Court Opinion

ID: 9489650
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:20:32.204445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:38.361043
License: Public Domain

CYR, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
As I am in fundamental disagreement with the treatment given the duties of care incumbent upon dual capacity LHWCA employers by the en banc court under the Supreme Court decision in Scindia, I respectfully dissent.
I
Two years after its seminal decision in Scindia, see supra Section V (en banc opin*617ion), the Supreme Court held that an injured longshore worker who receives LHWCA compensation benefits is not barred from bringing á negligence action against his vessel-owner employer under section 905(b), notwithstanding the seemingly unqualified “exclusivity” provision in section 905(a) that the sole liability to which maritime employers may be subjected is LHWCA compensation benefits. See Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 530-31, 103 S.Ct. at 2547—48; see also supra note 5 (en bane opinion). Beyond the conclusive contextual support for this holding, the relevant legislative history confirms a congressional intendment “that the rights of an injured longshoreman ... should not depend on whether he was employed directly by the vessel or by an independent contractor.” Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 532, 103 S.Ct. at 2548 (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441, 92nd Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 8, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 4698, 4705).1
Without farther elaboration, the Jones & Laughlin Court appended a eonclusory footnote (“footnote 6”) to its holding: “Of course, § [905(b)] does make clear that a vessel owner acting as its own stevedore is liable only for negligence in its ‘owner’ capacity, not for negligence in its ‘stevedore’ capacity.” Id. at 531 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. at 2547 n. 6. The en banc court interprets footnote 6 as the Supreme Court’s endorsement of a legal fiction central to the present controversy: a dual capacity employer engaged in maritime construction presumptively operates in two wholly discrete capacities (i.e., vessel owner and construction company). I respectfully disagree.
First, footnote 6 is unelueidated dictum. See Dedham Water Co., Inc. v. Cumberland Farms Dairy, Inc., 972 F.2d 453, 459 (1st Cir.1992) (“Dictum constitutes neither the law of the case nor the stuff of binding precedent.”). Although great deference normally is accorded considered Supreme Court dicta, see, e.g., Bank of New England Old Colony, N.A. v. Clark, 986 F.2d 600, 603 (1st Cir.1993), the only question of statutory interpretation confronting the Court in Jones & Laughlin was whether the LHWCA imposed any duty of care at all upon dual capacity vessel owners, since the parties were in agreement that the defendant vessel owner would be liable for its negligent conduct absent any such per se immunity prescribed by statute.2 Not only did the parties in Jones & Laughlin not brief the complex legal issue presently before us, but there is no exegetic discussion — either in footnote 6 or elsewhere in the Jones & Laughlin opinion — of the legal issue itself, the LHWCA’s legislative history, or supportive Supreme Court precedent. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, -, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 2370, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) (rejecting Court’s own dictum in prior opinion which “had no cause to address, and did not carefully consider, the damages question before us today”).
More importantly, even if footnote 6 were to be considered binding precedent, its curt conclusion begs the essential question: in *618defining the duties of care, how are the courts to determine in what conditions particular negligent conduct is to be considered traceable to a dual capacity employer qua vessel owner? Far from creating or endorsing a presumptive legal fiction, footnote 6 may simply impart the Court’s view that a dual capacity employer in some future ease might yet be able to demonstrate an efficient bifurcation of its statutory duties of care under the LHWCA. The current circuit split on this issue thus indicates at the very least that the legal fiction purportedly endorsed by footnote 6 has not won universal acceptance in the lower courts.
The Fifth Circuit has accepted footnote 6 as evidence that the Supreme Court meant to endorse an artificial legal construct deemed central to the LHWCA’s integrity as a prototypical workers’ compensation statute. See Levene, 943 F.2d at 531 (citing Castorina, 758 F.2d at 1032-33 (noting: since legislative history contemplates that all maritime employees receive the “same” remedy, “[w]e can find no reason to impose on a shipowner a greater duty of care toward longshoremen because the shipowner conducts its own ste-vedoring operations”)). That is to say, a contrary construction of section 905(b) would deprive dual capacity employers of their anticipated return for assuming the burden of contributing to the section 904 workers’ compensation scheme.
