Court Opinion

ID: 9490258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:37:46.995219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:58.998487
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
While I agree with the majority that Hurston was not engaged in maritime employment at the time of his injury, I do not agree that Hurston’s past record of maritime employment can transmute his entitlement to state worker’s compensation into a federal entitlement to Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Act benefits.
Suppose two construction workers are hired to do exactly the same non-maritime job together, Hurston’s job, which we are told is “pile driver to repair and replace sheet piling on an oil processing platform.” Assume that, as in the case at bar, a load is accidentally dropped on them as they work side by side, injuring them both to the same extent. If one used to be a diver and hopes to be again, like Hurston, and the other has always been a sheet pile driver, then under the decision announced today, they get different benefits. The worker who used to be a diver gets higher compensation under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act), the life-long sheet *1034pile driver gets lower compensation under the state workers compensation law. That is not fair. We err in so construing the statute. Congress did not create an aristocracy of labor, so that long-time maritime workers would be compensated more amply than others, even when hired for non-maritime employment, keeping their superior status while between maritime jobs.
The word “engaged” is used in the statute in a context which plainly shows its relationship to the word “employed”:
The term ‘employee’ means any person engaged in maritime employment, including any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations, and any harbor-worker including a ship repairman, shipbuilder, and ship-breaker, but such term does not include
(A) individuals employed exclusively to perform____
(B) individuals employed by____
(C) individuals employed, by____
(D) individuals who (i) are employed by ____(ii) are temporarily doing business on the premises .... and (iii) are not engaged in work....
(H) any person engaged____
33 U.S.C. § 902(3) (emphasis added).
The words “engaged” and “employed” in this statute appear to be used conventionally, to mean what they ordinarily do. The Act says “the term ‘employee’ means any person engaged in maritime employment.” 33 U.S.C. § 902 (emphasis added). The word “engaged” means, in the context of employment, “employed, occupied, or busy.” American Heritage Dictionary 454 (2d Coll. ed.1985). It is a form of the word “engage,” which means, in the employment context, “to obtain or contract for the services of; employ.” Id. Thus the words in the statute cover a person who is employed, occupied or busy in the performance of maritime duties, or one whose services have been obtained for the performance of maritime duties.
In some cases, described below, there is a significant distinction between the work one was engaged for, i.e., employed for, and the work he is engaged in at the time of the accident. A person might be engaged for maritime work, but engaged in non-maritime work at the time of the accident, or viceversa. That distinction gives rise to the problem solved by Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S.Ct. 2348, 53 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977). But the problem does not arise in this case. The majority concedes that Hurston was employed to do a non-maritime job, and was engaged in the non-maritime work for which he was hired at the time of the accident.
The statutory usage is no different from the way we ordinarily talk. Suppose a man who has been a lawyer all his life, but enjoys photography, takes a sabbatical by going to work as an assistant to an architectural photographer for six months. He will say of himself “I am a lawyer,” but he will also say “I am currently engaged in architectural photography, having been employed for that purpose.” He will not say “I am currently engaged in the practice of law.” Hurston, the diver engaged in construction work, is analogous to this lawyer. For Hurston to be analogous to the covered employee in Northeast Marine Terminal, we can change the hypothetical to a lawyer working for an insurance defense law firm, who is going out to look at an accident site, and whose supervising partner tells him to take a picture of it. This picture-taking lawyer would be analogous to Northeastern. Though at the moment he snaps the picture, he is not writing briefs or arguing in court, he will still say “I am engaged in the practice of law.” “[T]he crucial factor is the nature of the activity to which a worker may be assigned.” P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 82, 100 S.Ct. 328, 337, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979).
The Act covers people who are engaged in maritime work. That is what it says. It does not cover people who have been engaged in maritime work during other employments, but not in their current employment. The phrase “engaged in maritime employment” is a limitation on coverage which means that it does not. The subtlety when one’s current job involves both maritime and non-maritime work is missing from Hurston’s case. Hurston was not “engaged *1035in” maritime work, nor was he employed to do any maritime work during this employment. Because the word “engaged” is not ambiguous in this case, we have no reason to scour legislative history (which offers no more support for today’s construction than the statutory language). Nor can we properly defer to an administrative agency which may be dissatisfied with the limitations Congress has placed on its jurisdiction.
