CALBECK, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF EMPLOYEES’ COMPENSATION, v. TRAVELERS INSURANCE CO. ET AL.
No. 532
Supreme Court of the United States
June 4, 1962
370 U.S. 114
*Together with Donovan, Deputy Commissioner, v. Avondale Shipyards, Inc.
Solicitor General Cox argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General Orrick, Bruce J. Terris, Morton Hollander and David L. Rose.
Louis V. Nelson argued the cause for Travelers Insurance Co. et al., respondents. With him on the briefs was Ewell Strong.
Charles Kohlmeyer, Jr. argued the cause and filed a brief for Avondale Shipyards, Inc., respondent.
Briefs of amici curiae, urging reversal, were filed by Raymond H. Kierr and Samuel C. Gainsburgh for Minus Aizen, and by Herman Wright for McGuyer‘s widow and children.
Section 3 (a) of the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act provides that compensation shall be paid only for injuries occurring on navigable waters “and if recovery . . . through workmen‘s compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law.”1 In each of these cases the petitioner is a Deputy Commissioner who based an award of compensation under the Act on findings that the employee was engaged at the time of his injury in the work of completing the construction of a vessel afloat on navigable waters.2
The Court of Appeals’ interpretation of § 3 (a) would, if correct, have the effect of excepting from the Act‘s coverage not only the injuries suffered by employees while engaged in ship construction but also any other injuries—even though incurred on navigable waters and so within
The Longshoremen‘s Act was passed in 1927. The Congress which enacted it would have preferred to leave to state compensation laws the matter of injuries sustained by employees on navigable waters within state boundaries. However, in 1917 this Court had decided in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, that the New York Compensation Act could not, constitutionally, be applied to an injury sustained on a gangplank between a vessel and a wharf.5 It was held that the matter was outside state cognizance and exclusively within federal maritime jurisdiction, since to hold otherwise would impair the harmony and uniformity which the constitutional grant to the Federal Government of the admiralty power was meant to assure. While the Court acknowledged
The Jensen decision deprived many thousands of employees of the benefits of workmen‘s compensation. Congress twice attempted to deal with the situation by legislation expressly allowing state compensation statutes to operate.
Meanwhile the Court handed down a number of decisions which appeared to modify Jensen by permitting States to apply their statutes to some maritime injuries. But we must candidly acknowledge that the decisions between 1917 and 1926 produced no reliable determinant of valid state law coverage. In Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, decided in 1921, the Court upheld the jurisdiction of a United States District Court to entertain a libel in admiralty for damages for the death of a longshoreman under a state wrongful death statute. The Court reasoned that while the subject was maritime it was “local in character” and that application of the state statute “will not work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, nor interfere with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate relations.” 257 U. S., at 242.
No dependable definition of the area—described as “maritime but local,” or “of local concern“—where state laws could apply ever emerged from the many cases which dealt with the matter in this and the lower courts. The surest that could be said was that any particular injury might be within the area of “local concern,” depending upon its peculiar facts. In numerous situations state acts were considered inapplicable because they were thought to work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law, particularly in cases of employees engaged in repair work.6 On the other hand, awards under state compensation acts were sustained in situations wherein the effect on uniformity was often difficult to distinguish from those found to be outside the purview of state laws.7
Thus, the problem which confronted Congress in 1927 had two facets. One was that the failure of Congress’
The proposal of a uniform federal compensation act had the unqualified support of both employers and employee representatives. Workmen‘s compensation had gained wide acceptance throughout the country and State after State was enacting it.8 But hard battles were fought in committee and on the floor in both Houses of Congress over the form of the law. The bill introduced in the Senate, S. 3170, became the basis of the law.