The Second Circuit, on the other hand, has pointed out that attempting to fit dual capacity employers into the traditional Scindia mold causes serious anomalies and artificialities not present in single capacity cases. See, e.g., Fanetti 678 F.2d at 428 (“[A] [jury] charge which relieves a shipowner of liability for a dangerous condition which was ‘known to the stevedore or to any of its employees’ is clearly inappropriate where the shipowner, itself, is the stevedore.”) (quoting Napoli v. Hellenic Lines, Ltd., 536 F.2d 505, 508 (2d Cir.1976)). For example, as the Second Circuit observed:
Where ... there is no independent contractor, it is part of the ship’s duty to exercise reasonable care to inspect its own workers’ workplace, to remove grease spills, etc. In such a ease there is no “independent contractor” with primary responsibility upon whom the ship may properly rely.... Things are very different when the longshoreman works for an independent stevedore who has primary responsibility for the workplace.
Id. (quoting Canizzo, 579 F.2d at 689-90 (Friendly, J., dissenting, in part)) (emphasis added). Although Fanetti preceded Jones & Laughlin, whereas the Castorina decision came after, there is no indication that the Second Circuit has altered its position.3
II
The en banc court embraces the presumptive “bifurcation” approach adopted in Casto-rina out of concern that the Fanetti option would eviscerate the 1972 LHWCA amendments’ principal purpose: to offer all maritime employers maximum protection from unpredictable tort liability in return for their fixed monetary contributions to the LHWCA compensation fund. See also DiGiovanni v. Traylor Brothers, Inc., 855 F.Supp. 37, 42 (D.R.I.1994) (same, citing by analogy to “exclusivity” provision in Rhode Island Workers’ Compensation Statute, see R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-29-20 (1994)). Accordingly, the en banc court views the bifurcation fiction as the only means of achieving the congressional goal “that the rights of an injured longshoreman ... should not depend on whether he was employed directly by the vessel or by an independent contractor.” H.R.Rep. No. 92-*6191441, 92nd Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 8, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 4698, 4705 (noting that the “same principles should apply in determining the liability of the vessel” in both single capacity and dual capacity cases). I find its reasoning unpersuasive.
First, though courts must attempt to discern legislative intent based on the statute as a whole, see Thinking Machs. Corp. v. Mellon Fin. Servs. Corp., 67 F.3d 1021, 1024 (1st Cir.1995), nothing in the LHWCA or its sparse legislative history provides conclusive support for the “evisceration” argument adopted today by the en bane court. As single capacity employers would continue to retain all their section 905(a) protections, the Fanetti approach may limit some employers’ LHWCA immunity but it certainly does not render the LHWCA exclusivity provision superfluous. See Mosquera-Perez v. INS, 3 F.3d 553, 556 (1st Cir.1993) (no statutory provision should be interpreted as meaningless).
Second, Jones & Laughlin itself demonstrates that the supposedly unlimited, pro-employer exclusivity provision in section 905(a) is far more flexible than the land-based workers’ compensation statutes in most states, which in comparable contexts would not permit a worker to bring a negligence action against the employer as owner of the property on which the worker’s injury occurred. See generally 2A Arthur Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 72.82, at 14-234 (1983).4 Thus, it seems reasonably clear that Congress did not envision section 905 as an exact analog to state workers’ compensation schemes.
Third, the cited House Report language appears immediately after a discussion of Congress’ intention to abrogate the Court’s previous decisions in Reed v. S.S. Yaka, 373 U.S. 410, 83 S.Ct. 1349, 10 L.Ed.2d 448 (1963), and Jackson v. Lykes Bros. S.S. Co., 386 U.S. 731, 87 S.Ct. 1419, 18 L.Ed.2d 488 (1967), see supra note 1, which held that dual capacity employers were as vulnerable to “unseaworthiness” claims under the pre-1972 LHWCA as were non-employer vessel owners. Congress meant to eliminate the wasteful litigation burdening the courts under the pre-1972 LHWCA; viz., the “triangulation” in litigation caused by the confluence of a longshore worker’s strict liability claim for “unseaworthiness” against the vessel owner and the vessel owner’s claim for indemnification from a negligent stevedore-employer.
Thus, in all likelihood the House Report’s reference to “same principles” was simply meant as a caution that henceforth, by virtue of the 1972 amendments, both single capacity and dual capacity cases were to be subject to the same negligence liability principles, not to the heightened standards of care governing “unseaworthiness” claims — a differential that would otherwise have afforded employees in dual capacity cases a decided advantage in litigation. See, e.g., Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U.S. 557, 565, 25 L.Ed. 892 (1879) (“No statute is to be construed as altering the common law further than its words import.”). Therefore, even without indulging the “bifurcation” fiction adopted by the en banc court, it is entirely reasonable to point out that dual capacity employers, in return for assuming much more limited section 904 workers’ compensation liability, obtained an important benefit from the 1972 amendments; that is, complete insulation from the much more onerous strict liability to which they had been exposed previously in actions for breach of the warranty of seaworthiness.
