HERB‘S WELDING, INC., ET AL. v. GRAY ET AL.
No. 83-728
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 3, 1984—Decided March 18, 1985
470 U.S. 414
Wood Brown III argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners.
Carolyn F. Corwin argued the cause for the federal respondent. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Lee, Deputy Solicitor General Geller, Karen I. Ward, Allen H. Feldman, and Joshua T. Gillelan II. T. Gerald Henderson argued the cause for respondent Gray. With him on the brief was David W. Robertson.*
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), 44 Stat. 1424, as amended,
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Kerr-McGee Corp. by Christopher Tompkins and Rene H. Himel, Jr.; and for Texaco, Inc., et al. by Robert M. Contois, Jr.
I
Respondent Gray worked for Herb‘s Welding, Inc., in the Bay Marchand oil and gas field off the Louisiana coast. Herb‘s Welding provided wеlding services to the owners of drilling platforms. The field was located partly in Louisiana territorial waters, i. e., within three miles of the shore, and partly on the Outer Continental Shelf. Gray ate and slept on a platform situated in Louisiana waters. He spent roughly three-quarters of his working time on platforms in state waters and the rest on platforms on the Outer Continental Shelf. He worked exclusively as a welder, building and replacing pipelines and doing general maintenance work on the platforms.
On July 11, 1975, Gray was welding a gas flow line on a fixed platform2 located in Louisiana waters. He burnt
The Benefits Review Board reversed on other grounds. 12 BRBS 752 (1980). By a vote of 2-1, it concluded that irrespective of the nature of his employment, Gray could recover by virtue of a provision of the Outer Continental Shеlf Lands Act, 67 Stat. 462,
The Board reaffirmed its position after the case was remanded to the ALJ for entry of judgment and calculation of benefits, and petitioners sought review in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court affirmed, relying directly on the LHWCA rather than on the Lands Act. 703 F. 2d 176 (1983). With regard to the Act‘s situs requirement, it noted that this Court had compared drilling platforms to wharves in Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., supra. Given that the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA extended coverage to accidents occurring on wharves, it would be incongruous if they did not also reach accidents occurring on drilling platforms. Also, since workers injured on movable barges, on fixed platforms on the Outer Continental Shelf, or en route to fixed platforms, are all covered, there would be a “curious hole” in coverage if someone in Gray‘s position was not. 703 F. 2d, at 177-178. As for Gray‘s status, the Court of Appeals, differing with the ALJ, held that Gray‘s work bore “a realistically significant
II
A
When extractive operations first moved offshore, all claims for injuries on fixed platforms proceeded under state workers’ compensation schemes. See Hearings, at 396, 409, 411. See also Robertson 993. With the 1953 passage of the Lands Act, Congress extended LHWCA coverage to oil workers more than three miles offshore.
So matters stood when Congress amended the LHWCA in 1972. What is known about the congressional intent behind that legislation has been amply described in our prior opinions. See, e. g., Director, OWCP v. Perini North River Associates, 459 U. S. 297 (1983); Sun Ship, Inc. v. Pennsylvania, 447 U. S. 715, 717-722 (1980); Northeast Marine
The Act, as amended, does not mention offshore drilling rigs or the workers thereon. The legislative history of the amendments is also silent, although early in the legislative process, a bill was introduced to extend the Act to all offshore oil workers. The bill died in Committee. While hardly dispositive, it is worth noting that the same Committee considered the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, and the possible extension of the Lands Act‘s application of the LHWCA to drilling platforms, apparently without it ever occurring to anyone that the two might have been duplicative. The concurrent but independent reconsideration of both the Lands Act and the LHWCA, the congressional view that the amendments to the latter involved the “[e]xtension of [c]overage to [s]horeside [a]reas,” H. R. Rep. No 92-1441, p. 10 (1972), and the absence of any mention of drilling platforms in the discussion of the LHWCA, combine to suggest that the 1972 Congress at least did not intentionally extend the LHWCA to workers such as Gray.5
The rationale of the Court of Appeals was that offshore drilling is maritime commerce and that anyone performing any task that is part and parcel of that activity is in maritime employment for LHWCA purposes. Since it is doubtful that an offshore driller will pay and maintain a worker on an offshore rig whose job is unnecessary to the venture, this approach would extend coverage to virtually everyone on the stationary platform. We think this construction of the Act is untenable.