There emerges from the complete legislative history9 a congressional desire for a statute which would provide federal compensation for all injuries to employees on navigable waters; in every case, that is, where Jensen
The gravity of the problem of uncertainty was emphasized when § 3 of S. 3170 in its original form was under discussion at the Senate Hearings. That version of § 3 provided: “This act shall apply to any employment performed on a place within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States, except employment of local concern and of no direct relation to navigation and commerce; but shall not apply to employment as master or member of the crew of a vessel.” (Emphasis supplied.) The Chairman of the Senate Committee perceived that to create an exemption for “employment of local concern” threatened to perpetuate the very uncertainties of coverage that Congress wished to avoid.11 The danger was
We are not privy to the Committee deliberations at which it was decided to drop the “local concern” language from § 3 and substitute the language now in the statute. We think it a reasonable inference that the Committee concluded that the exemption for “employment of local
The action of the House Committee, when S. 3170 as revised in the Senate came before it, discloses similar preoccupations. The House Committee rewrote § 3 to omit both the original “local concern” language and the Senate substitute.12 A parliamentary obstacle on an unrelated issue led to the House Committee‘s finally accepting the Senate version.13
In sum, it appears that the Longshoremen‘s Act was designed to ensure that a compensation remedy existed for all injuries sustained by employees on navigable waters, and to avoid uncertainty as to the source, state or federal, of that remedy. Section 3 (a) should, then, be construed to achieve these purposes. Plainly, the Court of Appeals’ interpretation, fixing the boundaries of federal coverage where the outer limits of state competence had been left by the pre-1927 constitutional decisions, does not achieve them.
In the first place, the contours of the “local concern” concept were and have remained necessarily vague and
In the second place, to conclude that federal coverage extends to the limits of navigable waters, except in those cases where a state compensation remedy “may” constitutionally be provided, would mean that, contrary to the congressional purpose, some injuries to employees on navigable waters might not be compensable under any statute. A vacuum would exist as to any injury which, although occurring within the constitutional domain of “local concern,” was in fact not covered by any state statute. A restriction of federal coverage short of the limits of the maritime jurisdiction could have avoided defeating the objective of assuring a compensation remedy for every injury on navigable waters only if Congress had provided that federal compensation would reach any case not actually covered by a state statute. But in order to have accomplished this result, the statute would have had to withdraw federal coverage, not wherever a state compensation remedy “may be” validly provided, but only wherever a state compensation remedy “is” validly provided. Even if a court could properly read “may be” as meaning “is,” such a reading would make federal coverage in the “local concern” area depend on whether or not a state legislature had taken certain action—an intention plainly not to be imputed to a Congress whose recent efforts to leave the matter entirely to the States had twice been struck down as unconstitutional delegations of congressional power.
Finally, there would have been no imaginable purpose in carving the area of “local concern” out of the federal coverage except to leave the greatest possible number of cases exclusively to the States. The price of such an objective would have included the adoption of whatever seemingly anomalous distinctions the courts might have
We conclude that Congress used the phrase “if recovery . . . may not validly be provided by State law” in a sense consistent with the delineation of coverage as reaching injuries occurring on navigable waters. By that language Congress reiterated that the Act reached all those cases of injury to employees on navigable waters as to which Jensen, Knickerbocker and Dawson had rendered questionable the availability of a state compensation remedy.14 Congress brought under the coverage of the
Our previous decisions under the Act are entirely consistent with our conclusion. In Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244, an employee of a seller of small boats, maritime supplies and outboard motors, hired primarily as a janitor and porter, was drowned when a boat in which he was riding capsized on the James River off Richmond, Virginia. The boat belonged to a customer of his employer and he and a fellow employee were testing one of the employer‘s outboard motors for which the boatowner was a prospective purchaser. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had held that the employee‘s work was “so local in character” that Virginia could validly have included it under a state workmen‘s compensation act, and so had set aside an award to the employee‘s dependents under the Longshoremen‘s Act. This Court reversed. We noted that “it is not doubted that Congress could constitutionally have provided for recovery under a federal statute in this kind of situation. The question is whether Congress has so provided in this
In Davis v. Department of Labor, 317 U. S. 249, a structural steel worker engaged in dismantling a bridge across a navigable river was cutting and stowing dismantled steel in a barge when he fell into the river from the barge and was drowned. His dependents sought compensation under the state act and this Court held that it could be applied. The result was not predicated on the ground that the employment was “maritime but local,” and so outside the coverage of the Longshoremen‘s Act. Rather the Court viewed the case as in a “twilight zone” where the applicability of state law was “extremely difficult” to determine, and resolved the doubt, of course, in favor of the constitutionality of the application of state law. At the same time, the Court indicated that compensation might also have been sought under the Longshoremen‘s Act and that an award under that Act in the very same circumstances would have been supportable, pointing out that the Act adopts “the Jensen line of demarcation.” 317 U. S., at 256. The conclusion that the Longshoremen‘s Act might have applied without regard
The issue in Avondale Marine Ways, Inc., v. Henderson, 346 U. S. 366, was whether compensation was available under the Longshoremen‘s Act for the death of an employee killed while engaged in the repair of a vessel which was then physically located on land, but on a marine railway. Since a marine railway was considered to be a “dry dock,” the injury satisfied § 3 (a)‘s requirement that it occur “upon . . . navigable waters,” defined in § 3 as “including any dry dock.” At the same time, since the injury did, in a physical sense, occur on land, there is little doubt that a state compensation act could validly have been applied to it. See State Commission v. Nordenholt Corp., 259 U. S. 263. Nevertheless, this Court affirmed an award of compensation under the Federal Act in a per curiam opinion.
