Opinion ID: 1833747
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the extension of lhca inland

Text: The history of workmen's compensation as it relates to longshoremen, harborworkers, and others injured on navigable waters in the course of their employment has been a long and tortuous one. In 1917, the United States Supreme Court held, in a divided opinion, that a state compensation law could not constitutionally be applied to a longshoreman who was killed aboard a ship in navigable waters while engaged in unloading cargo. Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, 37 S.Ct. 524, 61 L.Ed. 1086 (1917). The Court emphasized that, under the facts of the case, the matter was clearly within traditional admiralty jurisdiction and therefore not subject to the diverse legislation of the various states. The Court noted however, that, while it [is] difficult, if not impossible, to define with exactness just how far the general maritime law may be changed, modified, or affected by state legislation. That this may be done to some extent cannot be denied. . . . The rule was announced that state legislation would be permissible unless it contravenes the essential purpose expressed by an act of Congress, or works material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, or interferes with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations. In 1917, a majority of the Court felt that this rule was violated when a state provided workmen's compensation to a stevedore injured on navigable waters. It is noteworthy, however, that the Jensen Court did not suggest that the uniformity of the maritime law was jeopardized when state compensation laws were applied to the same workers injured on shore, doubtless because at that time admiralty jurisdiction in tort was largely tied to the situs of the injury on navigable waters. That state law could constitutionally apply to longshoremen injured on land was confirmed in State Industrial Commission v. Nordenholt Corp., 259 U.S. 263, 42 S.Ct. 473, 66 L.Ed. 933 (1922). Thereafter, in Grant Smith-Porter Shipping Co. v. Rhode, 257 U.S. 469, 42 S.Ct. 157, 66 L.Ed. 321 (1922), the Supreme Court crossed its own line of demarcation between state and federal jurisdiction and held that, if the nature of an employee's work was of local concern, a state compensation act could apply without working a material prejudice to the federal maritime law, even if the injury occurred on navigable water. In 1927, Congress passed the Longshoremen's and Harbor Worker's Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., which provided a federal compensation remedy for workers injured on navigable waters if recovery for the disability or death through workmen's compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law. 33 U.S.C. § 903(a). This language of the act appeared to make the state and federal compensation remedies exclusive and engendered much confusion over which cases involved interests that were maritime but local and thus cognizable under state as opposed to federal law. In Davis v. Department of Labor & Industries, 317 U.S. 249, 63 S.Ct. 225, 87 L.Ed. 246 (1942), the Supreme Court coined the phrase twilight zone to describe the shadowy area in which it was difficult to determine whether state or federal law should apply. In this area, if a worker elected to apply for state benefits his choice would be upheld and the application of state law presumed constitutional. In subsequent cases, the Court made it clear that an area of concurrent jurisdiction existed wherein workers injured on navigable waters, even when their occupations were traditionally maritime, could pursue remedies available under state compensation laws. Hahn v. Ross Island Sand & Gravel Co., 358 U.S. 272, 79 S.Ct. 266, 3 L.Ed.2d 292 (1959); Richard v. Lake Charles Stevedores, Inc., 95 So.2d 830 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1957), cert. denied 355 U.S. 952, 78 S.Ct. 535, 2 L.Ed.2d 529 (1958); Baskin v. Industrial Accident Commission, 338 U.S. 854, 70 S.Ct. 99, 94 L.Ed. 523 (1949); Bethlehem Steel Co. v. Moore, 335 U.S. 874, 69 S.Ct. 239, 93 L.Ed. 417 (1948). [5] Although dicta in the Supreme Court's decision in Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. O'Rourke, 344 U.S. 334, 73 S.Ct. 302, 97 L.Ed. 367 (1953) referred to the LHCA as an exclusive remedy, the Court's comments were made in a case involving a contest between two federal compensation systems (FELA and LHCA). Moreover, in Calbeck v. Travelers Insurance Co., 370 U.S. 114, 82 S.Ct. 1196, 8 L.Ed.2d 368 (1961), the Court judicially excised the troublesome clause in the LHCA if recovery . . . may