Court Opinion

ID: 9472419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:59:41.091369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:55.517217
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by Judge Gee, but I think it imperative that we reach that result by way of federal, rather than state, law. I respectfully disagree with the two views of Judge Williams that: (i) the state can impose on its waiver of immunity the unconstitutional mandatory application of the State Workers’ Compensation Act; and (ii) Parden has lost its vitality. With this Court now speaking as a discordant trio and the outright conflict (in result and reasoning) with our former colleagues in the Eleventh Circuit,1 this case calls for authoritative review by the Supreme Court, despite our reversal and remand for a trial.
*1037Initially, it must be recognized that two issues are at stake in the immunity defense raised by Texas. The first question is substantive: Does the Jones Act reach state defendants who are employers of seamen? Or, do states enjoy a substantive immunity that would protect them from suit in either federal or state court? In other words, does the Jones Act apply to a person classified as a seaman in the employment of a state or state agency? The second question is jurisdictional in the Eleventh Amendment sense: Assuming there is a substantive cause of action against a state, does the Eleventh Amendment bar prosecution of the suit in federal court? Or, on the other hand, has Congress, pursuant to its enumerated constitutional powers, abrogated this jurisdictional immunity in this particular statutory cause of action? I believe that the Supreme Court has squarely answered the substantive question in Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Commission, 359 U.S. 275, 79 S.Ct. 785, 3 L.Ed.2d 804 (1959). The jurisdictional Eleventh Amendment question is answered in Parden v. Terminal Ry. of Alabama State Docks Dept., 377 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1207, 12 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964). The body of recent Supreme Court decisions does not overrule these clearly applicable precedents, either explicitly or implicitly.
The inability of this Court to decide either (or both) question compels review by an authoritative tribunal.

