Court Opinion

ID: 9579493
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:44.893149+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:33.687527
License: Public Domain

*49Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice O’Connor join, concurring.
Although I join the opinion of the Court, I write separately to emphasize that I do not understand our decision as in any way repudiating the “amphibious workers” doctrine this Court articulated in Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249, 272-274 (1977). We hold today that respondents Schwalb, McGlorie, and Goode are covered by the LHWCA since they were injured while performing tasks essential to the process of loading ships. In light of Northeast Marine Terminal Co., however, it is not essential to our holding that the employees were injured while actually engaged in these tasks. They are covered by the LHWCA even if, at the moment of injury, they had been performing other work that was not essential to the loading process.
As the Court explained in Northeast Marine Terminal Co., Congress, in amending the LHWCA in 1972, intended to solve the problem that under the pre-1972 Act employees would walk in and out of LHWCA coverage during their workday, if they performed some tasks over water and other tasks ashore. Congress wanted
“to provide continuous coverage throughout their employment to these amphibious workers who, without the 1972 Amendments, would be covered only for part of their activity. It seems clear, therefore, that when Congress said it wanted to cover ‘longshoremen,’ it had in mind persons whose employment is such that they spend at least some of their time in indisputably long-shoring operations and who, without the 1972 Amendments, would be covered for only part of their activity.” Id., at 273.
Later, in P. C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U. S. 69 (1979), we said that the “crucial factor” in determining LHWCA coverage “is the nature of the activity to which a worker may be assigned.” Id., at 82 (emphasis added). Although the employees in Pfeiffer were actually engaged in longshoring work *50at the time of their injuries, we noted: “Our observation that Ford and Bryant were engaged in maritime employment at the time of their injuries does not undermine the holding of Northeast Marine Terminal Co. . . . that a worker is covered if he spends some of his time in indisputably longshoring operations . . . Id,., at 83, n. 18.
To suggest that a worker like Schwalb, McGlone, or Goode, who spends part of his time maintaining or repairing loading equipment, and part of his time on other tasks (even general cleanup, or repair of equipment not used for loading), is covered only if he is injured while engaged in the former kind of work, would bring the “walking in and out of coverage” problem back with a vengeance. We said in Northeast Marine Terminal Co. that “to exclude [a worker] from the Act’s coverage in the morning but include him in the afternoon would be to revitalize the shifting and fortuitous coverage that Congress intended to eliminate.” 432 U. S., at 274.
I join the Court’s opinion on the specific understanding that it casts no shadow on the continuing validity of Northeast Marine Terminal Co.