Opinion ID: 1833747
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: federal preeminence in the field

Text: Defendants argue that, even if state law may constitutionally apply to workers covered by LHCA, state law must nevertheless yield to federal preemption of the field. It is well settled, however, that the mere fact that Congress enacts a law in a given area does not thereby exclude the power of a state to apply its laws governing the same subject matter. In fact, where Congress legislates in a field traditionally occupied by state law, it is assumed that the historic police powers of the state were not to be superseded by federal act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress. Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corporation, 331 U.S. 218, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947). In Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 83 S.Ct. 1210, 10 L.Ed.2d 248 (1963), the Court made the following observations concerning federal preemption: . . . The test of whether both federal and state regulations may operate, or the state regulation must give way, is whether both regulations can be enforced without impairing the federal superintendence of the field, not whether they are aimed at similar or different objectives. The principle to be derived from our decisions is that federal regulation of a field of commerce should not be deemed preemptive of state regulatory power in the absence of persuasive reasonseither that the nature of the regulated subject matter permits no other conclusion, or that the Congress has unmistakably so ordained. . . . As stated in Askew v. American Waterways Operators, Inc., 411 U.S. 325, 93 S.Ct. 1590, 36 L.Ed.2d 280 (1973): Even though Congress has acted in the admiralty area, state regulation is permissible, absent a clear conflict with the federal law. The general rule to be derived from these cases and others dealing with the question of federal preemption is that state power is not preempted unless: (1) it was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress to do so, or (2) the exercise of dual authority is repugnant to the Congressional objective. The disputed LHCA amendments make no express declaration that Congress has preempted the right of states to compensate those land-based longshoremen and harbor workers to whom federal benefits were extended. In fact, there has been no change whatsoever in the coverage provisions of the act itself warranting the conclusion that the LHCA is any more exclusive now than it was prior to 1972 when, as we have already observed, state and federal compensation laws operated concurrently as to many injuries. In fact, the troublesome clause which suggested that the state and federal systems were exclusive, if recovery for the disability or death through workmen's compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by state law, was deleted in the 1972 revision of the act. This change prompted the following academic commentary: Its deletion leaves the statute blank on the relationship of the expanded federal system to the state system. A vague idea of `federal preemption' should not lead us to the unfortunate and unnecessary conclusion that the state statutes can now operate only up to (and never beyond) the newly demarcated federal line. G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty 425-26 (2nd ed. 1975). Nor can we find a clear manifestation of congressional intent to preempt state law in the legislative history of the 1972 amendments. With regard to the landward extension of LHCA, the Congressional committee which studied the amendments made the following comments: The present Act, insofar as longshoremen and ship builders and repairmen are concerned, covers only injuries which occur `upon the navigable waters of the United States.' Thus, coverage of the present Act stops at the water's edge; injuries occurring on land are covered by State Workmen's Compensation laws. The result is a disparity in benefits payable for death or disability for the same type of injury depending on which side of the water's edge and in which State the accident occurs. To make matters worse, most State Workmen's Compensation laws provide benefits which are inadequate; even the better State laws generally come nowhere close to meeting the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws recommended standard of a maximum limit on benefits of not less than 200% of statewide average weekly wages. The following are the maximum limits on the compensation payable for permanent total disability in some maritime States: California __________________________ $ 70.00 Florida _____________________________ 56.00 Hawaii ______________________________ 112.50 Louisiana ___________________________ 49.00 Maryland ____________________________ 85.68 Massachusetts _______________________ 177.00 New Jersey __________________________ 101.00 New York ____________________________ 80.00 Oregon ______________________________ 62.00 Pennsylvania ________________________ 60.00 Texas _______________________________ 49.00 1 Plus $6 for each dependent. Also, under the laws of some states due to exemptions based upon the number of employees hired some workers might be uncovered in the event they are unfortunate victims of an injury. It is apparent that if the Federal benefit structure embodied in Committee bill is enacted, there would be a substantial disparity in