Court Opinion

ID: 8988743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 11:59:20.98962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:10:50.937597
License: Public Domain

POLITZ, Circuit Judge,
with whom KING and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In 1984, as a member of an oral argument panel I authored the unpublished opinion in Kahny v. Arrow Contractors, 729 F.2d 777 (5th Cir.1984), (aff'd mem.), in which we accepted the interpretation of the Director of the Office of Workers Compensation Programs, that the phrase “person entitled to compensation” as used in 33 U.S.C. § 933(g) meant a person either receiving compensation benefits or the beneficiary of an ALJ award. I then considered such to be a proper interpretation of that statutory phrase; I am of the same opinion still.
The Director of the OWCP has so interpreted the phrase in an untold number of cases. In his briefs the Director has detailed the reasoning behind the interpretation, including the statutory and legislative history of the parent legislation pertinent to the phrase. The Director advises that his conclusion is based not only upon that statutory and legislative history, but is informed by years of practical experience in administering the Longshore and Harbor Workers Act in many thousands of cases.
The majority rejects the Director’s interpretation out of hand. I am not disposed to do so. Deference must be more than lip service. Deference presupposes deferring when one disagrees, otherwise there is no deference.
In this circuit we have recognized, both en banc and in panels, that the construction placed on the Act by the Director is to be given the deference we are constrained to give an administrative agency. See, e.g., Boudreaux v. American Workover, 680 F.2d 1034, 1046 n. 23 (5th Cir.1982) (en banc)] Alford v. American Bridge, 642 F.2d 807, 809 n. 2 (5th Cir.1981).
I view the Director’s construction of the subject phrase to be a reasonable one, given the statutory and legislative history of the Act. Early on a person injured on the job had to elect either to proceed under the Act or to seek recovery in tort. Congress deemed this too harsh and eliminated the election requirement. In its place it placed the consent and, later, notice requirements in the Act. Both have a place in a comprehensive scheme which I perceive as just to all concerned. One need not elect but simultaneously may proceed in comp against the employer, while proceeding in tort against a responsible third party. If one does the latter and is receiving comp benefits from the former one must secure the employer’s consent to settle if one is to preserve the right to receive comp payments in excess of the tort settlement. That is totally appropriate and fair because the employer is entitled to a credit for the sums recovered in tort in the instance of a job-related injury caused by a tortiously-acting third person. But the requirement is not absolute.
Assume a not infrequent occurrence. The employer denies owing compensation and refuses to pay. The employee seeks tort recovery from a third party. A settlement is offered. Why must the employee, who was denied comp, go hat in hand to the employer and request permission to settle his claim? Why should he? This query is not simply erecting a straw man. In one of the consolidated cases, Barger, we find the anomaly of the employer defensing a Jones Act claim by Barger’s survivor by formally judicially claiming that it owed only LHWCA comp payments for Barger’s accidental death, and then defensing the subsequent comp claim by insisting that the survivor had forfeited her comp claim because she did not get the employer’s approval to settle the tort claim against a third-party tortfeasor.
I agree with the Director’s long-standing construction that it is not reasonable to require an employee to secure the approval of the employer before making a tort settlement if the employer has declined to pay comp benefits. I can conceive of no valid purpose to be served by requiring otherwise other than to serve as the basis for forfeiture of a legitimate comp claim by an injured worker or the survivors of a deceased worker. The parties argue that the statute was amended to overrule the Director's erroneous interpretation. If that were so one would expect some small refer*834ence to such in the legislative history. There is none. There is no acceptable explanation offered for the absence of such.
In 1984 the provision containing the phrase at issue was reenacted without change. Surely that ought to be some indication that the universal construction given the phrase by the Director, multiple AUs, the Benefits Review Board, and several courts has received congressional approval. I am so persuaded.
Finally, the provision for notice added in 1984, section 933(g)(2), adds to the force of the Director’s construction. The Act first provides for approval of the employer if comp is being paid. In the notice provision the Act goes on to require notification of a settlement or judgment, whether comp is being paid or not. To me this latter is to alert the employer and comp carrier of the existence of an offset against any comp entitlement. It is a reasonable requirement to prevent double recovery. Nothing more.
I am convinced that the Director’s interpretation in this instance is reasonable and I therefore respectfully dissent.