Opinion ID: 3010705
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co.

Text: v. Harris In Harris, the court reasoned that Congress intended to save maritime employers money when it enacted the 1984 amendments. The court looked to the legislative history of the 1984 amendments and concluded that the amendments as a whole are intended to reduce the cost of Longshore coverage for employers in the covered industries 16 in a manner which will disturb, to the most limited extent possible, the rights and benefits which the Longshore Act provides. Id. at 551. (internal quotation marks omitted). However, the court recognized that this was not Congress' only objective. Additionally, the amendments relating to post-retirement occupational diseases are meant to insure that long-latency occupational disease claimants do not continue to encounter the severe procedural hurdles which the Longshore Act has presented in the past. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The court then reasoned that extending the manifestation requirement to the new category of benefits being conferred would be contrary to Congress' purpose in amending the LHWCA. The court concluded: [w]hen these goals are considered in concert, it is clear that Congress meant for the 1984 amendments to insure that those suffering from long-latency occupational diseases receive benefits adequate to their needs without greatly increasing the cost of these benefits to the immediate employer by spreading the risk throughout the industry and defraying the increased costs by contributions to the fund. Id. The court added that there is no suggestion that the relevant . . . amendments are intended . . . to encourage the hiring or continued employment of the handicapped. Id. Thus, the court held that the 1984 enactment did not extend the manifestation requirement to the new category of post retirement disability coverage afforded under those amendments. The ALJ concluded that, under Harris, the manifestation requirement for pre-existing disabilities does not apply when total disability comes about as a result of a longlatency period post-retirement occupational disease. We disagree. First, we doubt that the employers' increased exposure was driven by, or intended to be circumscribed by, a countervailing policy of saving employers' money. Neither the text of the amendments, their legislative history, nor the substantial body of appellate decisions interpreting the Act suggest that we should ameliorate the greater exposure inherent in the amendments by reading the manifestation requirement out of the Act. Second, we do not understand how Congress could have sought to disturb, to the most limited extent possible, the rights and benefits which the Longshore Act provides as the Harris 17 court stated, while eliminating the manifestation requirement that has been a prerequisite to relief from the special fund almost since its creation more than 70 years ago. Had Congress wanted to expand liability only on the condition that the almost universally accepted manifestation requirement be eliminated, it could certainly have said so. A departure from the longstanding requirement of manifestation should emanate from the statute's text, not its ethers. Sun Ship was not aware of any risk from a pre-existing injury or condition when it hired Ehrentraut, and we fail to see why it should now be entitled to relief under section 8(f). We conclude that the more cogent analysis, and the better reasoned approach, is that set forth by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Bath Iron Works Corp. We will not assume that Congress intended to effect a change in such a longstanding provision of the law by relying upon inference and jurisprudential deductions. Accordingly, we find the ALJ's reliance upon Harris misplaced.