waters of the United States within the meaning of acts of Congress ... when they form in their ordinary condition by themselves, or by uniting with other waters, a continued highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other States or foreign countries); The Montello, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 411, 415, 20 L.Ed. 191 (1871) (water can only be deemed a navigable water of the United States when it forms ... a highway over which commerce is or may be carried on with other States or foreign countries); Ex parte Easton, 95 U.S. (5 Otto) 68, 72, 24 L.Ed. 373 (1877) (Public navigable waters ... of course include the high seas); Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52, 59, 34 S.Ct. 733, 58 L.Ed.1208 (1914) (referring to the high seas or other navigable waters). 6 16 The high seas, as the term is currently understood, do begin at a line three miles offshore, but it has never been understood that the navigable waters of the United States end there. The high seas simply encompass all parts of the sea that are not included in the territorial sea or in the internal waters of a State. 1 Benedict on Admiralty Sec. 141, at 9-2 (7th ed.). Benedict goes on to explain that [m]uch of the maritime legislation enacted since 1910 [including the LHWCA] applies to all the navigable waters of the United States without distinction--to the high seas, the coastal waters and sounds and bays, the Great Lakes, the inland rivers and lakes. Id. at 9-46 & n. 8. 17 Language in the LHWCA lends further support to the conclusion that the Act's use of the term navigable waters includes the high seas. For example, although the Coverage section of the Act does not use the phrase high seas, the Administrative section does, referring to compensation districts which will include the high seas. See Cove Tankers Corp. v. United Ship Repair, Inc., 528 F.Supp. 101, 107-09 (S.D.N.Y.1981) (Cove Tankers I ), aff'd, 683 F.2d 38 (2d Cir.1982). In addition, the original Application provision of the Act provided that [t]his act shall apply to any employment performed on a place within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States, except employment of a local concern and of no direct relation to navigation and commerce: but shall not apply to employment as master or crew of a vessel. S. 3170, 69th Cong., quoted in 1A Benedict on Admiralty Sec. 7, at 1-11 (7th ed.). The admiralty jurisdiction of the United States clearly includes the high seas. The original provision was deemed too confusing, however, so it was rewritten to provide that compensation would be payable but only if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any dry dock) and if recovery for the disability or death through workmen's compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law. Section 903 of the 1927 Act, quoted in id. at 1-11. 18 Finally, the Definitions section of the Act defines United States as the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia, including the territorial waters thereof. 33 U.S.C. Sec. 902(9) (emphasis added). If navigable waters were to exclude the high seas and encompass only territorial waters, then the phrase navigable waters of the United States in Sec. 903 would be unnecessary and redundant since the term United States includes, by definition, the nation's territorial waters. The fact that the Act specifies navigable waters in the section pertaining to coverage (Sec. 903) while using territorial waters to define the United States (Sec. 902(9)) suggests a distinction between the two. The language of the Act itself, therefore, supports the conclusion that the LHWCA does not cease to operate at the three-mile line. 19
20 Judicial consideration of the reach of the LHWCA has focused predominantly on how far the Act extends inward. 7 See, e.g., P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 100 S.Ct. 328, 62 L.Ed.2d 255 (1979); Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S.Ct. 2348, 53 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977); Boudreaux v. American Workover, Inc., 680 F.2d 1034 (5th Cir.1982) (en banc), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1170, 103 S.Ct. 815, 74 L.Ed.2d 1014 (1983); Texports Stevedore Co. v. Winchester, 632 F.2d 504 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 303, 69 L.Ed.2d 406 (1981); Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock v. Graham, 573 F.2d 167 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 979, 99 S.Ct. 563, 58 L.Ed.2d 649 (1978); Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co. v. Kininess, 554 F.2d 176 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 903, 98 S.Ct. 299, 54 L.Ed.2d 190 (1977); Dravo Corp. v. Maxin, 545 F.2d 374 (3d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 433 U.S. 908, 97 S.Ct. 2973, 53 L.Ed.2d 1092 (1977). Accordingly, the various analyses of the original legislative history and the history pertaining to the 1972 amendments of the LHWCA have searched especially for indications of the Act's landward reach. This case involves the Act's seaward extent. In this regard, it merits emphasis that the context we confront is highly unusual, involving, as it does, a shipfitter, ordinarily accustomed to working on or near shore, who happens to have been several nautical miles out to sea. Given the peculiarity of this circumstance, it is not surprising that the legislative history touching on this issue is scarce. It is not, however, entirely non-existent. 