Fourth, Congress may well have envisioned different duties of care for single capacity and dual capacity employers. Unlike their single capacity counterparts, dual capacity vessel owners presumably derive economic benefit as a result of their decision to act in a dual capacity. In fact, this economic benefit itself may well counterbalance any “heightened” duty of care attending their decision.
*620A shipowner is, of course, at liberty to refrain from hiring an independent steve-doring contractor. Presumably it does so to save money. However, that saving is accomplished at the cost of not having an independent expert on board. As myriad cases in this field demonstrate, the presence of the expert independent stevedoring contractor furnishes the shipowner with significant protection, in the form of insulation from liability for its own acts which would otherwise attach. But the shipowner cannot save the premium and still claim the protection.
Fanetti, 678 F.2d at 428 (emphasis added).
Indeed, permitting the dual capacity employer to compartmentalize its actual “knowledge” between its two artificial personae in these circumstances would undercut the primary LHWCA policy goal identified in Scin-dia. That is to say, there would be no economic incentive for shipowner-employers to hire independent stevedoring companies, which generally possess greater expertise in conducting longshoring activities with maximum levels of worker safety. Such an artificial rule inevitably would increase the hazardous working conditions encountered by longshore and harbor workers, and thereby undermine the spirit of the LHWCA.
Fifth, the en banc court’s bifurcation fiction obviates any factfinding inquiry into the “dual capacity” employer’s actual mode of operations. Under either Fanetti or Levene, single and dual capacity employers are subject to the “same” standards of care; the differences are purely circumstantial. The Scindia paradigm recognizes that a single capacity vessel owner is subject to comparatively relaxed duties of care because it forfeits virtually all control over ensuing events once it turns its vessel over to another legal entity (and that entity’s employees) in relation to which the vessel owner enjoys no presumptive right of control absent specific contractual arrangements to the contrary.
On the other hand, as a general rule the notice or knowledge — as well as the foreseeability — attributable to a dual capacity employer will be greater simply because a vessel owner which hires its own longshore or harbor workers does not in fact “turn over” its vessel to a separate entity. Rather, the dual capacity employer remains in control— at least to some extent (both in time and space) — and often remains in total control of the entire vessel and its appurtenances throughout the relevant time period. Thus, the fuller range of knowledge and foreseeability normally accompanying constant and total control represents a compelling reason for broader accountability on the part of the dual capacity employer, consistent with general tort principles, see, e.g., Illinois Constructors Corp. v. Logan Transp., Inc., 715 F.Supp. 872, 882 n. 22 (N.D.Ill.1989) (agent’s knowledge is imputable to principal, exposing principal to direct liability in tort); People v. American Medical Ctrs. of Michigan, Ltd., 118 Mich.App. 135, 324 N.W.2d 782, 783 (1982) (same), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1009, 104 S.Ct. 529, 78 L.Ed.2d 711 (1983); Allen v. Prudential Property & Cas. Ins. Co., 839 P.2d 798, 806 (Utah 1992) (same).
Even a single capacity employer owner must shoulder the ongoing duty to intervene as necessary to correct hazardous conditions in any part of the vessel remaining within its control, as well as when it acquires actual knowledge of a developing hazard posed by the vessel’s appurtenances (e.g:, an open deck hatch or a leaking powerpack), and knows that the independent stevedore’s failure to remedy the hazard is plainly improvident. See Keller, 38 F.3d at 32; cf. also Melanson v. Caribou Reefers, Ltd., 667 F.2d 213, 214 (1st Cir.1981) (noting that Scindia’s “obviously improvident” standard of care generally pertains only to hazards developing in vessel’s gear, rather than nonappurtenanees like cargo). By the opposite token, however, what can it matter whether a dual capacity employer knows, as it surely does, that its decision qua independent stevedore not to eliminate a known hazard is or is not improvident? After all, a vessel can exercise control, and acquire knowledge, only through its owner and crew, 33 U.S.C. § 902(21) (“vessel” includes “agents” and “crew members”), and in single capacity cases the control exercised and the knowledge acquired by these agents normally must be imputed to the ves*621sel.5 The apology for the dual capacity fietion might be more compelling were there some reality-based indication as to when the markedly different responsibilities incumbent upon dual capacity employers become engaged. But this is simply not the case, of course. Even the determinative one-time “turn over” in a single capacity ease, which brings about a clearly distinguishable realignment of responsibilities in keeping with the change in control, bears no relevance in the dual capacity case. In the Jamestown Bridge construction project, for example, the control and use of some vessels, or discrete areas of various vessels, frequently alternated between an employer’s vessel-operating employees and its construction employees.6 Clearly, then, the dual capacity fiction presumes circumstantial settings which overlook the actual facts in many if not most cases.
