Court Opinion

ID: 9443541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:24:28.927084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:31.966710
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This accident occurred over dry land-some four hundred feet from the water’s, -edge. That part of the marine railway on. which the ship rested differed from a dry-dock in the respect upon which the Longshoremen’s Act turns in that it was not in or over navigable waters. The Jones. Act is amphibious. O’Donnell v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 318 U.S. 36, 42, 63 S.Ct. 488, 87 L.Ed. 596. The Longshoremen’s Act, on the other hand, is restricted to compensation for injuries occurring on navigable waters. Swanson v. *439Marra Bros., 328 U.S. 1, 66 S.Ct. 869, 90 L.Ed. 1045. We have here the reverse of the situation presented in Nogueira v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 281 U.S. 128, 50 S.Ct. 303, 74 L.Ed. 754, and Pennsylvania R. Co. v. O’Rourke, U.S., 73 S.Ct. 302, 305, in which it was held that the extension of a railroad on to a boat in navigable waters did not carry with it the Federal Employer’s Liability Act. Here it seems to me that the extension of the marine railway to a point some 400 feet ashore did not carry with it the Longshoremen’s Act. The case of Pennsylvania R. Co. v. O’Rourke, supra, makes plain that the Act “is directed at the employer when it speaks of maritime employment, not at the work the employee is doing.” As in the case of a longshoreman injured on a dock while engaged in unloading a vessel, State Industrial Commission of State of N. Y. v. Nordenholt Corporation, 259 U.S. 263, 42 S.Ct. 473, 66 L.Ed. 933, the simple distinction that must be maintained, I think, is between injuries on land and those suffered upon navigable waters.
Further, “Congress made clear its purpose to permit state compensation protection whenever possible”. Davis v. Department of Labor and Industries, 317 U.S. 249, 252, 253, 63 S.Ct. 225, 227, 87 L.Ed. 246; see Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. 244, 249, 250, 62 S.Ct. 221, 86 L.Ed. 184. Ashore is the natural habitat of the State compensation acts, and it seems to me that the Longshoremen’s Act cannot survive on land. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.