Substantive

In enacting the Jones Act pursuant to both its admiralty-maritime power and its commerce power, Congress included within the class of Jones Act defendants those states who would employ seamen aboard vessels in navigable waters. In Petty, the Supreme Court held that the Jones Act applied to a claim of an employee in the category of a seaman who was injured in the operation of a ferry across the. Mississippi River by a bistate agency. On the Eleventh Amendment jurisdictional issue, the Court relied in part on the language in the interstate compact between Tennessee and Missouri as evincing consent to suit in federal court. However, on the substantive question of the application of the Jones Act, the Petty court relied solely on the congressional language and intent in the Jones Act:
We can find no more reason for excepting state or bi-state corporations from “employer” as used in the Jones Act than we could for excepting them either from the Safety Appliance Act or Railway Labor Act ... “When Congress wished to exclude state employees, it expressly so provided.” The Jones Act has no exceptions from the broad sweep of the words “Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may” etc.
359 U.S. at 282, 79 S.Ct. at 790 (citations omitted). The Petty dissenters believed that the claim was forbidden by the Eleventh Amendment, and expressly did not' reach this substantive argument. Justice Frankfurter stated: “I assume the Court is referring solely to the substantive applicability of [the Jones] Act.” 395 U.S. at 289, 79 S.Ct. at 794 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
Whether or not the Petty majority’s quoted statement on the applicability of the Jones Act also included the jurisdictional question, it is clear that it settled at least the substantive question.2 Like Petty, the *1038instant case involved the operation by a state of a ferry boat and a suit brought under the Jones Act. Thus, the Petty holding is directly applicable here as to the substantive liability of Texas. The only thing which could possibly shield it from effective liability in this suit is the Eleventh Amendment.
Texas is not aided by its own statutory provision providing that state workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy for employees of governmental units carrying workmen’s compensation insurance.. Congress, in its constitutional admiralty and maritime power,3 can make nationally uniform maritime substantive law that is supreme with respect to conflicting state law. E. g., Pope & Talbot v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 409-10, 74 S.Ct. 202, 204-05, 98 L.Ed. 143 (1953); Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149, 160, 40 S.Ct. 438, 440, 64 L.Ed. 834 (1920).
As an example of this federal supremacy and uniformity in the maritime area, as Judge .Gee correctly observed, the Supreme Court and this Court have held that state workers’ compensation statutes could not be made validly to apply to injuries occurring on navigable waters. Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, 37 S.Ct. 524, 61 L.Ed. 1086 (1917); Ledoux v. Petroleum Helicopters, 609 F.2d 824 (5th Cir.1980); Thibodeaux v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 580 F. 2d 841 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 909, 99 S.Ct. 2820, 61 L.Ed.2d 274 (1979). As one commentator has pointed out, the Texas workers compensation provision could, at most, affect the jurisdictional Eleventh Amendment question, but not the substantive question of the application of the Jones Act.
Thus, even assuming [arguendo] Congress did not in the Jones Act override eleventh amendment jurisdictional immunity, the exclusion by Texas of areas of workers’ compensation coverage from the waiver of immunity in the Texas Tort Claims Act might leave the amendment applicable to limit federal jurisdiction, but could not prevent the applicability of federal substantive law in state court.
Comment, Eleventh Amendment Immunity and State-Owned Vessels, 57 Tul.L.Rev. 1523, 1545 (1983) (emphasis added).
Nor is Texas aided in any way by National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976), which held that the commerce power did not justify imposing federal minimum wage standards on state employees. Usery reasoned that the Tenth Amendment constrains the application of congressional power against states in their sovereign capacities in such a manner as to “directly displace the States’ freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.” 426 U.S. at 852, 96 S.Ct. at 2474.
Having drawn a line between traditional and non-traditional state activities, the Usery court explicitly pointed out that its decision did not impair earlier rulings, such as Parden v. Terminal Ry. Co., 377 U.S. 184, 84 S.Ct. 1207, 12 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964), approving federal commerce regulation of non -traditional activities such as state-owned and operated interstate railroads. 426 U.S. at 854, n. 18, 96 S.Ct. at 2475, n. 18. Accord United Transp. Union v. Long Island RR., 455 U.S. 678, 686, 102 S.Ct. 1349, 1354, 71 L.Ed.2d 547 (1982). A state’s operation of ferry boats, like railroads, is also non-traditional, having been characterized — with no pun intended — by the Petty Court as “involving the launching of a governmental corporation into an *1039industrial or business field.” 359 U.S. at 280, 79 S.Ct. at 789 (emphasis added). Accord Brody v. North Carolina, 557 F.Supp. 184 (E.D.N.C.1983) (“ferry system is essentially a commercial and proprietary enterprise”).
Moreover, support for Congressional enactment of the Jones Act is not limited to the commerce power, but also includes the admiralty-maritime power. The power of Congress to control and regulate use of navigable waters frees the Jones Act from any Tenth Amendment limits on the commerce power, because the constitutional construct never reserved to the states any inviolable power to regulate maritime matters. It was assumed at the time of ratification that maritime law consisted of a body of international law observed with some variations by the various national courts. Fletcher, A Historical Interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment, 35 Stan. L.Rev. 1033, 1082 (1983).
Finally, Usery has been construed too narrowly by later cases4 for us to extend it seaward of the Jensen line. In any case, Usery is not applicable to the proprietary activity involved here. Accordingly, I am in agreement with Judge Gee’s holding that when Texas employs seamen in the operation of vessels on navigable waters it is subject to the Jones Act as substantive matter.