21 The original version of the Administrative provisions of the Act did not specify that the compensation districts would include the high seas. However, as Judge Sand explained in Cove Tankers I, the Senate modified the bill to read as it currently does, explicitly including the high seas. See Cove Tankers I, 528 F.Supp. at 110. Judge Sand acknowledged, and our review of the history has confirmed, that the legislative history is not fully illuminating. However, although the legislative history does not expressly define navigable waters of the United States, the legislative hearings pertaining to the Act, and to the 1972 and 1984 amendments to the Act, refer periodically to navigable waters without suggesting that the phrase is confined to territorial waters. For example, in explaining the 1984 amendments to section 3 of the Act, the House Report explains that the Act covers employees who work over the water. House Report No. 98-570, Part I, Committee on Education and Labor, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., at 2738-39 (hereinafter 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News). Similarly, in the section-by-section analysis of the Act, the Report refers to compensating employees whose injuries occur[ ] on the navigable waters. Id. at 2759. 22 The 1972 amendments to the Act extended coverage to shoreside areas. Congress did not directly address the Act's seaward reach, but the history cannot fairly be read to support the view that the Act stops at the three-mile line. Indeed, in explaining the 1972 amendments, the House Report noted only that coverage of the present [i.e., pre-1972] Act stops at the water's edge.... The result is a disparity in benefits payable ... for the same type of injury depending on which side of the water's edge ... the accident occurs. House Report No. 92-1441, Committee on Education and Labor, reprinted in, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News, 92nd Cong., 2d Sess., at 4707 (hereinafter 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News). A primary purpose of the 1972 amendments was to eradicate the inequity of a scheme where longshoremen could walk in and out of coverage (see infra III C). 23 As the early Supreme Court cases make clear, the phrase navigable waters of the United States often includes the high seas. Had Congress intended to define navigable waters more narrowly for purposes of the LHWCA, it could have chosen the term territorial waters, see, e.g., 1 Benedict on Admiralty Sec. 141 (7th ed.), or it could have explicitly indicated that navigable waters of the United States exclude the high seas. There is no indication of such a limitation in the legislative history. On the contrary, Congress passed the LHWCA under the constitutional grant of admiralty jurisdiction. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932); see also Gilmore & Black, The Law of Admiralty Secs. 6-47, 6-48, 6-49 (2d ed. 1975). In the context of admiralty jurisdiction, the phrase navigable waters of the United States has been used in contradistinction to navigable State waters, not in contrast to the high seas. See, e.g., The Montello, 78 U.S. at 415; The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. at 563; see also 1 Benedict on Admiralty Sec. 141, at 9-2, 9-37 (7th ed.). Furthermore, Congress attempted with the passage of the original LHWCA to preserve the applicability of state law workers' compensation remedies. See Gilmore & Black, The Law of Admiralty Secs. 6-46, 6-49. This effort failed, but the effort itself buttresses the conclusion that the phrase navigable waters of the United States in the LHWCA embodies the same distinction which it does in admiralty generally: the distinction between State waters and waters of the United States, not between territorial waters and the high seas. 24 On review of Cove Tankers I, the Second Circuit, in an opinion by Chief Judge Feinberg, affirmed the judgment, holding that, regardless of whether navigable waters of the United States always include the high seas within the meaning of the LHWCA, the Act can consistently be applied to longshoremen injured on the high seas. Cove Tankers Corp. v. United Ship Repair, Inc., 683 F.2d 38, 41 (2d Cir.1982) (Cove Tankers II ). Focusing on the facts of the case before it, involving an employee performing ship repair duties aboard a vessel bound for New York from Philadelphia, the Second Circuit observed that declining to apply the Act to an injury occurring 135 miles offshore would be inconsistent with congressional intent to reduce the importance of situs as applied to employees who might otherwise be covered for only a part of their work. 683 F.2d at 42. The argument offered to this court by Reynolds seems similar to that which was urged before the Second Circuit in Cove Tankers II. We therefore quote the core of that court's cogent response: 25 Were we to follow the reasoning urged upon us by [Reynolds], that the Act can never apply to waters farther than three miles offshore, the voyage in this case would have moved the employees in and out of coverage. Indeed, under that reasoning, shipowners could by mere course deviation into waters beyond that limit, prevent employees, should they be injured, from receiving the Act's benefits.... It is true that congressional focus in 1972 was landward, not seaward. But, paraphrasing the Supreme Court, we do not think that Congress intended the Act's coverage to shift with the shipowner's whim. [Pfeiffer v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 83, 100 S.Ct. 328, 337, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979).] 683 F.2d at 42. 8 26
