Opinion ID: 458545
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: THIRD-PARTY LIABILITY OF THE UNITED STATES AS VESSEL OWNER UNDER Sec. 905(b)

Text: 23 In Count VI of Model Third-Party Complaint B, defendant manufacturers also press a claim against the United States for shipowner negligence, purportedly based on the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA or Longshore Act), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 905(b). They cite the FTCA as again providing the necessary waiver of sovereign immunity. 24 Although federal workers are expressly excluded from LHWCA coverage, see 33 U.S.C. Sec. 903(a)(2), defendants contend that by employing the FTCA analogical method properly, this exclusion is rendered irrelevant. Defendants reason that a private person under like circumstances to the United States, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2674, is a vessel owner. Applying the law of the place as required by the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1346(b), 2674, means whatever law, and choice of law rules, the locality would apply in a given case, Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 11-13, 82 S.Ct. 585, 591-593, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962); Hess v. United States, 361 U.S. 314, 318 n. 7, 80 S.Ct. 341, 345 n. 7, 4 L.Ed.2d 305 (1960). Defendants claim that federal substantive law, and specifically, the Longshore Act, would have to be utilized by Maine courts to determine the viability of the shipowner negligence claim. See Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Pfeifer, 462 U.S. 523, 103 S.Ct. 2541, 76 L.Ed.2d 768 (1983); Scindia Steam Navigation Co. v. De Los Santos, 451 U.S. 156, at 165 n. 13, 101 S.Ct. 1614, at 1621 n. 13, 68 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981) (negligence actions that are brought against the shipowner pursuant to Sec. 905(b) are governed by federal maritime principles). 25 We doubt whether we can ignore an express congressional exclusion of federal workers from coverage under the LHWCA, and employ an FTCA analogy by which coverage can be analogically presumed so as to render the United States vulnerable to a shipowner negligence suit. It is well-established that the terms of the waiver as set forth expressly and specifically by Congress define and delimit the boundaries of the court's subject matter jurisdiction to entertain suits brought against the government. See United States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 813-14, 96 S.Ct. 1971, 1975-76, 48 L.Ed.2d 390 (1976); Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 30-31, 73 S.Ct. 956, 965, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953). Where a provision of the FTCA excludes what would otherwise be a potential cause of action, no action against the government is permitted. See, e.g., United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao (Varig Airlines), --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 2755, 2762, 81 L.Ed.2d 660 (1984). Moreover, where other federal policies, express or implied, preclude what would otherwise be a potential cause of action, no action against the government may stand. See Johansen v. United States, 343 U.S. 427, 436-40, 72 S.Ct. 849, 855-57, 96 L.Ed. 1051 (1952); see also Laird v. Nelms, 406 U.S. 797, 802-03, 92 S.Ct. 1899, 1902-03, 32 L.Ed.2d 499 (1972). 7 But we shall bracket these FTCA-based concerns and assume for the purposes of our analysis that defendants seek to maintain a third-party contribution and indemnity action against a private shipyard which owns the ships on which the plaintiffs worked with and proximate to asbestos products. 26 So stated, this question is also governed by our opinion in Drake v. Raymark Industries. In Drake we held that defendant manufacturers' third-party claim against a private shipyard as owner pro hac vice would not lie under Sec. 905(b) because that section countenances only maritime torts. Drake v. Raymark Industries, Inc., at 1012. Since to qualify as a maritime tort the wrong must have borne some relationship to traditional maritime activity, Executive Jet Aviation v. Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 261, 93 S.Ct. 493, 501, 34 L.Ed.2d 454 (1972), and the universal ruling of all circuits to have considered this type of wrong is that it does not bear such a relationship, see Drake, at 1015-16; 8 no Sec. 905(b) action could have been brought by plaintiffs against the owners of the ships on which they were doing construction or repair work. It follows that defendants have no contribution action under the section, either, since the only duties alleged to have been owed were owed to the employees, not the defendants. Accordingly, we rule that defendants' contribution and indemnity action against the third-party defendant based upon Sec. 905(b) must be dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. 27 The district court did not analyze the defendants' vessel owner contribution action as we have. 9 It did hold that federal substantive law did not provide defendants with a vessel owner action against the government, a result that accords with our own. The district court went further, however, and held that the action would lie, if at all, on the basis of a Maine recognition of the dual capacity doctrine. The court then noted that it was unclear whether Maine recognizes the dual capacity doctrine, and within that doctrine, whether vessel owner status would be considered distinct enough from the employer capacity to eliminate the immunity from certain suits that employers enjoy under Maine law. Accordingly, the district court ruled that the question would be certified to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court following a trial on the merits. We disagree. 28 As we explained in Drake, the negligence action against a vessel owner from which defendants seek to derive their contribution action was created by Congress as a part of the 1972 LHWCA Amendments. This negligence action was designed to replace the former action for unseaworthiness, a strict liability action. See H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972), reprinted in 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 4698, 4701-05. Maine does not provide a specific cause of action against vessel owners; it would lie, if at all, as an extension of the basic negligence action, and only outside of admiralty jurisdiction, which is exclusively federal. 