The legislative history and our decisions had been read consistently with the views expressed herein by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before the decisions in the present cases. Judge Hutcheson said for the court in De Bardeleben Coal Corp. v. Henderson, 142 F. 2d 481, 483-484:
“Before the Parker case was decided . . . this court, in Continental Casualty Co. v. Lawson, 5 Cir., 64 F. 2d 802, 804, announced the view that the federal compensation laws should be liberally construed to cover every case where the injury occurred on navigable waters and where within the rule of [Jensen] . . . the action would have been in admiralty. In that case we said:
“‘The question whether jurisdiction over a maritime tort could be asserted under the compensation
laws of the states, or existed exclusively in admiralty, was an important one when the decisions were rendered in the Rohde . . . and other similar cases . . . but since the passage of this act (the Federal Workmen‘s Compensation Act) the importance of that question has largely disappeared. . . . The elaborate provisions of the Act, viewed in the light of prior Congressional legislation as interpreted by the Supreme Court, leaves no room for doubt, as it appears to us, that Congress intended to exercise to the fullest extent all the power and jurisdiction it had over the subject-matter. . . .’
“The Parker case, supra, substantially adopts this view . . . . As the Parker case pointed out, it is not at all necessary now to redetermine the correctness vel non of the Jensen case or of any of [its] brood . . . . It is sufficient to say that Congress intended the compensation act to have a coverage co-extensive with the limits of its authority and that the provision ‘if recovery . . . may not validly be provided by State law’ was placed in the act not as a relinquishment of any part of the field which Congress could validly occupy but only to save the act from judicial condemnation, by making it clear that it did not intend to legislate beyond its constitutional powers. . . . In the application of the act, therefore, the broadest ground it permits of should be taken. No ground should be yielded to state jurisdiction in cases falling within the principle of the Jensen case merely because the Supreme Court, before the Federal Compensation Law went into effect, did here a little, there a little, chip and whittle Jensen down in the mass of conflicting and contradictory decisions in which it advanced and applied the ‘local concern’ doctrine to save to employees
injured on navigable waters, and otherwise remediless, the remedies state compensation laws afforded them. . . . This is what we held in the Lawson case, what the Supreme Court held in the Parker case, supra. . . .”
We turn finally to a question raised only in Donovan v. Avondale Shipyards. The employer contends that the employee accepted benefits under the Louisiana State Compensation Act and that this constitutes an election of remedies which bars prosecution of his claim under the Longshoremen‘s Act. Compensation payments may be made under the Louisiana Compensation Act without a prior administrative proceeding. Before the federal claim was filed Avondale made payments to the employee for some two years and three months at the maximum rate provided by the Louisiana statute. The employee accepted the checks which bore a notation on their face that they were payments of compensation under the state act. In addition Avondale advanced a substantial sum to the employee to be credited against future compensation payments. Avondale also paid medical expenses for the employee‘s account in excess of the maximum liability imposed by the Louisiana statute. In the compensation order entered by Deputy Commissioner Donovan under the Longshoremen‘s Act the full amount of all payments made by the employer was credited against the award, and no impermissible double recovery is possible. We hold that the acceptance of the payments does not constitute an election of the remedy under state law precluding recovery under the Longshoremen‘s Act. Nothing in the statute requires a contrary result. And we agree that the circumstances do not support a finding of a binding election to look solely to the state law for recovery. Massachusetts Bonding & Insurance Co. v. Lawson, 149
The judgments of the Court of Appeals are reversed and the judgments of the District Courts are affirmed.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN joins, dissenting.
