Court Opinion

ID: 9478431
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:48:50.884711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:25.588175
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
with whom JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, joins dissenting in part and concurring in part:
I.
I concur in that portion of the Court’s1 opinion which in effect holds that LHWCA preempts Jackson’s assorted Texas-based claims for tortious, bad faith, delay in payment and failure to pay and provide long-shore benefits. Although it mildly disclaims2 any such purpose, the disclaimer, under the accepted principles of the Fifth Circuit is ineffectual.
This Court, through Judge Garwood speaking for the panel (Judges Gee and Jones) in all of its majesty has indeed — as TEIA has long asserted — determined that any such state based claim is preempted by the LHWCA. Atkinson v. Gates, McDonald & Company, 838 F.2d 808, reh’g en banc denied, 844 F.2d 788 (5th Cir.1988). The only remaining question is whether this decision effectually reflects the view of this Court en bane.
Under the long accepted and oft repeated 3 standards, Atkinson is binding on all panels of this court — which means all of the Judges thereof — until overruled by the court en banc. The en banc court does have the power to reject it, but until rejected by the court en banc it is the law of this circuit.
Here the court, citing Atkinson with full approval and no criticism or disapproval, has failed to reject or disapprove its holding. The decision is therefore binding on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and each and all of the Judges comprising either the en banc court, the majority of the en banc court, or the panel.
Moreover on the intrinsic merits of preemption, Atkinson applies the same triple analysis used in the panel opinion4 of (i) Congressional intention to preempt,5 (ii) *511comprehensiveness of the federal scheme6 and (iii) the state law conflicts with federal law7 to declare the state case to be preempted.
II.
Without a doubt preemption of LHWCA is and always has been the critical issue in this case. It is the burning question now committed by the court to the state courts of Texas. In a day and time where the demands are beyond the capacity of the judiciary readily to handle the exponential increase in the volume of litigation, there is a need for an authoritative pronouncement of federal law by a federal court having jurisdiction over the subject and the parties.
That need, that demand is in no sense a theoretical, academic problem. Indeed a pronouncement of that federal constitutional law has immediate, great practical utility. Although this pronouncement has no coercive effect of its own, there is no doubt that the Texas courts will, as always, accord full weight to the determination of this federal court having jurisdiction over the parties, speaking in terms of the application of a federal statute with the constitutional imprimatur of the Supremacy Clause.
III.
I dissent as to the court’s holding that, as in the case of an injunction, the Anti-Injunction Act prohibits in this case the issuance of a declaratory order.
I start with the proposition that despite the well-pleaded complaint rule sired by Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126 (1908), the case of Jackson v. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n filed in the District Court of Jefferson County, Texas, was one within the jurisdiction of the United States District Court. To be sure, the negative characterization of the well-pleaded complaint rule provides that the presence of a contention of federal preemption as a defense to the state-based claim, does not make the case within the jurisdiction of the federal court. But this negative characterization is dispelled by a proper consideration of Supreme Court precedents. In Avco Corp. v. Machinists, 376 F.2d 337 (6th Cir.1967), aff'd, 390 U.S. 557, 88 S.Ct. 1235, 20 L.Ed.2d 126 (1968),8 the plaintiff employee filed suit in state court alleging that the defendant union had breached its “contract” by sanctioning work stoppages. The employee sought temporary and permanent injunctions. Clearly, the plaintiff had a federal cause of action under § 301 of the LMRA, if he desired it. The union then sought to remove the case to federal court, over the employee's objections.
The court of appeals held, and the Supreme Court affirmed, that the employee’s action “arose under” § 301, and thus the union’s motion to remove the case to federal court was proper. (The removal statute,9 is procedural and derivative only. An independent basis of jurisdiction must be established in either removal or declaratory judgment actions.) The necessary ground of decision in Avco was that “the preemptive force of § 301 is so powerful as to displace entirely any state cause of action for violations of contracts between an employer and a labor organization.... Any such suit is purely a creature of federal law, notwithstanding the fact that state law would provide a cause of action in the absence of § 301.... Avco stands for the proposition that if a federal cause oí action completely preempts a state cause of action, any complaint that comes within the scope of the federal cause of action necessarily ‘arises under’ federal law.” Franchise Tax Board, 463 U.S. at 23-24, 103 S.Ct. at 2853, 77 L.Ed.2d at 440.