benefits payable to a permanently disabled longshoreman, depending on which side of the water's edge the accident occurred, if State laws are permitted to continue to apply to injuries occurring on land. It is also to be noted that with the advent of modern cargohandling techniques, such as containerization and the use of LASH-type vessels, more of the longshoreman's work is performed on land than heretofore. The Committee believes that the compensation payable to a longshoreman or a ship repairman or builder should not depend on the fortuitous circumstance of whether the injury occurred on land or over water. Accordingly, the bill would amend the Act to provide coverage of longshoremen, harbor workers, ship repairmen, ship builders, shipbreakers, and other employees engaged in maritime employment (excluding masters and members of the crew of a vessel) if the injury occurred either upon the navigable waters of the United States or any adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway, or other area adjoining such navigable waters customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing, or building a vessel. The intent of the Committee is to permit a uniform compensation system to apply to employees who would otherwise be covered by this Act for part of their activity. To take a typical example, cargo, whether in break bulk or containerized form, is typically unloaded from the ship and immediately transported to a storage or holding area on the pier, wharf, or terminal adjoining navigable waters. The employees who perform this work would be covered under the bill for injuries sustained by them over the navigable waters or on the adjoining land area. The Committee does not intend to cover employees who are not engaged in loading, unloading, repairing, or building a vessel, just because they are injured in an area adjoining navigable waters used for such activity. Thus, employees whose responsibility is only to pick up stored cargo for further trans-shipment would not be covered, nor would purely clerical employees whose jobs do not require them to participate in the loading or unloading of cargo. However, checkers, for example, who are directly involved in the loading or unloading functions are covered by the new amendment. Likewise the Committee has no intention of extending coverage under the Act to individuals who are not employed by a person who is an employer, i. e. a person at least some of whose employees are engaged, in whole or in part in some form of maritime employment. Thus, an individual employed by a person none of whose employees work, in whole or in part, on navigable waters, is not covered even if injured on a pier adjoining navigable waters. U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1972, pp. 4698, 4707. (Emphasis added.) Our examination of the legislative history leaves us unconvinced that Congress intended to exclude workers injured on land from their remedies under state compensation laws. The intent was clearly to make the liberal benefits provided by the LHCA uniformly available to longshoremen and harborworkers regardless of on which side of the water's edge their injuries were sustained. The legislators noted the meager benefits provided by some states and demonstrated a desire to permit a uniform compensation system to apply to employees who would otherwise be covered by this act for part of their activity. There is nothing in the legislative history to suggest that Congress intended to overrule the line of cases recognizing a state's concurrent right to provide compensation for injuries sustained in maritime pursuits of local concern even though the worker was covered by the LHCA. It is pertinent to observe that, in discussing its intention to repudiate the judicial extension of the warranty of unseaworthiness to longshoremen in third party suits against a vessel, the congressional committee discussed in detail the Supreme Court decisions it intended to overrule. We are satisfied therefore that neither the history nor the wording of the 1972 amendments manifest a clear purpose to preclude the applicability of state compensation law in the new land areas covered by the federal act. Defendants further contend that the pervasiveness of the federal compensation system and regulations promulgated thereunder are facts from which a Congressional intention to preempt state law can be implied. It has not been demonstrated, however, that the regulations issued pursuant to the LHCA as amended are any more pervasive than those handed down prior to the 1972 revisions. Moreover, we note that the pervasiveness of federal regulation and superintendence of the field was never a bar to concurrent application of state and federal law to injuries over water in the pre-1972 era. We are not persuaded that arguments grounded in the pervasiveness of federal regulation are any more compelling now that the LHCA has moved inland nor that the operation of the state compensation law would frustrate the purpose or objectives of the federal act. If the concurrent applicability of the two systems as to certain classes of workers injured over water did not present a significant conflict when state law was elected by injured workers, it is difficult to comprehend how the concurrent operation of the compensation systems over land can generate conflicts of a more serious nature. We are in agreement with the appeal court's determination of this issue.