Court Opinion

ID: 9479145
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:09:42.494537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:51.301988
License: Public Domain

DUHE, Circuit Judge,
with whom POLITZ and JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
For the reasons set out in the panel opinion, Mills v. Director, O.W.C.P., U.S. Dept. of Labor, 846 F.2d 1013 (5th Cir.1988), and those which follow, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s determination that 43 U.S.C. § 1333(b) contains a situs requirement.
In interpreting § 1333(b), we must first look to its plain language in order to determine whether Congress intended that it cover off-shelf injuries. See Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 106 S.Ct. 2485, 2495, 91 L.Ed.2d 174 (1986); U.S. v. Leonard, 868 F.2d 1393, 1395 (5th Cir.1989) (citing United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 580, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 2527, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981)). “If the statutory language is unambiguous, in the absence of a ‘clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.’ ” Id.
Section 1333(b) is not ambiguous in its lack of a situs requirement. By extending coverage to employees “injured as the result of operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf for the purpose of ... developing ... the natural resources ... of the [OCS]” (emphasis added), Congress did not limit coverage to injuries occurring on the shelf itself. The majority finds that existence of an explicit geographical limitation in other § 1333 subsections justifies inclusion of such limitation in subsection (b). I find its absence in subsection (b) argues more strongly for the opposite result. See U.S. v. West of England Ship Owner’s Mut. Prot., 872 F.2d 1192, 1196 *363(1989) (court will not read in negligence standard to § 1321(f)(1) of Federal Water Pollution Control Act when Congress expressly used term “negligent” in other parts of § 1321). Certainly, Congress knows how to include a situs requirement in a statute when it intends that such a requirement should exist.1 See, e.g., Long-shore and Harbor Workers Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 903(a) (applies to “injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States ...”) (emphasis added).
Finding no ambiguity in the language of § 1333(b), I believe that the majority erroneously relies on legislative history to find a situs requirement. Courts are bound to give effect to the literal meaning of a statute without consulting other indicia of intent or meaning when the meaning of the statutory text itself is unambiguous. 2A N. Singer, Sutherland Stat. Const. 86-87 (4th Ed.1984) (citations omitted).
Nevertheless, when legislative history is examined in an attempt to discern legislative intent it must be used with great caution. United States v. Smith, 795 F.2d 841 (9th Cir.1986); cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1032, 107 S.Ct. 1964, 95 L.Ed.2d 535 (1987). Mr. Justice Scalia concurring in Blanchard v. Bergeron, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 939, 103 L.Ed.2d 67 (1989) warned against according legislative force to committee reports as follows:
It is neither compatible with our judicial responsibility of assuring reasoned, consistent and effective application of the statutes of the United States, nor conducive to a genuine effectuation of congressional intent, to give legislative force to each snippet of analysis, and even every case citation, in committee reports that are increasingly unreliable evidence of what the voting Members of Congress actually had in mind.
Even if it is conceded, as the majority holds, that § 1333(b) standing alone is not absolutely clear, the isolated passages from the legislative history relied on by the majority do not amount to a contrary clearly expressed legislative intent. See Curtis v. Schlumberger Offshore Service, Inc., 849 F.2d 805, 809 (3rd Cir.1988) (legislative history not helpful). For example, in the slant drilling hypothetical referred to by the majority, even if the Senate Committee believed that OCS drilling from state territorial waters would be covered by state law, that does not exclude the possibility of the co-applicability of the LHWCA and state compensation law to workers involved in constructing rigs bound for the OCS. See Sun Ship Inc. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al., 447 U.S. 715, 100 S.Ct. 2432, 65 L.Ed.2d 458 (1980) (LHWCA contemplates federal and state concurrent jurisdiction); Thompson v. Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc., 419 So.2d 822 (La.1982) (in Louisiana, state and federal compensation schemes are complimentary). Equally as plausible as the majority’s position that Congress meant to exclude shoreside workers from coverage is a conclusion that Congress intended to provide workers such as Mills the “very favorable” compensation remedy of the LHWCA irrespective of the concurrent applicability of state compensation laws. See Outer Continental Shelf: Hearings on S-1901 before Senate Comm, on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. 32 (1953).
Our jurisprudence applying § 1333(b) to injuries occurring “as a result of” operations on the OCS has been developing since 1973. In Nations v. Morris, 483 F.2d 577 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1071, 94 S.Ct. 584, 38 L.Ed.2d 477 (1973), we said:
OCSLA, in its incorporation of [the LHWCA], did not speak in terms of injuries occurring on such platforms so as to distinguish them from those off the platforms. The incorporation, § 1333(c), ... refers to “operations described in subsection (b)_” Obviously Congress purposefully established a system that would apply without regard to physical location.
*364Id. at 584. In the House Conference Report on the 1978 amendments to § 1383(b), Congress stated that “[t]his amendment involves no change in existing law. It was not the intent ... to alter in any way the existing coverage of the Longshoremen’s Act, nor of other remedies ... for injuries or death.” Curtis, 849 F.2d at 809 (citing House Conference Report at 81; 1978 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News at 1680). Congress may or may not have been aware of the developing case law surrounding § 1333(b); nevertheless, the amendments failed to address our expansive reading of the statute. Id.
It may well be true that when the purpose of § 1333(b) as seen by the majority is considered, the statute may have been more broadly drawn than it should have been. However, correction of that situation, if indeed it exists, is a legislative matter, not a judicial one. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
RUBIN and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, dissent for the reasons set forth in the panel opinion, 846 F.2d 1013.

. In order to include a situs requirement, Congress could have written § 1333(b) to cover "disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury occurring on the outer Continental Shelf ...” or "... disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury occurring on the outer Continental Shelf as a result of operations conducted on the Shelf_”