Court Opinion

ID: 9446731
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:17:05.255852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:45.540835
License: Public Domain

CAMERON, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring).
The opinion written by the district judge, the majority opinion of Judge WISDOM and his dissent, and the special concurrence of Chief Judge HUTCHE-SON comprise a lucid exposition of all the law and the arguments on both sides of of the much mooted question presented here. To them I would add only one thought.
The statute under consideration1 is not confusing. If we look to its words alone and not to the plethora of writings of the courts about them, no doubt, it seems to me, can be entertained that Mrs. Noah may maintain her action under Louisiana’s laws. While Congress, in passing the quoted Act, was exercising a limited and delegated jurisdiction, the State of Louisiana proceeded under no such impediment. It had the right to extend the protection of its laws to the dead man, and nobody questions that it had done so. Since Congress expressly left out of the reach of the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act all injuries and deaths which the states had the power to compensate, my only wonder is how the argument on so simple a question ever began.

. 33 U.S.C.A. § 903:
“Coverage — (a) Compensation shall be payable under this chapter * * * only if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States * * * and if recovery for the disability or death through workmen’s compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law.”