Opinion ID: 673848
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of the Presumption

Text: 11 We must begin our analysis by considering whether the presumption against extraterritoriality applies at all with respect to the LHWCA. The Director and Kollias assert a host of arguments against the applicability of the presumption in this context. None of these arguments is persuasive. 12 First, the Director and Kollias contend that neither of the two primary considerations underlying the presumption--avoidance of international discord and Congress' focus on domestic matters--is implicated here. See Aramco, 499 U.S. at 248, 111 S.Ct. at 1230. With respect to the potential for international discord, they assert that there is no such potential created by application of the LHWCA to the high seas because the choice of law analysis in Lauritzen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571, 583-90, 73 S.Ct. 921, 928-32, 97 L.Ed. 1254 (1953), adequately accounts for foreign interests. The Supreme Court has recently held, however, that the presumption against extraterritoriality, which embodies numerous policies, applies even if the potential for international discord is weak or nonexistent. See Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2549, 2560, 125 L.Ed.2d 128 (1993); Smith, --- U.S. at ---- n. 5, 113 S.Ct. at 1183 n. 5. 13 With respect to the second primary consideration underlying the presumption--Congress' focus on domestic matters--the Director and Kollias assert that maritime legislation, such as the LHWCA, naturally applies extraterritorially and that Congress does not, therefore, in the maritime context, legislate against the backdrop of the presumption against extraterritoriality. They conclude that maritime legislation is not subject to the presumption. In support of this argument, they rely primarily on United States v. Bowman, 260 U.S. 94, 98, 43 S.Ct. 39, 41, 67 L.Ed. 149 (1922), in which the Supreme Court held that a criminal statute prohibiting conspiracy to defraud a corporation in which the United States is a stockholder applied extraterritorially, despite Congress' failure to indicate that the statute should be so applied. In Bowman, the Court explained that, if a statute is to be applied extraterritorially, it is natural for Congress to say so in the statute, and failure to do so will negative the purpose of Congress in this regard. Id. at 98, 43 S.Ct. at 41. The Bowman Court then noted, however, that the same rule of interpretation should not be applied to criminal statutes which are, as a class, not logically dependent on their locality for the Government's jurisdiction, but are enacted because of the right of the Government to defend itself against obstruction, or fraud wherever perpetrated. Id. 14 Despite the Director's and Kollias' claim that the LHWCA is not logically dependent on [its] locality for the Government's jurisdiction, we find Bowman unpersuasive with respect to the LHWCA. The Supreme Court's recent discussions of the presumption against extraterritoriality, none of which mentions Bowman, seem to require that all statutes, without exception, be construed to apply within the United States only, unless a contrary intent appears. See, e.g., Smith, --- U.S. at ---- & n. 5, 113 S.Ct. at 1183 & n. 5; Aramco, 499 U.S. at 248, 111 S.Ct. at 1230. At best, therefore, the holding in Bowman should be read narrowly so as not to conflict with these more recent pronouncements on extraterritoriality. Reading Bowman as limited to its facts, only criminal statutes, and perhaps only those relating to the government's power to prosecute wrongs committed against it, are exempt from the presumption. Bowman, 260 U.S. at 98, 43 S.Ct. at 41; cf. United States v. Larsen, 952 F.2d 1099, 1100-01 (9th Cir.1991) (applying Bowman to hold that 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1) may be applied extraterritorially). Under that narrow reading of Bowman, the LHWCA is subject to the presumption against extraterritoriality. 15 The Director and Kollias further contend that the presumption does not apply to the LHWCA because it does not apply to the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.App. Sec. 688. The Director states that the presumption against extraterritoriality is relevant to the LHWCA only if the extraterritorial application of the LHWCA is subject to construction under different principles than those applied to the Jones Act in Lauritzen. We are not persuaded. 16 Even assuming that the Jones Act and the LHWCA should be treated identically in this respect, it is not clear that the presumption against extraterritoriality is inapplicable to the Jones Act. The parties cite no cases holding that the Jones Act is exempt from the presumption, nor have we found any. Rather than establishing that the Jones Act is not subject to the presumption, the Director and Kollias cite Lauritzen, 345 U.S. at 583-90, 73 S.Ct. at 928-32, which discusses the choice of law analysis appropriate in maritime tort cases in which the Jones Act or general maritime law is invoked. See Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354, 382, 79 S.Ct. 468, 485, 3 L.Ed.2d 368 (1959) (although Lauritzen itself was a Jones Act case, its choice of law analysis also applies in cases invoking general maritime principles of compensation for personal injury). The choice of law analysis in Lauritzen is, however, unrelated to the presumption against extraterritoriality; indeed, to hold that the LHWCA is subject to the presumption is to say nothing about whether Lauritzen applies in the LHWCA context. Accordingly, we reject the Director's and Kollias' contention that Jones Act cases require exemption of the LHWCA from the presumption against extraterritoriality. 17 Finally, Kollias asserts that the presumption against extraterritoriality does not apply in his case because application of the LHWCA would not be extraterritorial at all. He contends that, because he was injured on an American flag vessel and because the law of the flag governs the internal affairs on a vessel, see McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional de Marineros de Honduras, 372 U.S. 10, 21, 83 S.Ct. 671, 677, 9 L.Ed.2d 547 (1963), the WILLIAMSBURGH was in effect a United States territory as it traveled across the high seas. This argument is unpersuasive. First, the law of the flag does not necessarily govern shipboard conduct; in the Jones Act context, for example, the Lauritzen analysis provides a guide to determining the applicable body of law. See, e.g., Hellenic Lines v. Rhoditis, 398 U.S. 306, 308-09, 90 S.Ct. 1731, 1733-34, 26 L.Ed.2d 252 (1970) (applying Lauritzen to determine that United States law governs maritime tort case in which Greek seaman with Greek employment contract is injured on Greek flag vessel while in a United States port, but employer's base of operations is in the United States). Although no case has previously held that Lauritzen applies in cases in which the LHWCA is invoked, we are confident that the Lauritzen analysis or another choice of law analysis would be used to determine the applicable body of law in such cases. Cf. Romero, 358 U.S. at 382, 79 S.Ct. at 485 (Lauritzen analysis applies when general maritime law, not Jones Act, is invoked). Indeed, it would be particularly inappropriate automatically to apply the law of the flag in LHWCA cases because, under the LHWCA, the shipowner is an irrelevant party. Compare 33 U.S.C. Sec. 904(a) (employer is liable for LHWCA compensation) with, e.g., Lauritzen, 345 U.S. at 574, 73 S.Ct. at 924 (Jones Act claim against shipowner). The premise of Kollias' argument, that United States law applies to all United States flag ships, is thus unpersuasive. 18 In any case, the concept of extraterritoriality does not refer to the body of law that governs the dispute; if it did, extraterritorial application of United States statutes would be an impossibility because any place where United States law governed a particular dispute would be considered United States territory. Accordingly, we decline to characterize the WILLIAMSBURGH as a kind of floating United States territory, where application of the LHWCA would not be extraterritorial. 19 For the above reasons, we are not persuaded that the LHWCA is exempt from the generally applicable presumption against extraterritoriality. The LHWCA may not be applied on the high seas, therefore, in the absence of a sufficiently clear indication that Congress intended extraterritorial application of the statute. We now proceed to determine whether such an indication appears.