At best, therefore, the Castorina fiction devolves into a metaphysical exercise, at worst into an inducement to dual capacity employers to perpetuate hazardous conditions within their exclusive control. See Fanetti, 678 F.2d at 428. Furthermore, it runs directly counter to the clear statement of congressional intent in the LHWCA legislative history; viz., that the “same principles [i.e., the Scindia duties of care] should apply in determining the liability of the vessel” in both single capacity and dual capacity eases. See H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441.
Sixth, the mere fact that the 92d Congress reduced the tort liability exposure of LHWCA employers in certain respects does not permit the extrapolation indulged by the en banc court; viz., Congress must have intended to accord employers the maximum protection from negligence liability regardless of any actual differences in their respective levels of knowledge about, or capacities to control, the workplace. In so doing, the en banc court gives little recognition to the one presumptive principle of statutory interpretation plainly applicable here: the LHWCA “must be liberally construed in conformance with its purpose, and in a way which avoids harsh and incongruous results.” Reed, 373 U.S. at 415, 83 S.Ct. at 1353 (emphasis added). See Voris v. Eikel, 346 U.S. 328, 333, 74 S.Ct. 88, 91-92, 98 L.Ed. 5 (1953); see also Hogar Agua y Vida en el Desierto v. Suarez-Medina, 36 F.3d 177, 181 (1st Cir.1994) (remedial statutes are to be broadly construed).7 Consistent with this *622presumptive interpretation, unless dual capacity employers like A-K demonstrate some legislative purpose behind the LHWCA that is either served by Castorina or disserved by Fanetti, the benefit of the doubt would belong to the plaintiff-employee.8
Ill
Absent controlling precedent or conclusive evidence of congressional intent, we must determine the particular duties of care to be borne by the dual capacity employer. See Scindia, 451 U.S. at 165-66, 167, 101 S.Ct. at 1621, 1622 (“Section 905(b) did not specify the acts or omissions of the vessel that would constitute negligence.... Much was left to be resolved through the ‘application of accepted principles of tort law and the ordinary process of litigation.’”) (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441, 92nd Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 7, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 4698, 4704). Since legal fictions often overlook relevant realities in order to promote some greater systemic benefit, in my view a finding of dual capacity should be the exception, not the presumptive rule.9
Neither the Congress nor the Scindia Court could have foreseen the recent, fast-paced evolution in maritime construction practices which has exacerbated the instant controversy. Ultimately, therefore, the Congress or the Supreme Court must provide a definitive response to the present conundrum. Until then, however, “the rights of an injured longshoreman ... should not depend on whether he was employed directly by the vessel or by an independent contractor.” Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 532, 103 S.Ct. at 2548.
It is for very good reason that the LHWCA did not invite the courts simply to presume an adequate segregation of the workplace-safety responsibilities incumbent upon maritime employers under the LHWCA, based merely on some informal or de facto bifurcation of its vessel-owner and construction operations. Such a presumption would allow, even encourage, dual capacity employer operations to lapse into the types of tacit work arrangements which place employees at unnecessary risk; for example, *623where few workers, if any, understand which of their dual capacity employer’s alter egos is ultimately responsible, through its own employees, for monitoring, reporting and/or remedying developing hazards.