This continues to be controlling law. In a very recent decision, the Supreme Court has continued the trend begun nearly 20 years ago in Avco. In Metropolitan Life *512Ins. Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987),10 the Court affirmed the vitality of Avco and extended the Avco-LMRK exception to analogous ERISA cases. After setting out the general nature of the well-pleaded complaint rule, the Court states
One corollary of the well-pleaded complaint rule developed in the case law, however, is that Congress may so completely pre-exempt a particular area, that any civil complaint raising this select group of claims is necessarily federal in character. For 20 years [since Avco], this Court has singled out claims preempted by § 301 of the Labor Relations Management Act for such special treatment.
The question thus resolves itself into whether or not the Avco principle can be extended to statutes other than the LMRA in order to recharacterize a state law complaint displaced by § 502(a)(1)(B) [the section conferring private causes of action under ERISA] as an action arising under federal law.
481 U.S. 63-64, 107 S.Ct. at 1546-47, 95 L.Ed.2d at 63.
To answer that question, the Court, with little difficulty, found that Congress has conferred federal jurisdiction in cases with such overarching federal, legislatively declared interests. Accordingly, the Court concluded that Taylor, although “pur-portpng] to raise only state law claims, is necessarily federal in character by virtue of the clearly manifested intent of Congress.” Id. at 67, 107 S.Ct. at 1548, 95 L.Ed.2d at 65.11
Our question, then, is whether the LHWCA is powerful enough to satisfy the principle of Avco and Taylor: stated differently, is the LHWCA entitled to the same federal protection as are the LMRA and ERISA. It is a question easily answered in the affirmative. The Court focuses on the “explicit direction” from Congress — both in statute and legislative history — that demonstrates its intent utterly to “displace” state law in establishing federal question jurisdiction. As set forth in some detail in the panel opinion, the LHWCA, springing originally from the impeccably federal province of admiralty jurisdiction, has continued, unquestioned through fifty years of Congressional monitoring, to remain squarely under the protection of federal jurisdiction. A review of the LHWCA and its legislative history yields at least as strong “explicit direction.”
Our determination that the LHWCA is so preemptive as to create federal question jurisdiction is no “expansion” of the Avco rule. The LHWCA, if anything, is broader, and more comprehensive than the LMRA. The LMRA merely places jurisdiction of labor disputes in the federal district courts. The LHWCA, on the other hand, contains not only the exclusive remedy section (§ 905(a)), but also sets out sections and chapters that comprehensively regulate employers and insurance carriers that provide LHWCA coverage, and utterly control the sum total of rights and obligations of insurers, employers and employees. This, by no means, then, dilutes the Avco rule; it acknowledges an exception more powerful than the original. See also Taylor, 481 U.S. 58 at 67, 107 S.Ct. at 1548, 95 L.Ed.2d at 65 (Brennan, J., concurring).
There is no doubt that Jackson’s state suit was bottomed on the LHWCA.12 *513Without it, no payments were due by TEIA, no medical benefits had to be furnished by TEIA. Without the LHWCA there was no basis whatever for any relief. His claim became even more specific in terms of LHWCA by his assertion that (i) he was entitled to prompt payment of compensation benefits and (ii) the exercise by TEIA of its statutory right to file a contr-oversion was in bad faith under and in violation of Texas standards.
The result is that TEIA could have removed this case to the same federal District Court that granted the aborted injunction and declaratory judgment. In no way do I suggest that its failure to be removed now affords it a right to ignore the Anti-Injunction Act. But now things are quite different. No longer is it just a case which can properly be filed and tried in the state court. Now it is a case which was initially one properly triable in the Federal District Court. For that same Federal Court to grant a declaratory order that the state case is preempted by LHWCA is not an unseemly intrusion into an independent tribunal. The absence of intrusion distinguishes the situation in which declaratory relief is held unavailable on the analogy of the Anti-Injunction Act because of like intrusive effect.
I therefore dissent.