Eleventh Amendment and Jurisdiction

The question of whether Congress intended to abrogate Eleventh Amendment federal jurisdictional immunity in Jones Act cases has also been answered. In Parden, an employee of a state-owned railroad operating in interstate commerce brought suit in federal court, seeking recovery from the state for personal injuries under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA). FELA expressly authorized suit in federal court. In reversing this Court’s holding that the state was immune, the Supreme Court held that Congress had both the power and the expressed intent to make state-owned interstate railroads subject to suit in federal court.
On the power question, the Court quoted language from Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 1, 196-97, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824), to demonstrate that Congress had the power to impose conditions upon a state’s entry into commerce that would derogate from Eleventh Amendment rights, because the sovereignty of the states is diminished by the absolute and plenary power of Congress over commerce. 377 U.S. at 190-92, 84 S.Ct. at 1211-13.
On the question of congressional intent, Parden examined the language of FELA, and declared that Congress meant what it said when it made FELA applicable to “every” common carrier by railroad in interstate commerce, whether state-owned or privately owned. 377 U.S. at 187-88, 84 S.Ct. at 1210-11. Congress “conditioned the right to operate a railroad in interstate commerce upon amenability to suit in federal court as provided by the Act.” Id. at 192, 84 S.Ct. at 1213. Thus, Alabama, by *1040operating the railroad, subjected itself to the condition and consented to suit in federal court. In any event, Congress determined that the operator of the interstate railroad would be deemed to have consented. Parden emphasized that what operated as a waiver was effective regardless of whether state law permitted waiver, or whether the state knew waiver would result from its actions. Id. at 194, 84 S.Ct. at 1214.
Parden is uniquely applicable to Jones Act suits, because the Jones Act expressly incorporates the rules prescribed in FELA cases.5 Because Congress in FELA conditioned operation of a state-owned railroad on an effectual waiver of sovereign and Eleventh Amendment immunity, and then expressly incorporated FELA rules into the Jones Act, Congress must have intended the same conditions to apply in Jones Act suits arising from the operation of vessels by a state. Several courts have reached this conclusion. Brody v. North Carolina, 557 F.Supp. 184 (E.D.N.C.1983); In re Holoholo, 512 F.Supp. 889, 904 (D.Hawaii 1981); Huckins v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Michigan, 263 F.Supp. 622, 623 (E.D.Mich.1967); Cocherl v. Alaska, 246 F.Supp. 328, 330 (D.Alaska 1965).
In dissenting, Judge Williams argues that the Supreme Court has “modified Par-den by holding that it is not enough to show that the state itself is operating within a federally regulated sphere. A plaintiff must also show that Congress expressly provided that the private remedy would be applicable to the states,” citing Employees of the Dept. of Public Health & Welfare v. Missouri, 411 U.S. 279, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 36 L.Ed.2d 251 (1973); Intracoastal Transp. Inc. v. Decatur County, Georgia, 482 F.2d 361 (5th Cir.1973).
This general summary of the not-entirely-consistent post-Parden law may trim some of the broader language in Parden, but it is entirely consistent with the holding in Parden and its application in this case. Parden has not been overruled by either Employees — which distinguished Parden and has itself since been distinguished— nor has it been overruled by any of the dozen or so post-Parden Eleventh Amendment opinions, by the Court.6 Because of the Jones Act’s express incorporation of FELA, Parden is directly applicable here. Moreover, the express language requirement of Employees is satisfied by Par-den ’s holding that “Congress, in making the FELA applicable to 'every’ common carrier ... meant what it said,” 377 U.S. at 187, 84 S.Ct. at 1210. If, as Judge Williams observes, Parden is the high-water mark for congressional abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity, Employees is a high-water mark for state immunity. Because neither case has been overruled — although Employees has implicitly been *1041weakened — the question is which case is closer to the one before us.
In Employees, the Court framed the issue before it as whether Parden was applicable or distinguishable. 411 U.S. at 281, 93 S.Ct. at 1616. Finding Parden distinguishable in several important respects, Employees held that the Eleventh Amendment barred a private suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act for overtime pay brought by employees of state mental hospitals and training schools. Holding that Congress had the power to lift the states’ immunity under the commerce clause, and to impose heavy fiscal burdens on the states, 411 U.S. at 284, 93 S.Ct. at 1617, the Court nevertheless declared that it would not extend Parden to cover every exercise of the commerce power where Congress did not indicate its purpose to do so “in some way by clear language.” 411 U.S. at 285, 287, 93 S.Ct. at 1619. Since Congress had amended the substantive provisions of the FLSA to include state employees, but had left the jurisdictional provision unchanged, the Court found this clear language lacking, and held the state immune.