The Act does not define the term “maritime employment,” but our cases and the legislative history of the amendments foreclose the Court of Appeals’ reading. Rodrigue involved two men killed while working on an offshore drilling rig on the Outer Continental Shelf. Their families brought third-party negligence suits in federal court, claiming recovery under both the Death on the High Seas Act and the state law of Louisiana. The District Court ruled that resort could not be had to state law and that the High Seas Act provided the exclusive remedy. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the men had been engaged in maritime activity on the high seas and that maritime law was the exclusive source of relief. We reversed. First, the platforms involved were artificial islands and were to be treated as though they were federal enclaves in an upland State. Federal law was to govern accidents occurring on these islands; but, contrary to the Court of Appeals, we held that the Lands Act and borrowed state law, not the maritime law, constituted the controlling federal law. The platforms “were islands, albeit artificial ones, and the accidents had no more connection with the ordinary stuff of admiralty than do accidents on piers.” 395 U. S., at 360. Indeed, observing
We also went on to examine the legislative history of the Lands Act and noted (1) that Congress was of the view that maritime law would not apply to fixed platforms unless a statute expressly so provided; and (2) that Congress had seriously considered applying maritime law to these platforms but had rejected that approach because it considered maritime law to be inapposite, a view that would be untenable if drilling from a fixed platform is a maritime operation. The history of the Lands Act at the very least forecloses the Court of Appeals’ holding that offshore drilling is a maritime activity and that any task essential thereto is maritime employment for LHWCA purposes.7
We cannot assume that Congress was unfamiliar with Rodrigue and the Lands Act when it referred to “maritime employment” in defining the term “employee” in 1972.8 It
The Fifth Circuit‘s expansive view of maritime employment is also inconsistent with our prior cases under the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA. The expansiоn of the definition of navigable waters to include rather large shoreside areas necessitated an affirmative description of the particular employees working in those areas who would be covered. This was the function of the maritime employment requirement. But Congress did not seek to cover all those who breathe salt air. Its purpose was to cover those workers on the situs who are involved in the essential elements of loading and unloading; it is “clear that persons who are on the situs but not engaged in the overall process of loading or unloading vessels are not covered.” Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S., at 267. While “maritime employment” is not limited to the occupations specifically mentioned in
The dissent emphasizes that Gray was generally on or near the water and faced maritime hazards. Post, at 445-449. To the extent this is so, it is relevant to “situs,” not “status.” To hold that Gray was necessarily engaged in maritime employment because he was on a drilling platform would ignore Congress’ admonition that not everyone on a covered situs automatically satisfies the status test. See S. Rep. No. 92-1125, p. 13 (1972). The dissent considers “[t]he maritime nature of the occupation... apparent from examining
III
Respondents, and the dissenters, object that denying coverage to someone in Gray‘s position will result in exactly the sort of inconsistent, checkered coverage that Congress sought to eliminate in 1972. In the words of the court below, it creates a “curious hole” in coverage, 703 F. 2d, at 178, because Gray would have been covered had he been injured on navigable waters or on the outer shelf.
We do not find the argument compelling. First, this submission goes far beyond Congress’ undoubted desire to treat equally all workers engaged in loading or unloading a ship, whether they were injured on the ship or on an adjoining pier or dock. The former were covered prior to 1972; the latter were not. Both are covered under the 1972 Amendments. Second, there will always be a boundary to coverage, and there will always be people who cross it during their employment. Nacirema Operating Co. v. Johnson, 396 U. S. 212, 223-224 (1969). If that phenomenon was enough to require coverage, the Act would have to reach much further than
As we have said before in this area, if Congress’ coverage decisions are mistaken as a matter of policy, it is for Congress to change them. We should not legislate for them. See Victory Carriers, Inc. v. Law, 404 U. S. 202, 216 (1971).