At most, therefore, bifurcation should be available as an affirmative defense, as to which the putative dual capacity employer bears the burden of proof. Scindia noted that the vessel owner may surrender and entrust a discrete work area to a single capacity employer because the latter presumptively possesses not only the hands-on opportunity to monitor vessel workplace conditions, but also the required expertise in supervising workplace safety. See Keller, 38 F.3d at 29-30. On the other hand, since a dual capacity employer may or may not actually consign its workplace safety responsibilities to its “construction division,” its bifurcation defense should not be allowed if, for instance, the dual capacity employer withheld such responsibilities from its construction division ab initio, or delegated them without the clarity and authority reasonably required to enable their reliable discharge. Cf. id. at 32 (“a post-‘turnover’ duty may arise if the vessel owner was obligated, by contract, statute or custom, to monitor stevedoring operations for the purpose of detecting and remedying unsafe conditions”). For example, the slipshod arrangements in place in the companion eases now before the en banc court were of a type that could do nothing to encourage, let alone develop, the expertise necessary to enable a dual capacity employer’s “construction division” reliably to discharge its delegated workplace-safety responsibilities along the lines touted in Scin-dia.
Consequently, in my view the first step in establishing the actual bifurcation needed to sustain a dual-capacity employer’s affirmative defense would be to demonstrate, either through an express delegation of responsibility, or by way of an implied delegation based, for example, on evidence that the dual capacity employer’s on-site construction division supervisors customarily made workplace safety decisions of a type and magnitude adequate to indicate that reasonably reliable prophylactic measures would be undertaken to prevent workplace mishaps of the sort experienced by the plaintiff-employee.
Secondly, once a dual capacity employer has made the prima facie showing that primary responsibility for workplace safety had been adequately delegated to its “construction division,” the Scindia rationale would contemplate that the injury sustained by the plaintiff-employee have occurred in a workplace area not under the “active control” of the dual capacity employer’s “vessel division” (or its vessel crew) during any appreciable pre-injury period after the hazardous condition first developed. See Scindia, 451 U.S. at 167, 101 S.Ct. at 1622 (noting that vessel may be liable for its negligent conduct “in areas ... under the active control of the vessel during the stevedoring operations”); Fanetti, 678 F.2d at 429 (noting that the 1972 LHWCA amendments “neither expressly nor implicitly purport[ ] to overrule or modify the traditional rule that the longshoreman may recover the total amount of his damages from the vessel if the latter’s negligence is a contributing cause of his injury, even if the stevedore, whose limited liability is fixed by statute, is partly to blame”) (quoting Edmonds v. Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 443 U.S. 256, 264, 99 S.Ct. 2753, 2758, 61 L.Ed.2d 521 (1979)).
The rationale for such a requirement seems unimpeachable: an employer may not use the dual capacity fiction to circumvent LHWCA tort liability by artificially compartmentalizing its actual knowledge. Id. at 430 (“[Rjequiring trial judges to give juries instructions about the shipowner’s right to rely upon an expert contractor who, in fact, was not there ... is schizophrenic and the predictable effect upon the jury one of bafflement.”). Since dual capacity employers that utilize vessels to perform their maritime construction activities may never engage in a one-time turnover of any discrete area of the vessel (as would the single capacity vessel owner in the more traditional stevedoring context), a rational factfinder reasonably could conclude that the area within which the hazardous condition developed had been jointly or interchangeably used by the dual capacity employer’s vessel division and its construction division employees to such an *624extent that the dual capacity employer had never surrendered “active control” of the injury site to its construction “division.” Thus, were there to be a remand in this ease, the record might enable a reasonable finding that agents of A-K’s “construction division” exclusively and continuously controlled the barge from the time the hazardous condition first developed until a few days later when Morehead fell into the open hatch.
Once a dual capacity employer satisfies the two aforementioned components in its burden of proof, tort liability could not be imposed absent showings by the plaintiff-employee that the employer had acquired (i) actual knowledge of the developing hazard in an area no longer within the employer’s “active control” and (ii) notice that the failure of its construction division to remedy the hazard was “obviously improvident.” Scindia, 451 U.S. at 174-75, 101 S.Ct. at 1625-26. Thus, the dual capacity employer would remain responsible for monitoring all areas of the vessel for developing hazards, even though it is allowed to rely upon its construction division, in the first instance, to remedy hazards within areas under the “active control” of its construction division.
Actual knowledge of a developing hazard normally would be imputed to a corporate dual capacity employer if its agents or employees acquired actual knowledge of the developing hazard. Under the “obviously improvident” standard, liability also could be imputed to the dual capacity employer based on extrinsic evidence as to the obviousness of the developing hazard and the length of time it remained unremedied.