. As it is the court, and not just a majority, I use this terminology throughout to refer to Judge Garwood’s powerful opinion for the Court sitting en banc.

. See the Court’s n. 7: ”[A]nother panel of this Court ... held that a state law cause of action for a bad faith failure to pay LHWCA compensation when due was preempted by the LHWCA. Atkinson v. Gates, McDonald & Co., 838 F.2d 808, rehg. en banc denied, 844 F.2d 788 (5th Cir.1988). Our holding concerning the Anti-Injunction Act and the Declaratory Judgment Act implies no disagreement with Atkinson, which remains the law of this Circuit unless overruled by a subsequent contrary pronouncement of the Supreme Court or of this Court en banc." Texas Employer’s Ins. Ass’n v. Jackson, 820 F.2d 1406, 1412 n. 7 (en banc).

. Alexander v. Chevron, U.S.A., 806 F.2d 526, 527 (5th Cir.1986) (citing United States v. Albert, 675 F.2d 712, 713 (5th Cir.1982)); Keith v. St. George Packing Co., 806 F.2d 525, 526 (5th Cir.1986); Ketchum v. Gulf Oil Corp., 798 F.2d 159, 162 (5th Cir.1986); Victorian v. Miller, 796 F.2d 94, 96 (5th Cir.1986); Wilson v. Taylor, 658 F.2d 1021, 1034 (5th Cir.1981); Washington v. Watkins, 655 F.2d 1346, 1354 n. 10 (5th Cir.1981); Hernandez v. City of Lafayette, 643 F.2d 1188, 1192-93 (5th Cir.1981) (citing Ford v. United States, 618 F.2d 357, 361 (5th Cir.1980); Davis v. Estelle, 529 F.2d 437, 441 (5th Cir.1976) and Robinson v. Parsons, 560 F.2d 720, 721 n. 2 (5th Cir.1977)); Fulford v. Klein, 529 F.2d 377, 379 (5th Cir.1976).

. This refers to the panel (Judges Brown, Reavley and Jones) opinion, Texas Employer’s Ins. Ass’n v. Jackson, 820 F.2d 1406 (5th Cir.1987). Judge Jones dissented in part in the panel opinion.

. Panel Op., 820 F.2d 1406 at 1411.

. Id. at 1411-12.

. Id. at 1412.

. The majority, save for reference to Judge Jones’ dissent in the panel opinion, avoids resolving “this difficult issue.”

. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b).

. The majority, save for reference to Judge Jones’ dissent in the panel opinion, avoids resolving “this difficult issue.”

. Only a few illustrations are necessary to reveal how pervasive is the LHWCA and how destructive an interference are Jackson’s state asserted claims. For example, in Paragraph VII of Jackson’s state court complaint, Jackson purports to invoke Article 21.21 of the Texas Insurance Code in pleading that "three times the amount of actual damages be awarded as a matter of law." Yet § 905 of the LHWCA provides that the liability prescribed under the Act "shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability....
Jackson also abrogates the Congressionally established scheme of LHWCA economic rights and limitations in Paragraph XIV of his complaint. There, he invokes the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act seeking "as a matter of law [that] damages be trebled.”

.See the Court’s opinion, supra, at 495.
*513This is factually highlighted by the following excerpts from Jackson’s state complaint:
It was Texas Employers’ Insurance Association’s duty under the Longshoreman & Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act to pay Leroy Jackson disability benefits.
This suit is also filed as a result of Defendant’s tortious breach of their common-law duty to act with care, skill, reasonable expedience and faithfulness in the performance of their duties under the Longshoreman & Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act.
... The Longshoreman & Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act imposes a duty upon Defendant to perform with care, skill, reasonable expedience and faithfulness its duties as set forth under the Act.
... They misrepresented material facts to a variety of people, these misrepresentations were relied on and they were relied on to the detriment of Leroy Jackson. These misrepresentations were intentional and designed to defraud Leroy Jackson of his rights under the Longshoreman & Harbor Worker's Compensation Act and his compensation benefits....
Defendant, its agents, servants and/or employees have committed the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress.... These acts and steps were specifically aimed at defrauding Leroy Jackson of his rights under the Longshoreman & Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act....
Defendant, its agents, servants and/or employees, negligently inflicted emotional distress on Leroy Jackson.... They negligently took these steps in an effort to deny Leroy Jackson compensation benefits rightfully due to him under the Longshoreman & Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act.