Court Opinion

ID: 9565891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:29:42.953787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:51.496192
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
dissenting.
I.
Assuming the court’s conclusion is correct, state employed maritime workers
*112stand to recover more than state employed land-based workers who suffer the same injury in a virtually identical accident. If the court is wrong, then state employed maritime workers stand to recover less than their privately employed counterparts. Thus, under either result, inequities are inevitable. However, traditional methods of statutory analysis lead to the conclusion that sovereign immunity was retained as to Jones Act suits.
The doctrine of sovereign immunity bars Jones Act suits for damages by injured state employees in state court, absent a waiver of immunity. Gross v. Washington State Ferries, 59 Wash.2d 241, 367 P.2d 600, 602 (1961); Maloney v. State, 3 N.Y.2d 356, 165 N.Y.S.2d 465, 144 N.E.2d 364, 365 (1957); Lyons v. Texas A & M Univ., 545 S.W.2d 56, 58 (Tex.Civ.App.1977).1
The Claims Against the State Act (CAT-SA), AS 09.50.250, provides that “[a] person ... having a ... tort claim against the state may bring an action against the state in the superior court.” Jones Act claims sound in tort. See Collins v. State, 823 F.2d 329, 332 (9th Cir.1987) (CATSA does not waive Alaska’s immunity from Jones Act suit in federal court). The Alaska Workers Compensation Act (AWCA), on the other hand, provides that the “liability of an employer [within this act] is exclusive and in place of all other liability of the employer ... at law or in admiralty....” “Employer” as defined includes the state. AS 23.30.265(13). Should this language be given its plain meaning, Brown would be entitled to the worker’s compensation he has received and no more.
The exclusive liability provision of AWCA, beginning in 1949, provided the exclusive remedy against the territory as an employer in lieu of claims “now existing at common law or otherwise.” § 43-3-10 ACLA (1949); § 43-3-38 ACLA (1949). This was followed by a broad, general enactment providing relief to persons with “any claim” against the territory. § 56-7-1 ACLA (Supp.1957). This enactment did not explicitly purport to supersede exclusive worker’s compensation liability for the state; the exclusive liability provision was retained.
Upon statehood, the exclusive liability provision of AWCA was reenacted, limiting claims “at law or in admiralty.” AS 23.30.-055. Thus, despite the existence of a general right in third persons to make “claims” against the state in superior court, the legislature seemingly reaffirmed the state’s limited waiver of immunity when acting as an employer. CATSA was refined to something near its present form in 1962. AS 09.50.250.
Without the enactment of AWCA or CATSA, an injured territorial or state worker would have had no claim at all against the territory or state, even with the aid of the Jones Act. The territory or state would have been immune from suit. Ex Parte New York No. 1, 256 U.S. 490, 500, 41 S.Ct. 588, 590, 65 L.Ed. 1057 (1921); cf Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 472-73, 107 S.Ct. 2941, 2945-46, 97 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987). The original AWCA must therefore have been a limited waiver of sovereign immunity; otherwise an employee of the territory would not have been entitled to any compensation from the territory for an injury occurring while on the job. Thus, in order to prevail, Brown needs to show that the more general waiver of sovereign immunity in CATSA was somehow intended to abrogate the effect of the more limited waiver of sovereign immunity in AWCA, despite AWCA being left intact.
Despite its lengthy discussion of federal case law, none of which is relevant given that the employer here is the state, the court’s rationale is really rather simple. The court seizes upon our prior cases narrowly construing retentions of sovereign immunity when the state is not an employer, e.g., Freeman v. State, 705 P.2d 918, 920 (Alaska 1985), transforms them into establishing a requirement that retentions of sovereign immunity must necessarily be *113explicit, and then concludes that because sovereign immunity was not explicitly retained in CATSA itself, it was not retained at all.2 This is not the issue; rather the question should be whether CATSA was intended to repeal the effect of AWCA.
Repeal by implication is not favored. Peter v. State, 531 P.2d 1263, 1267 (Alaska 1975). A specific statutory provision ordinarily is not repealed by a later enacted, general statutory provision. Preston v. Heckler, 734 F.2d 1359, 1368 (9th Cir.1984); United States v. Hawkins, 228 F.2d 517, 519 (9th Cir.1955). Repeal by implication is limited and only found when necessary to carry out the legislature’s intent. Warren v. Thomas, 568 P.2d 400, 403 (Alaska 1977).
Did the legislature, in enacting CATSA, intend to subject the state to Jones Act claims by its own employees, notwithstanding AWCA? Did it intend to allow its maritime workers to receive preferential treatment over its land-based workers? Had the question occurred to the legislators at the time, then arguably a clause referencing AWCA and maintaining its integrity as the sole, comprehensive remedy for injured state maritime workers could have been included.
In saying this, however, I reject any implication that the legislature is somehow prevented by “federalism” from amending CATSA to make clear that the sole remedy of its injured maritime employees is worker’s compensation, and that Brown is entitled to a “double dip.” The mere fact that the Jones Act exists as a federal cause of action does not mean that state sovereign immunity, properly asserted, is abrogated. See Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 242, 105 S.Ct. 3142, 3147, 87 L.Ed.2d 171 (1985). Moreover, the Jones Act has been held not to abrogate properly asserted state sovereign immunity. Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 475-76, 107 S.Ct. 2941, 2946-47, 97 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987). Any Jones Act recovery by Brown must be offset by the workers’ compensation benefits he has received. Barber v. New England Fish Co., 510 P.2d 806, 812-13 & n. 39 (Alaska 1973).
II.
The foregoing, of course, assumes away the bothersome question of whether the Jones Act was ever intended to apply at all to states as employers. One justice of the United States Supreme Court has opined that it was not. Welch, 483 U.S. at 496, 107 S.Ct. at 2957 (Scalia, J., concurring). The court in Welch left open the question. Id. at 476, 107 S.Ct. at 2947.
The rationale for Justice Scalia’s concurrence appears to derive from the majority opinion in Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). In Will, the Court held that states are not persons within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Will, 109 S.Ct. at 2308. In Will, the Court, while noting that the case did not involve the Eleventh Amendment since the underlying suit was brought in state court, id., nonetheless opined that similar federalism concerns were implicated when Congress subjected a state to liability which it would not otherwise be subject to. Accordingly, the Court held that if Congress intends to preempt state sovereign immunity by subjecting a state to a federal remedy, it must make its intention to do so “unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.” Id. at 2308-09. “In traditionally sensitive areas, such as legislation affecting the federal balance, the requirement of clear statement assures that the legislature has in fact faced, and intended to bring into issue, the critical matters involved in the judicial decision.” Id., quoting United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 349, 92 S.Ct. 515, 523, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971).
A straightforward application of Will to the facts before us leads to the conclusion that the Jones Act simply is inapplicable to the states. The Court has already held, in *114the analogous though different context of the Eleventh Amendment, that the Jones Act is not sufficiently clear and unambiguous. Welch, 483 U.S. at 475-76, 107 S.Ct. at 2946-47.
Thus, either under traditional modes of statutory analysis as applied to AWCA and CATSA, or under the Will Court’s method of interpreting federal statutes, Brown is limited to his workers’ compensation remedy. Accordingly, I dissent.

. It is worth noting that the court is unable to cite a single state case affording an injured state maritime employee Jones Act relief.

. If the court is correct that retentions of sovereign immunity must be explicit, then the court’s assertion that AWCA is still an effective defense against state law claims must be wrong, since CATSA does not explicitly retain sovereign immunity as to state claims. Nor could Collins be correctly decided if CATSA is as broad a waiver as the court maintains.