Although the “obviously improvident” standard imported from Scindia entails a lesser duty of care than the “reasonable care” required for actionable negligence, it nonetheless serves to diminish the grave risk that virtually any perfunctory designation of employees as “vessel-owner” workers may allow a dual capacity employer to shield itself from all tort liability. Thus, on remand the record in the present case might enable a finding that the decision not to close the open hatch for a few days was not “obviously improvident” even assuming responsibility for the decision were to be imputed to A-K. Cf. Scindia, 451 U.S. at 175, 178-79, 101 S.Ct. at 1626, 1627-28 (noting genuine factual dispute whether vessel owner was liable because it knew that stevedore’s decision not to fix defective winch for two days had been obviously improvident, and remanding for further factual findings). In both cases before the en banc court, however, the district court decisions were made in reliance on the Casto-rina standard for defining the duties of care incumbent upon dual capacity employers. Since the ultimate findings — as to whether breaches of the applicable duty of care occurred — necessarily were dependent upon how those duties were defined, I would remand the A-K case for further proceedings and/or specific factual findings on the defendant employer’s affirmative defense of bifurcation.

. The full House Report exceipt states:
The Committee has also recognized the need for special provisions to deal with a case where a longshoreman or ship builder or repairman is employed directly by the vessel. In such case, notwithstanding the fact that the vessel is the employer, the Supreme Court, in Reed v. S.S. Yaka, 373 U.S. 410, 83 S.Ct. 1349, 10 L.Ed.2d 448 (1963), and Jackson v. Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., 386 U.S. [731, 87 S.Ct. 1419, 18 L.Ed.2d 488] (1967), held that the unseaworthiness remedy is available to the injured employee. The Committee believes that the rights of an injured longshoreman or ship builder or repairman should not depend on whether he is employed directly by the vessel or by an independent contractor. Accordingly, the bill provides in the case of a longshoreman who is employed directly by the vessel there will be no action for damages if the injury was caused by the negligence of persons engaged in performing longshoring services. Similar provisions are applicable to shipbuilding or repair employees employed directly by the vessel. The Committee’s intent is that the same principles should apply in determining liability of the vessel which employs its own longshoremen or ship builders or repairmen as apply when an independent contractor employs such persons.
H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. 7-8, reprinted in 1972 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 4698, 4705 (emphasis added).

. Longshoreman Pfeifer had slipped and fallen while on board a barge owned by his employer, which had "negligently failed to remove [ice] from the gunnels.” Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 526, 103 S.Ct. at 2544-45.

. The en banc court notes that the Fanetti panel need not have announced so broad a statement of the duties incumbent upon dual capacity employers. See supra note 14 (en banc opinion). In my view, this overlooks the purposes served by such statements: first, to explicate the court's rationale through reference to potential anomalies and inequities which might otherwise be thought to undermine its rationale; second, to provide guidance on remand. See, e.g., Scindia, 451 U.S. at 156, 101 S.Ct. at 1616 (setting forth complete explication of duties of care for remand, some arguably inapposite to record facts). No Supreme Court or Second Circuit case either explicitly or implicitly overrules Fanetti. Cf. Guilles, 12 F.3d at 387 (citing Levene only for the limited proposition that non-longshore workers not specifically barred by the 1984 LHWCA amendments — like harbor workers — may bring suit against their dual capacity employers under the Jones & Laughlin reasoning); cf. also supra Section VI (en banc opinion).

. Many states do recognize a dual capacity doctrine — though in circumstances inapposite here — where the employer acts in a non-landowner capacity. For example, a worker injured by a product manufactured by the employer would not be barred from bringing a product liability claim for breach of the duty — owed the consuming public — to make a reasonably safe product. See, e.g., Schump v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 44 Ohio St.3d 148, 541 N.E.2d 1040, 1042-43 (1989).

. Indeed, the following language from the House Report severely undercuts the statutory interpretation proposed by the en banc court:
[NQothing in the [LHWCA] is intended to derogate from the vessel’s responsibilfr to take appropriate corrective action where it knows or should have known about a dangerous condition.
So, for example, where the longshoreman slips on an oil spill on a vessel's deck and is injured, the proposed amendments to Section 5 would still permit an action against the vessel for negligence. To recover, he must establish that: (1) the vessel put a foreign substance on the deck, or knew that it was there, and willfully or negligently failed to remove it; or (2) the foreign substance had been on the deck for such a period of time that it should have been discovered and removed by the vessel in the exercise of reasonable care under the circumstances.