The Fourth Circuit was confronted with and rejected the argument that Employees had effectively overruled Parden. Int’l Longshoremen’s Assoc. v. North Carolina, 511 F.2d 1007 (4th Cir.1975) adopting as op., 370 F.Supp. 33 (E.D.N.C.1974). The Court analyzed Employees in this way:
The Court in Employees distinguished Parden on several grounds: (1) The FLSA provided for the alternate remedy of enforcement of federal statutory rights in an action brought by the Secretary of Labor, thereby providing a remedy for wronged employees while avoiding a confrontation between state and federal sovereignties, whereas in Parden there was no alternate remedy; (2) The FLSA provided for recovery by employees not only of the amount of unpaid wages, but also for liquidated damages in an equal amount and for. attorneys’ fees whereas in Parden, the employees were seeking only to be made whole; and the court felt that since Congress had created such a remedy under the FLSA, with punitive characteristics, it did not intend to subject the states to suit by its own citizens, and intended instead for “the delicate federal-state relationship to be managed through the Secretary of Labor.” Employees, supra; .(3) Parden involved the operation of an interstate railroad, a function normally run by private business associations, whereas Employees involved a hospital, a function traditionally operated by state and local governments.
It does not appear to this court that Employees is controlling authority in this case.
370 F.Supp. at 38. Thus, the Fourth Circuit held that a state waives its Eleventh Amendment immunity to claims under the Railway Labor Act — which Petty deemed identical to the Jones Act for immunity purposes, see supra p. 5447 — when it operates a port and railroad, even though no profit is made on the operation. Id.
On the distinctions drawn by Employees between the FLSA and FELA, the Jones Act is like FELA and unlike FLSA. The Jones Act contains no provision for administrative enforcement, but rather was specifically enacted to provide a private cause of action. Moreover, the Jones Act concerns the operation of vessels on navigable waters and in this case a ferry boat, which Petty described as “an industrial or business field,” 359 U.S. at 280, 79 S.Ct. at 789, as contrasted with the state mental hospitals described by Employees as “not proprietary.” 411 U.S. at 284, 93 S.Ct. at 1617. Certainly, the ferry boat operation here is more analogous to the railroad in Parden than to the public mental hospital in Employees. Congress’ incorporation of FELA into the Jones Act indicates that Congress considered the operation of vessels and trains within the sphere of the national government — i.e., in interstate commerce,.or on navigable waters — to be analogous in terms of safety to workers. Comment, 57 Tul.L.Rev. at 1544-45.
There was yet a third distinction from Parden drawn in Employees that supports *1042the application of Parden, and not Employees. Employees pointed out that the state railroad in Parden “involved a rather isolated state activity,” whereas the FLSA would implicate “elevator operators, janitors, charwomen, security guards, secretaries, and the like in every office building in a State’s governmental hierachy.” 411 U.S. at 285, 93 S.Ct. at 1618. Thus, under FLSA, the federal intrusion in state affairs would be “pervasive.” Id. This pervasive effect made the Court look very carefully at congressional intentions to abrogate the Amendment to such a degree. In contrast, the Jones Act could affect only a handful of maritime or amphibious state employees out of many thousands. Thus, the application of the Jones Act, like FELA, is “isolated,” rather than “pervasive.”
Yet the difference in the reach of FLSA and FELA or the Jones Act is not merely one of degree. . Employees emphasized that Parden rested on federally imposed waiver. 411 U.S. at 282, 93 S.Ct. at 1616. But there is no possible voluntary waiver of FSLA immunity in the employment of secretaries, janitors, security guards, and the like to work in the offices in a state’s governmental hierarchy. A state has no choice but to employ such workers. It would be paralyzed without them. In contrast, a state could more readily operate, govern and exist without a state-owned railroad or ferry system. Thus, a concept of effectual waiver is applicable to the state’s voluntary decision to run a ferry. Therefore, this case is fully distinguishable from Employees, and squarely controlled by Parden.
The Eleventh Circuit has ruled in favor of the state on the Jones Act-Eleventh Amendment issue. In Sullivan v. Georgia Dept. of Nat’l Resources, 724 F.2d 1478 (11th Cir.1984), a Jones Act suit by an employee of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who was a member of the crew of a research vessel operating on the coastal waters of Georgia was held barred by the Eleventh Amendment. However, in its quest for the “clear statement” by Congress that Employees and Intracoastal required, the Sullivan court either overlooked or ignored the express incorporation of FELA into the Jones Act and also Parden’s finding of “clear language” in FELA’s application to “every” common carrier. Moreover, the Jones Act in clear language grants the rights of injured railroad employees to “Any seaman,” without drawing any distinction for state-employed seamen. Cf. Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978) (“the [Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards] Act could not be broader. It applies to ‘any’ action brought to enforce certain civil rights laws.”) Thus, the result the Sullivan court reluctantly reached through application of the “clear expression” requirement was flawed.