not validly be provided by State law, which had created the implication that state and federal compensation systems were exclusive. The Court held that LHCA benefits would be available for all workers injured on navigable waters, whether or not a particular injury might also have been within the constitutional reach of a state compensation act. In so ruling, the Court did not suggest that the availability of federal benefits thereby excluded the operation of state law, but rather stated that its decision was consistent with Davis and the twilight zone concept. We note particularly the discussion in Calbeck of the decision in Avondale Marine Ways, Inc. v. Henderson, 346 U.S. 366, 74 S.Ct. 100, 98 L.Ed. 77 (1953). In that case, the LHCA was held applicable to a fatal injury occurring on land to an employee engaged in the repair of a vessel which was physically located on a marine railway inasmuch as such a railway was comparable to a dry dock, an area specifically covered by LHCA. With regard to the LHCA coverage, the Calbeck Court noted that at the same time, since the injury did, in a physical sense, occur on land, there is little doubt that a state compensation act could validly have been applied to it. In our own court, in Ellis v. Travelers Insurance Co., 241 La. 433, 129 So.2d 729 (La.1961), we were persuaded by a decision of the United States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit that as to a longshoreman performing maritime work at the time of injury aboard a vessel afloat on navigable waters the LHCA was the exclusive remedy. Flowers v. Travelers Ins. Co., 258 F.2d 220 (5th Cir. 1958). Our decision in Ellis, however, and the Flowers decision, on which we heavily relied, was reached without the benefit of the Supreme Court's opinion in Calbeck. Subsequently, in Arp v. Maryland Casualty Company, 170 So.2d 166 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1964), the Fourth Circuit held that at least as to a shore based repairman injured aboard a vessel, the state compensation system could apply. We denied writs with the notation: On the facts found by the Court of Appeal there appears no error of law in its judgment. 247 La. 411, 171 So.2d 666 (1965). What can be gleaned from an examination of these cases is that the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that state compensation laws can be constitutionally applied concurrently with the federal compensation system to some, if not all, categories of maritime workers. While the Court has never overruled Jensen, it has demonstrated that the uniformity of the federal maritime law is not materially prejudiced by the operation of state compensation remedies even in areas where the federal law is also applicable. [6] Now that the amendments to LHCA cover land-based workers traditionally falling under the exclusive coverage of state acts, we see little reason to conclude that the concurrent application of the two compensation systems is any more inimical to the maritime law than was the case before the 1972 amendments. We are reinforced in our conclusions by the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., 411 U.S. 325, 93 S.Ct. 1590, 36 L.Ed.2d 280 (1973). In commenting on the shoreward extension of admiralty jurisdiction in the Admiralty Extension Act, 46 U.S.C. § 740, the Court noted: While Congress has extended admiralty jurisdiction beyond the boundaries contemplated by the framers, it hardly follows from the constitutionality of that extension that we must sanctify the federal courts with exclusive jurisdiction to the exclusion of powers traditionally within the competence of the States.. . . Even though Congress has acted in the admiralty area, state regulation is permissible, absent a clear conflict with the federal law. The Court further stated that Jensen has been confined to its facts, viz., to suits relating to the relationships of vessels, plying the high seas and our navigable waters, and to their crews. The fact that a whole system of liabilities was established on the basis of the reasoning in that case, the Court noted, led years ago to the establishment of the twilight zone where state regulation was permissible. Thus, even subsequent to the passage of the 1972 amendments to the LHCA, the Court seems to have reaffirmed the notion that state and federal compensation systems can co-exist, at least in cases with facts distinguishable from those in Jensen. Accordingly, we find no constitutional impediment to the concurrent operation of the LHCA and Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act with respect to injuries sustained on land in the course of new ship construction.