29 As we noted in Austin v. Unarco, where we decided that admiralty jurisdiction would not lie for a ship construction and repair worker's claims of asbestos-engendered injuries: 30 [T]he risk encountered by plaintiff's decedent is not a risk arising from the loading or operation of a vessel, against which those on the vessel are typically protected by the vessel owner. It is, rather, the same risk as that encountered by a number of workers on a shortside construction project. 31 Whatever anomalous results may follow from distinguishing between harbor workers according to the maritime nature of the hazards they encounter are at least offset, if not outweighed, by the anomalous results of treating construction workers injured by asbestos poisoning differently depending on whether they were installing asbestos in a ship or in an office building overlooking the harbor. The state has an interest in providing uniform treatment to these two like workers. 32 705 F.2d at 13 (emphasis added). 33 Defendants have not cited us any authority that suggests that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court would likely recognize the dual capacity doctrine. Indeed, the language employed in its cases suggests the contrary. For instance, in Roberts v. American Chain & Cable Co., 259 A.2d 43 (Me.1969), the Maine Court stated: 34 Our act ... is so general in terminology as to generate the belief that the Legislature may have intended an all-embracing immunity in favor of the employer cutting across any equitable considerations which our courts in the application of equitable principles might otherwise apply. 35 259 A.2d at 46 (emphasis added); see also McKellar v. Clark Equipment Co., 472 A.2d 411, 416 (Me.1984) (following Roberts ) (The employer's immunity, as defined in Roberts, extends to all noncontractual rights of contribution and indemnity (citations omitted) ). Were a suit against a vessel owner to be recognized, it would likely result from the creation of a separate liability for employers for the condition of their premises. But, as Professor Larson has noted, the state courts have held with virtual unanimity that workers' compensation-covered employers cannot be sued by their employees on premises liability theories. 2A Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation Sec. 72.82, at 14-234 (1983). The obvious reason for these holdings is that [i]f every action and function connected with maintaining the premises could ground a separate tort suit, the concept of exclusiveness of remedy would be reduced to a shambles. Id. at 14-238. Accordingly, defendants' claims against the government in its capacity as vessel owner--a premises liability theory--are also barred. See Columbo v. Johns-Manville, 601 F.Supp. at 1131 (The obligation of the United States to provide a safe workplace and to warn employees about the hazards of certain materials arises solely out of the employment relationship. There is, in effect, no alternative capacity in which to sue an employer on these theories). Id. at 14-238. As the government points out, there are no reported cases even hinting that Maine might deviate from the universal view. 36 To summarize, defendants have not shown that Maine or any other state has recognized and allowed a suit against an employer qua vessel owner under the rubric of dual capacity. Because it has its roots in admiralty, which is within exclusively federal jurisdiction, we find it difficult to believe that such a suit would be recognized in Maine. We think, therefore, that under these circumstances certification is not necessary on either the dual capacity doctrine or on the availability of a suit against an employer qua vessel owner. 10 37 Affirmed in part and vacated in part. ORDER OF COURT 38 The petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc is denied. 39 Petitioner asserts that an analysis under Harville v. Johns-Manville Products Corp., 731 F.2d 775 (11th Cir. 1984), would indicate that its third-party claim bears a sufficient relationship to traditional maritime activity. It seeks to distinguish the cases we cite on the ground that they have not involved a suit by a shipyard worker against a shipowner for failure to warn of dangers of asbestos on ships brought to a yard for repair. 40 We pass over the question whether the absence of an actual suit against BIW by plaintiff would itself defeat petitioner's third party claims. We proceed to what we deem the controlling Harville factor in our cases, whether the need for uniformity in maritime commerce mandates application of admiralty law. Although petitioners make a reasonable argument that a shipowner's duty to warn workers of dangers hidden on board should be governed by a uniform maritime law, we think the better approach is to see this as a situation appropriately left to state tort law. If Drake has sued BIW as pro hac vice vessel owner for failure to warn or protect against a dangerous condition, the questions would have been whether working with asbestos was dangerous and whether BIW knew or should have known of it. These are the same questions that would arise if Drake had worked with asbestos, without warning or protection, on a ship not owned by BIW, or in one of BIW's warehouses on land. As the court in Harville noted, the issues that such litigation would have presented are identical to those presented in countless other asbestos suits; they involve questions of tort law traditionally committed to local resolution. Harville, 731 F.2d at 786. 41 Petitioner notes on page 14 of the petition that the Court on its own motion reviewed documents in the district court and seems to suggest that this was beyond our scope of review. The only material that was forwarded to the clerk of the court of appeals for review was the appendix. Because of the importance of the case, the court felt that it would be wise to examine the entire record. In order to do this, the record had to be obtained directly form the clerk of the district court in Portland, Maine. It is the custom of this court, in cases that require it, to examine the record in detail and not to rely entirely on the appendix.