27 The Second Circuit's opinion in Cove Tankers II repeats a persistent theme of judicial opinions construing the post-1972 version of the LHWCA, namely: that Congress' general intent in enacting the 1972 amendments was to broaden the Act's coverage, to insure that workers not cease to be covered by the mere fortuity of crossing a line. See, e.g., Director OWCP v. Perini North River Associates, 459 U.S. 297, 103 S.Ct. 634, 74 L.Ed.2d 465 (1983). Given the diminution in significance of the line between land and sea from the standpoint of LHWCA coverage, it would be odd indeed to conclude that the line between territorial waters and the high seas marks the outer boundary of the LHWCA. Neither the language of the Act nor the considerations underlying the Act lend support to the notion that the three-mile line is the on-off switch for the LHWCA. 28 In Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S.Ct. 2348, 53 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977), Justice Marshall observed for a unanimous Court that in enacting the 1972 amendments, Congress aimed at creating a system which does not depend on the 'fortuitous circumstance of whether the injury ... occurred on land or over water.'  432 U.S. at 272, 97 S.Ct. at 2361 (quoting report of Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, No. 92-1125, at 13 [hereinafter S.Rep. (1972) ]; Report of the House Committee on Education and Labor, No. 92-1441, at 10 [hereinafter H.Rep. (1972) ]. In addition, [t]he language of the 1972 Amendments is broad and suggests that we should take an expansive view of the extended coverage. Indeed, such a construction is appropriate for this remedial legislation. Caputo, 432 U.S. at 268, 97 S.Ct. at 2359. 29 The failure of the Act to state explicitly that longshoremen who happen to be on the high seas continue to be covered by the Act is surely related to the infrequency of longshoremens' happening upon the high seas. In fact, the legislative history accompanying formative congressional efforts to permit states to extend their workmens' compensation schemes beyond their shores confirms this conclusion: 30 The longshoremen are no more peripatetic workmen than are the repair men. They do not leave the port in which they work; they do not go into different jurisdictions. They are part of the local labor force and are permanently subject to the same conditions as other local workmen. 31 H.Rep. No. 639, 67th Cong., 2d Sess., at 2 (1922) (quoted in Caputo, 432 U.S. at 257 n. 12, 97 S.Ct. at 2354 n. 12). As Reynolds has demonstrated, longshoremen may on occasion have their jobs carry them to sea. That this happens rarely does not mean that when it does, longshoremen lose their protection. 32 In P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 100 S.Ct. 328, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979), Justice Powell pointed out for a unanimous Court that the legislative history pertaining to the 1972 amendments discusses workers solely in terms of what they are doing and never in terms of where they are working. 444 U.S. at 80, 100 S.Ct. at 336; see also 444 U.S. at 78 n. 8, 83, 100 S.Ct. at 335 n. 8, 337. Nevertheless, the Court has repeatedly recognized that the Act must be interpreted liberally, to effectuate Congress' intention that longshoremen who meet the status requirement for coverage continue to be covered regardless of their precise location at the moment of injury. See, e.g., Perini, 459 U.S. at 315-16, 103 S.Ct. at 646-47. 33 In Texports Stevedore Co. v. Winchester, 632 F.2d 504 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 905, 101 S.Ct. 303, 69 L.Ed.2d 406 (1981), this court noted that neither the Caputo nor the Pfeiffer opinions tangle[d] with the thornier problems of the new 'situs test'  contained in the post-1972 Act. 632 F.2d at 510. We then observed, although the case at hand involved landward extension of the Act, that the Act's situs requirement is not amenable to definition by the use of fixed lines. All circumstances must be examined. 632 F.2d at 514. Obviously, [t]he site must have some nexus with the waterfront, but reliance on hard lines ... would frustrate the congressional objectives of providing uniform benefits. 632 F.2d at 514-15. We also explained in Winchester that under binding Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit authority, [t]he Act should be liberally construed in favor of injured workers, 'in conformance with its purpose, and in a way that avoids harsh and incongruous results.'  632 F.2d at 515 (quoting Voris v. Eikel, 346 U.S. 328, 333, 74 S.Ct. 88, 92, 98 L.Ed. 5 (1953)). We continued: A broad interpretation of the maritime situs requirement reduces the number of workers walking in and out of coverage and promotes uniformity. 632 F.2d at 516. To hold in this case that the three-mile line constitutes the outer boundary of the LHWCA would be to introduce hard lines and to create a statute which builders testing their ships could easily and purposefully sail beyond. 34