IV
Because Gray‘s employment was not “maritime,” he does not qualify for benefits under the LHWCA. We need not determine whether he satisfied the Act‘s situs requirement. We express no opinion on his argument that he is covered by
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE O‘CONNOR join, dissenting.
Today the Court holds that a marine petroleum worker is not covered by the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), 44 Stat. 1424, as amended,
I
At the outset, it is useful to examine the LHWCA‘s general coverage pattern, and, in particular, the purposes of its 1972 Amendments. Before 1972, LHWCA coverage was determined largely by the traditional “locality” test of maritime tort jurisdiction. Under that test, if an accident occurred on the navigable waters (which usually meant on a vessel) the worker was covered, no matter how close the accident may have been to the adjoining land or pier; in contrast, if an accident occurred on adjoining land, a pier, or a wharf there was only stаte coverage, no matter how close the accident may have been to the water‘s edge. See Nacirema Operating Co. v. Johnson, 396 U. S. 212 (1969). Cf. Victory Carriers v. Law, 404 U. S. 202 (1971). A longshoreman moving cargo from ship to pier was thus covered for injuries incurred on board the ship, but not for any injuries incurred after stepping onto the pier. Nacirema Operating Co., supra. See also P. C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U. S. 69, 72 (1979) (“A single situs requirement... governed the scope of [the Act‘s] coverage“).
Behind this system of “checkered coverage” stood the reality that federal and state workers’ compensation schemes usually had very different benefit levels, the state benefit levels often being inadequate. See n. 2, infra. Thus, those workers whose professional lives might require that they move back and forth between water and adjoining land—“amphibious workers“—and whose protection was the principal goal of the LHWCA, had to rely for workers’ compensation on an imperfect amalgam of federal and state workers’
In 1972, Congress amended the Act, expanding coverage landward as a means of rationalizing the coverage pattern. This case involves two of the principal Amendments. First, Congress expanded the situs of coverage to include those areas immediately adjacent to the water, in which maritime workers would be likely to spend a large part of their working lives. The Act would now cover “disability or death result[ing] from an injury occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway, or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing, or building a vessel)....”
But if only the situs of coverage had been altered, a new problem would have been created. Expanding the situs landward would not only have brought uniform coverage to those occupations previously covered in part, it would also have brought within the covered situs large numbers of occupations whose members had never before been covered at all. Workers such as truckdrivers or clericals, though present
Under the “status” test, coverage was limited to those “engaged in maritime employment.”
“The term ‘employee’ means any person engaged in maritime employment, including any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations, and any harborworker including a ship repairman, shipbuilder, and shipbreaker....” 3
Both changes together were part of an effort to rationalize the Act‘s coverage pattern. Congress wanted a system that did not depend on the “fortuitous circumstance of whether the injury occurred on land or over water,” S. Rep. 13; H. R. Rep. 10-11, and it wanted a “uniform compensation system to apply to employees who would otherwise be covered...
Workers on fixed offshore rigs are “amphibious workers” who spend almost their entire worklife either travеling on the navigable waters or laboring on statutorily covered pier-like areas immediately adjacent thereto. They are exposed on a daily basis to hazards associated with maritime employment. And most important, given the fact that workers on floating rigs are covered by the Act, the Court‘s result recreates exactly the type of “incongruous” coverage distinctions that Congress specifically sought to eliminate in 1972.