In the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act,
I seriously doubt whether statutory language as clear as that in
The Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act was the culmination of a series of events beginning with this Court‘s decision in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, which held that the New York Workmen‘s Compensation Act could not constitutionally be applied to a stevedore unloading a vessel on navigable waters, because to do so would impair the uniformity of the general maritime law. Within five months after the Jensen decision Congress passed legislation which attempted to give injured maritime employees “the rights and remedies under the workmen‘s compensation law of any State.”
Meanwhile, the Court was backing away somewhat from Jensen by recognizing that where the general employment and particular activities connected with an injury or death were local in character, though maritime in nature, state law could provide redress without disturbing the uniformity of the general maritime law. The maritime but local doctrine, first applied in connection with a state wrongful death statute, Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, provided the basis for holding that a state compensation act could be applied to a worker
Against this background Congress made its third and ultimately successful attempt to provide compensation for maritime employees deprived by the Jensen rule of state compensation remedies. Seizing upon a suggestion made by the Court in Washington v. Dawson & Co., supra, Congress turned its attention in the direction of a uniform federal compensation act. The Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act was the result. In the previous two attempts to circumvent Jensen Congress had indicated its belief that the compensation remedy could best be supplied by the States. It is obvious that in the new Act Congress did not depart from this basic approach, either by making federal law applicable where state law could apply, or by giving the injured employee a choice of remedies. Congress had simply been informed by decisions of this Court that a compensation remedy could be provided for certain maritime injuries only through a uniform federal law, and the federal legislation was enacted only to fill the gap created by those decisions.
The legislative materials connected with the Act fully support this conclusion. It was repeatedly emphasized that the purpose of the Act was to provide a compensation remedy for those who could not obtain such relief under state law. “If longshoremen could avail themselves of the benefits of State compensation laws, there would be no occasion for this legislation; but, unfortu-
In order to avoid the harsh results which the uncertainties of this statutory provision could sometimes produce, the Court in Davis v. Department of Labor, 317 U. S. 249, developed the theory of the twilight zone. There we reversed a decision of the Washington Supreme Court which had held that a State could not constitutionally make a compensation award to the widow of a workman drowned in a navigable river while dismantling a drawbridge. Relying on the language of § 903 (a) the Court pointed out that “Congress made clear its purpose to permit state compensation protection whenever possible. . . .” Id., at 252-253. The Court went on to note that harbor workers and longshoremen were clearly protected by the Federal Act but that “employees such as decedent
Whatever else may be said of the Davis decision, it thus clearly rested on a construction of the statute precisely opposite to that adopted by the Court today. Indeed, if today‘s decision is correct, then there was no reason for the “twilight zone” doctrine worked out with such travail in Davis. For the Court now holds that the problem which led to the Davis decision never really existed. Yet as recently as 1959 the Court began a per curiam opinion with this topic sentence: “By its terms, the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act does not apply ‘if recovery for the disability or death through workmen‘s compensation proceedings may . . . validly be provided by State law.‘” Hahn v. Ross Island
In my view the decision of the Court of Appeals in these cases was correct. For almost forty years it has been unequivocally recognized that for those employed on new ship construction recovery for disability or death through workmen‘s compensation may validly be provided by state law. Grant Smith-Porter Ship Co. v. Rohde, supra. In one of the cases before us the claimant has actually been paid benefits under the Louisiana Compensation Act. In the other a claim under the Texas Act is pending and would clearly be allowed. See Travelers Ins. Co. v. Gonzalez, 351 S. W. 2d 374. These cases, therefore, were not by any stretch of the imagination within the twilight zone. The Federal Act is thus by its terms inapplicable.
I would affirm.
Notes
“(a) Compensation shall be payable under this chapter in respect of disability or death of an employee, but only if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any dry dock) and if recovery for the disability or death through workmen‘s compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law. No compensation shall be payable in respect of the disability or death of—
“(1) A master or member of a crew of any vessel, nor any person engaged by the master to load or unload or repair any small vessel under eighteen tons net; or
“(2) An officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof or of any State or foreign government, or of any political subdivision thereof.”