H.R.Rep. No. 92-1441, 92nd Cong. 2nd Sess. p. 7, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 4698, 4704 (emphasis added).

. For example, in the companion en banc case, the employer, Traylor Brothers, Inc., was required to use the BETTY F and the supply barge, alternately, as a means of transporting the crane, its operating employees and supplies to the designated work sites on Narragansett Bay or as an instrumentality for constructing the coffer dams. Sometimes, in fact, it appears that these discrete operating modes either merged or alternated with such frequency that it could not be ascertained with any confidence, even on the date of the accident, whether the Traylor Brothers’ supply barge crew, or its construction team "alter ego," had custody and control of the deck of the supply barge. Cf. Masinter v. Tenneco Oil Co., 867 F.2d 892 (5th Cir.1989) (noting that "the present case does not involve a vessel owner ‘turning over' the control of a vessel to a stevedore or independent contractor. Rather, [the vessel owner] was contractually bound to conduct the drilling operations and remained in control of the vessel to effectuate this obligation.").

.Generally, this interpretive rule operates to bring injured maritime workers within the workers' compensation scheme in circumstances where § 904 is ambiguous. Insofar as maritime workers are deprived of other common law remedies under § 905(a), a liberal interpretation is not invariably synonymous with one that is "favorable" in fact to maritime workers. In Reed, 373 U.S. 410, 83 S.Ct. 1349, 10 L.Ed.2d 448 (1963), and Jackson, 386 U.S. 731, 87 S.Ct. 1419, 18 L.Ed.2d 488 (1967), however, the Court made clear that this interpretive rule may be *622used to expand a covered worker’s adjunct remedies under the LHWCA, beyond the remedy directly afforded under § 904. The legislative history of the 1972 LHWCA amendments questions Reed, but only regarding the continued availability of the "unseaworthiness” remedy against dual capacity employers, see supra note 1, leaving undisturbed Reed's pro-employee interpretive presumption in the face of other unresolvable statutory ambiguities.

. I share the common-sense assessment advanced in the concurring opinion, see supra, that the dual capacity fiction is unnecessarily cumbersome, but cannot agree that Congress intended, or the Jones & Laughlin Court should have held, that all tort suits against dual capacity employers were barred outright. First, the unambiguous second sentence in § 905(b) (“If such person was employed by the vessel to provide stevedoring services, no such action shall be permitted if the injury was caused by the negligence of persons engaged in providing stevedoring services to the vessel.”) prevented any such interpretation by the Court. By expressly restricting the permissible scope of such suits, this language unmistakably implies that there is no such outright bar of negligence suits by employees against their dual capacity employers. See Jones & Laughlin, 462 U.S. at 530-31, 103 S.Ct. at 2547-48. Second, the concurring opinion suggests that the 92d Congress unintentionally created the present muddle in 1972, then surmises that Congress nonetheless intended the exclusivity provision as a total bar to dual capacity suits. Be that as it may, Congress amended the LHWCA in 1984, one year after the Jones & Laughlin decision, and enacted outright bars relating only to particular classes of dual capacity employers (e.g., shipbuilders). See, e.g., Guilles, 12 F.3d at 386. Thus, Congress had the opportunity in 1984 to overturn the Jones & Laughlin decision in its entirety, yet chose to overrule it only in part. Consequently, a congressional intendment that some dual capacity employers are subject to suit under section 905 seems to me to be settled beyond serious question.

. See Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 92, 55 S.Ct. 50, 53-54, 79 L.Ed. 211 (1934) ("[Ljegal fictions have an appropriate place in the administration of the law when they are required by the demands of convenience and justice.”); Pettibone Corp. v. Easley, 935 F.2d 120, 123 (7th Cir.1991) ("Even legal fictions have their limits.”); Cruz v. Chesapeake Shipping, Inc., 932 F.2d 218, 227-28 (3d Cir.1991) (noting that maritime law creates legal fictions “for [] practical operational reasons”); United States v. Markgraf, 736 F.2d 1179, 1187 (7th Cir.1984) ("[F]or more than 200 years we have been told that the proper office of legal fictions is to prevent, rather than to create, injustices.”) (citing 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 43 (1768)), cert. dismissed, 469 U.S. 1199, 105 S.Ct. 1154, 84 L.Ed.2d 308 (1985).