As the majority concedes, no precedent requires the result reached in this decision— the question is one of first impression. I will concede that no precedent plainly requires the result I suggest either. Perhaps no one has before suggested to an appellate court that one who used to be a maritime worker, but was employed for and engaged in non-maritime work when injured, would be covered under the Act just as though he had been engaged in maritime work. It has long been understood that the “maritime employment” test was “an occupational test that focuses on loading and unloading.” P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 80,100 S.Ct. 328, 336, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979). “[Pjersons who are on the situs but are not engaged in the overall process of loading and unloading vessels are not covered.” Northeast Marine Terminal v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 267, 97 S.Ct. 2348, 2359, 53 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977). That is why a welder on an offshore oil drilling platform was held not to be covered in Herb’s Welding, Inc. v. Gray, 470 U.S. 414, 105 S.Ct. 1421, 84 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985). “Congress did not seek to cover all those who breathe salt air.” Id. at 423, 105 S.Ct. at 1427.
The majority misunderstands the Congressional concern, reflected in the 1972 amendments, that one should not walk in and out of coverage. As Northeast Marine Terminal, Herb’s Welding, and P.C. Pfeiffer, make clear, this is a concern about longshoremen, people who load and unload vessels. Longshoremen are not supposed to walk out of their coverage under the Act when they carry their loads off the gangplank or dock, or when they unload containers unsealed on the wharf. In Northeast Marine Terminal, both claimants were hired to do maritime jobs. One was engaged to check and mark items as they were unloaded. The Court said this was traditional longshoreman’s work moved shoreward by containerization. The other was hired as a member of a stevedoring gang to transfer cargo, so his tasks would be both on vessels and on land. It was that it was fortuitous and unfair “to exclude him from the Act’s coverage in the morning but include him in the afternoon,” id. at 274, 97 S.Ct. at 2362-63, while he was performing the same contractual engagement for the same employer doing the traditional longshoreman’s maritime job of loading and unloading. The 1972 amendments made it clear that if a person was hired to unload a vessel, he did not have coverage under one act when he picked up his load on board, and another when he put it down in a truck on shore.
There was nothing fortuitous or unfair about Hurston being covered by workers compensation rather than the Act. He knew when he took the job that he would be doing construction, not maritime work. He was between diving jobs. The claimants in Northeastern were hired to work as longshoremen. Hurston was not hired to do his usual maritime work, diving, and he knew from the moment of his hire that on this job he was not being engaged as a diver. There was no danger of his diving in and out of coverage, because he was not going to do any diving at all.
There are no cases which hold that a person with a maritime career, between maritime jobs, can collect benefits under the Act if engaged at a maritime situs for non-maritime work. P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 100 S.Ct. 328, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979), holds that the status and situs tests are independent, and “workers doing tasks traditionally performed by longshoremen are within the purview of the 1972 Act.” Id. at 82, 100 S.Ct. at 337. Schwabenland v. Sanger Boats, 683 F.2d 309 (9th Cir.1982), involved an employee hired to perform maritime and non-maritime work in his job, hurt when his boat tipped over; we held that his “regular performance of maritime operations” (on this job, not prior jobs as in the ease at bar) established coverage. Papai v. Harbor Tug and Barge Co., 67 F.3d 203 (9th Cir.1995), is a Jones Act case involving a man hurt while *1036painting a tugboat; his entitlement to Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act benefits was not at issue. Texports Stevedore Co. v. Winchester, 632 F.2d 504 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc), is a situs case; no question of whether the worker was engaged in maritime work was before the court.
The majority opinion correctly points out that Hurston was hired out of a maritime union hall. His employer had some notice that Hurston’s career probably included past maritime employment. But P.C. Pfeiffer expressly rejects the suggestion that “the scope of maritime employment depends upon the vagaries of union jurisdiction.” P.C. Pfeiffer, 444 U.S. at 82, 100 S.Ct. at 337. Under P.C. Pfeiffer, the fact that Hurston was hired out of a maritime hall cannot make his employment maritime.
The practical consequences of today’s decision are worrisome. Giving Hurston coverage under the Act because he was hired out of the maritime union hall can have the unfortunate practical effect of discouraging employers from hiring out of the hall for non-maritime work. We have also created a trap for the unwary employer who does not explore the work history of someone he hires. For sophisticated employers, who are advised by counsel of today’s decision, we have created a reason to discriminate against maritime workers who apply for non-maritime jobs. As a result of today’s decision, sophisticated employers hiring for non-maritime work at a maritime situs may ask “Have you ever done maritime work?” and if the answer is “Yes,” refuse to hire them so long as employees without maritime work histories are available. Our decision establishing career maritime workers as an aristocracy of labor for purposes of compensation for injuries makes them less desirable hires for non-maritime work.