During this same period the Court consistently held that the principles of Jensen prohibited the application of state compensation laws to workers engaged in the repair of existing vessels. Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Dahl, 266 U. S. 449; Gonsalves v. Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co., 266 U. S. 171; Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479.In the Donovan case the employee, Minus Aizen, was also a welder. His employer was Avondale Marine Ways, Inc., which operated two shipyards near New Orleans. Aizen had worked only on new construction although fellow employees worked both on new construction and on repair work. He was injured while welding on an oil drilling barge which had been launched and was floating on the navigable waters of the Mississippi River while her construction was being completed.
Hearings before the House Judiciary Committee on H. R. 9498, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., at 39, 118; Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on S. 3170, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., at 22, 25-27, 31, 38, 85.“The purpose of this bill is to provide for compensation, in the stead of liability, for a class of employees commonly known as ‘longshoremen.’ These men are mainly employed in loading, unloading, refitting, and repairing ships; but it should be remarked that injuries occurring in loading or unloading are not covered unless they occur on the ship or between the wharf and the ship so as to bring them within the maritime jurisdiction of the United States. There are in the neighborhood of 300,000 men so employed in the entire country.
“The committee deems it unnecessary to comment upon the modern change in the relation between employers and employees establishing systems of compensation as distinguished from liability. Nearly every State in the Union has a compensation law through which employees are compensated for injuries occurring in the course of their employment without regard to negligence on the part of the employer or contributory negligence on the part of the employee. If longshoremen could avail themselves of the benefits of State compensation laws, there would be no occasion for this legislation; but, unfortunately, they are excluded from these laws by reason of the character of their employment; and they are not only excluded but the Supreme Court has more than once held that Federal legislation can not, constitutionally, be enacted that will apply State laws to this occupation. (Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149; Washington v. Dawson & Co., 264 U. S. 219.)
“It thus appears that there is no way of giving to these hardworking men, engaged in a somewhat hazardous employment, the justice involved in the modern principle of compensation without enacting a uniform compensation statute.”
To like effect is H. R. Rep. No. 1190, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., at 1, 3:
“This bill provides compensation for employees injured . . . in certain maritime employments . . . . The principal wage earners provided for are longshoremen . . . . Next in importance are the ship repairmen—carpenters, painters, boiler makers, etc. Congressional action is necessary if these wage earners are to be given the benefits of workmen‘s compensation owing to the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States and the decisions of the Supreme Court thereunder. . . . The committee . . . recommends that this humanitarian legislation be speedily enacted into law so that this class of workers, practically the only class without the benefit of workmen‘s compensation, may be afforded this protection, which has come to be almost universally recognized as necessary in the interest of social justice between employer and employee.”H. R. Rep. No. 1767, 69th Cong., 2d Sess., at 20, makes clear that the House was desirous of legislation whereby Congress could “discharge its obligation to the maritime workers placed under their jurisdiction by the Constitution of the United States by providing for them a law whereby they may receive the benefits of workmen‘s compensation and thus afford them the same remedies that have been provided by legislation for those killed or injured in the course of their employment in nearly every State in the Union.”
“The CHAIRMAN. That term [employment of local concern] was used in one of the decisions of the Supreme Court, probably, but, in its application, just what does it mean?
[Footnote 11 continued on p. 123]
“Mr. BROWN. Unless there is something in connection with admiralty law which qualifies it, I should say it is a very vague thing, and we can not understand what it means. The phrase ‘of no direct relation to navigation and commerce’ is another questionable proposition, whether the coverage of this bill might not apply to a man on the docks. Some of my friends seem to think that it would not apply to the man on the docks, that the State laws now apply, and it was said in the same decision [the witness referred to Rohde, supra, but the quoted language is found in Nordenholt, supra, note 7, at 276]:“‘There is no pertinent Federal statute and application of a local law will not work material prejudice to any characteristic feature of the maritime law.
“‘The CHAIRMAN. We certainly can find some language that will describe these people that we intend to protect, but I am not sure whether this is the most accurate language that can be found.
“‘Mr. BROWN. I think that is true. I think that you could not only find language that would prescribe the coverage accurately, but I think that language could be devised that would be eminently satisfactory to everybody in [an] act that would incorporate the purposes which are, perhaps, behind this.‘” Senate Hearings, at 57.
“SEC. 3. This act shall apply to any maritime employment performed—
“(a) Upon the navigable waters of the United States, including any dry dock; or
“(b) As master or member of a crew of any barge, lighter, tug, dredge, vessel, or other ocean, lake, river, canal, harbor, or floating craft owned by a citizen of the United States.”