Moreover, the Sullivan court expressed dissatisfaction with its own application of Parden and Employees, stating that it was nevertheless bound — as are we — by our decisions in Intracoastal Transp, Inc., v. Decatur County, Georgia, 482 F.2d 361 (5th Cir.1973) and Freimanis v. Sea-Land Service, Inc., 654 F.2d 1155, 1158 (5th Cir. 1981). In Intracoastal we held that Employees had added a “clear statement” requirement to the Parden holding that entry by a state into a federally regulated sphere of activity subjected it to federal suit. In Freimanis, we merely held that the many Supreme Court decisions between 1973 and 1981 had not undermined Intracoastal. However, we do not read Intracoastal or Freimanis to require the upholding of Eleventh Amendment jurisdictional immunity in Jones Act suits.
Intracoastal and Freimanis did not involve the Jones Act, but rather the “Bridge Act of 1906,” 33 U.S.C. § 491 et seq., which establishes standards for bridges over navigable waters and the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act of' 1899, 33 U.S.C. § 409. See also Karpovs v. Mississippi, 663 F.2d 640 (5th Cir.1981); Intracoastal did not hold Parden to have been overruled, but instead carefully pointed out the distinctions between Employees and Par-den discussed above. The Bridge Act was controlled by Employees and not Parden because, among other things, like the *1043FLSA, it was penal in nature, vested enforcement in the Attorney General and was not intended as the Jones Act to confer á private right of action on the seaman.
The most glaring distinction between Intracoastal/Freimanis and this case is that those cases held there was no substantive private cause of action created under the Bridge Acts, 482 F.2d at 367; 654 F.2d at 1160. The Jones Act, to the contrary, expressly creates a private cause of action and was purposefully enacted to assure that result. Thus, Intracoastal and Freimanis are distinguishable on the substantive question and did not reach the jurisdictional question. Assuming that Intracoastal ’s “clear statement” requirement for deciding the substantive question also applies to the jurisdictional question, that requirement is satisfied by the Jones Act.
In Freimanis, the Court stated “We need not here canvass in the abstract the difficult issue of just how express Congress must be before abrogation of eleventh amendment immunities is to be found.” 654 F.2d at 1159. It had already been decided in Intracoastal that Congress had not abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity in the Bridge Acts.
The degree of clarity of expression the Supreme Court requires in a congressional enactment in order to find Eleventh Amendment immunity to be abrogated has varied. Although the cases are not entirely reconcilable, it appears that several factors have influenced the degree of scrutiny of the congressional language in accordance with “the principles of federalism that inform the Eleventh Amendment doctrine.” Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 900, 908, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984), quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 691, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 2573, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978). The degree of federal intrusion into the workings of state governments that would result from finding abrogation of immunity is an important factor, as in any problem of federalism. The contrast and the extent of potential impact between FELA and the FLSA was highlighted above. This contrast brought the Court to different results in Employees and Parden. Likewise, the Court has held that in section 1983 suits, which now number like leaves on the trees, that immunity is not abrogated. Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979). Yet in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978), the Court found in language no more specific than the Jones Act, an abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity in the Civil Rights Attorneys’ Fees Awards Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The Hutto Court distinguished Employees, stating that the purpose of the Employees clear expression requirement was to insure that “Congress has not imposed ‘enormous fiscal burdens on the States’ without careful thought.” 437 U.S. at 697 n. 27, 98 S.Ct. at 2577 n. 27. Thus, under the Jones Act, which covers a relatively small group of state employees, and which invokes the supremacy and national uniformity of federal statutory maritime law, the purpose of Employees would not be served by a rigorous application of the clear statement rule. .■
The Jones Act applies to Texas and its state-operated vessels. Ordained by the national government under its preeminent congressional admiralty-maritime powers, the application of the Jones Act is as free from the restraints of the Eleventh Amendment as is FELA’s regulation of state-operated interstate railroads.
Petty and Parden are still controlling. They should control here.

