Court Opinion

ID: 9421740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:37.217309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:32.037324
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins, dissenting.
This case poses a difficult and important issue of first impression. The Court decides it, I think, incorrectly.
*274The petitioner was injured while working on a barge in navigable waters within the State of Oregon. The respondent employer had secured payment of compensation under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq., but had elected not to be covered by the Oregon Workmen’s Compensation Law, Ore. Rev. Stat.. § 656.002 et seq. Compensation benefits under the federal statute were clearly available at all times to the petitioner. Instead of accepting these benefits, however, he brought an action for personal injuries in an Oregon state court, the Oregon statute permitting such an action against an employer not participating in the state workmen’s compensation plan.1
The trial court entered judgment for the employer, notwithstanding a jury award in the petitioner’s favor, and the judgment was affirmed by the Oregon Supreme Court, which held that the petitioner’s sole remedy was under the federal statute. 214 Ore. 1, 320 P. 2d 668. It is that decision which is today reversed.
The creation in Davis v. Department of Labor of a “twilight zone” was a practical solution to a practical problem, a problem stemming from Southern Pacific Go. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, and one which 25 years of post-Jensen history had failed to solve. The problem was how to assure to injured waterfront employees the simple, prompt, and certain protection of workmen’s compensation which Congress had clearly intended to give in enacting the federal statute. See 317 U. S., at 254. The Davis decision in effect told the injured employee that in a doubtful case he would be assured of workmen’s compensation whether he proceeded under a state workmen’s compensation act or the federal statute. See Moores’s *275Case, 323 Mass. 162, 80 N. E. 2d 478, aff’d per curiam, sub nom. Bethlehem Steel Co. v. Moores, 335 U. S. 874.
Even accepting the premise that the circumstances surrounding Hahn’s accident brought it within the twilight zone, no one had supposed until today that either Davis or the federal statute allowed an employee to spurn federal compensation and submit his claim to a state court jury.2 Chappell v. C. D. Johnson Lumber Corp., 112 F. Supp. 625, reversed on other grounds, 216 F. 2d 873.
In the interest of a clear legislative purpose to provide the certainty and security of workmen’s compensation, the “illogic” of a twilight zone was permitted.3 Such illogic should not be utilized to frustrate that very purpose. I would affirm the judgment.

The employer in such a case is deprived of the traditional common-law defenses. Ore. Rev. Stat. § 656.024.

 The pertinent provision of 33 U. S. C. §903 (a) is as follows: “(a) Compensation shall be payable under this chapter in respect of disability or death of an employee, but only if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any dry dock) and if recovery for the disability or death through workmen’s compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law.” (Emphasis added.)

 The twilight zone and its background have been much criticized and discussed. For summaries, see Gilmore and Black, The Law of Admiralty (1957), §6-48; 2 Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation (1952), §89.00 et seq.; Rodes, Workmen’s Compensation for Maritime Employees: Obscurity in the Twilight Zone, 68 Harv. L. Rev. 637 (1955).