. Sullivan v. Georgia Dept. of Nat’l Resources, 724 F.2d 1478 (11th Cir.1984).

. In Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 9 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2507 n. 7, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980), the Supreme Court stated: "No Eleventh Amendment question is present, of course, where an action is brought in a state court since the Amendment, by its terms, restrains only 'the Judicial power of the United States.’ ” See abo Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122, 130 n. 12, 100 S.Ct. 2570, 2575 n. 12, 65 L.Ed.2d 653 (1980) (Eleventh Amendment issue is not- before court in Maine v. Thiboutot when attorneys’ fees were awarded against a state by a state court). The distinction between substantive immunity and Eleventh Amendment immunity in federal court is most clearly drawn in Justice Marshall’s concurring opinion in Employees v. Missouri Pub. Health Dept., 411 U.S. 279, 287-98, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 1619-25, 36 L.Ed.2d 251 (1973). In the Supreme Court’s latest Eleventh Amendment opinion, the Employees concurrence is quoted five times, without any citation to the majority opinion in Employees. Pennhurst State School & *1038Hasp. v. Halderman, — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1983).

. The admiralty and maritime power is phrased as a grant of judicial power, and is found in art. III. U.S. Const, art. Ill, § 1. However, the grant of admiralty jurisdiction, coupled with the necessary and proper clause has long been read to support the authority of federal judges to declare federal substantive maritime law and congressional power to legislate for maritime matters. Panama RR Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 386, 44 S.Ct. 391, 393, 68 L.Ed. 748 (1924); Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149, 40 S.Ct. 438, 64 L.Ed. 834 (1920); THE LOTTAWANNA, 21 Wall (88 U.S.) 558, 22 L.Ed. 654 (1875). D. Robertson, Admiralty and Federalism, 145 (1970).

. In Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass’n, 452 U.S. 264, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981), the Court, distinguishing Usery, rejected Virginia’s contention that the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 violated the Tenth Amendment's reservation of the states’ "traditional governmental function” of regulating land use. Next, the Court held in United Transp. Union v. Long Island RR, 455 U.S. 678, 102 S.Ct. 1349, 71 L.Ed.2d 547 (1982), that Usery was not applicable to a provision in the federal Railway Labor Act authorizing a strike against a state-owned railroad. A unanimous Court reasoned that "operation of railroads is not among the functions traditionally performed by state and local governments. Federal regulation of state-owned railroads simply does not impair a state’s ability to function as a state.” 455 U.S. at 686, 102 S.Ct. at 1354. In FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 102 S.Ct. 2126, 72 L.Ed.2d 532 (1982), the Court upheld certain federal statutory controls on state utility regulatory commissions. Perhaps the most unkindest cut of all to Usery came in EEOC v. Wyoming, 460 U.S. 226, 103 S.Ct. 1054, 75 L.Ed.2d 18 (1983), in which the Court held that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act validly applied to state and local employees. The Court chose to validate the act head-on under the commerce power rather than under the Fourteenth Amendment. It has been argued that EEOC v. Wyoming has completely eviscerated Usery. Note, 14 Seton Hall 356 (1984).

. The Jones Act provides in part:
Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply____
46 U.S.C. § 688.
The extent to which Congress forbad any limitation, restriction or reduction of these rights is reflected in this part of FELA:
Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this chapter, shall to that extent be void.
45 U.S.C. § 55.

. Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, - U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984); Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U.S. 670, 102 S.Ct. 3304, 73 L.Ed.2d 1057 (1982); Cory v. White, 457 U.S. 85, 102 S.Ct. 2325, 72 L.Ed.2d 694 (1982); Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122, 100 S.Ct. 2570, 65 L.Ed.2d 653 (1980); Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 9 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2507 n. 7, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980); Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 99.S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979); Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978); Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974); Fitzpatrick v. Bitzjer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 (1976); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974); Employees of Dept. of Pub. Health & Welfare v. Dept. of Pub. Health & Welfare, 411 U.S. 279, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 36 L.Ed.2d 251 (1973).