II
The Court analyzes only the “maritime employment” status test, finding that that issue disposes of the case and makes unnecessary any discussion of “situs.” Although the Court starts its analysis from the premise that “[t]he Act does not define the term ‘maritime employment,‘” ante, at 421, its own analysis of the term is quite conclusory and inadequate. The Court focuses on traditional admiralty law‘s treatment of fixed petroleum platforms, as found in a 1969 admiralty decision of this Court and a 1953 statute. It thus ignores that it was precisely the desire to break with traditional admiralty law‘s rigid locality-based distinctions that motivated Congress’ passage of the 1972 LHWCA Amendments. Although the pre-1972 law cited by the Court was specifically based on those distinctions, the Court concludes that that law “foreclose[s]” the possibility that these workers might be engaged in “maritime employment.” Ibid. The Court thus offers a conclusion that comports neither with the structure of the 1972 Amendments nor with our prior cases interpreting the Amendments’ purрoses. Instead, it derives its conclusion from straightforward pre-1972 applications of the very admiralty law concept that the 1972 Amendments
A
The Court constructs its interpretation of “maritime employment” around the premise that the 1972 Congress had no desire to alter the law of Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 395 U. S. 352 (1969), a pre-1972 admiralty case that had nothing to do with the LHWCA. In Rodrigue, wrongful-death actions were brought in admiralty under the Death on the High Seas Act, 41 Stat. 537,
The Rodrigue Court‘s reasoning as to admiralty law‘s inapplicability was straightforward, and is best found in a statement that has substantial irony, given the current Court‘s insistence that Rodrigue tells us what Congress meant in the 1972 LHWCA Amendments: The Rodrigue Court declared that “[a]dmiralty jurisdiction has not bеen construed to extend to accidents on piers, jetties, bridges, or even ramps or railways running into the sea.” 395 U. S., at 360. Rodrigue concluded, as the Court now emphasizes, that drilling platforms have “no more connection with the ordinary stuff of admiralty than do accidents on piers.” Ante, at 421-422 (quoting 395 U. S., at 360). This may be so, but it is clear that the 1972 LHWCA Amendments were intended to expand LHWCA coverage well beyond the bounds of
That Rodrigue‘s holding was based on the application of admiralty‘s traditional locality test cannot be doubted, and it would likely have been so understood by Congress in 1972. For example, just prior to the 1972 LHWCA Amendments’ passage, this Court cited Rodrigue as one of more than 40 cases following the traditional view that “[i]n regard to torts . . . the jurisdiction of the admiralty is exclusively dependent upon the locality of the act.”5 Given this basis of Rodrigue, there is simply no necessary relation between that case and the meaning of the “maritime employment” status test under
B
The Court also focuses on the legislative history of the 1953 Lands Act, as discussed in Rodrigue, to show that long before the 1972 Amendments Congress had determined that workers on fixed platforms were not “engaged in maritime activity.” Ante, at 422-423. But the 1953 determination was simply to provide law for the Outer Continental Shelf without altering the traditional locality test of admiralty coverage. There is no reason to assume that that decision governs the meaning of a 1972 statute that had nothing to do with the Outer Continental Shelf and was otherwise explicitly meant to alter this very admiralty rule. In that sense, the congressional intent behind the Lands Act might be as
The irrelevance of Rodrigue‘s Lands Act analysis can best be seen by examining the point in the legislative history that Rodrigue most emphasized: The Lands Act Congress chose not to adopt admiralty law as the exclusive law for Outer Continental Shelf fixed platform workers because of those workers’ close ties to shore communities. 395 U. S., at 361-365. Those ties gave offshore workers and shore communities a shared interest in those workers’ continued access to state protective legislation. Id., at 362. Because of this, the Lands Act Congress viewed “maritime law [as] inapposite to . . . fixed structures,” id., at 363; but that supports no inference that in 1972 Congress desired to exclude these workers from the LHWCA definition of “maritime employment.”
In 1972, Congress clearly did not seek to limit LHWCA coverage according to a worker‘s connection to the shoreside community, and indeed, it is hard to argue that that was еver a factor limiting LHWCA coverage. First, the principal targets of both the 1972 expansion of coverage and the initial 1927 Act were longshoremen and harborworkers; both are groups significantly more closely tied to their shoreside communities than are offshore petroleum workers.7 Second, Congress was well aware that workers on floating rigs had a long history of coverage under the LHWCA, see n. 1, supra, and yet they are not argued to be less “connected” to the
In general, a close connection between an arguably “maritime” occupation and the shoreside community may very well form the basis of a decision not to exclusively apply admiralty law coverage to the affairs of that occupation. Indeed, that is just the rationale Rodrigue attributed to the Congress that passed the Lands Act. But, as is shown by the above factors, the same rationale cannot explain the coverage of the post-1972 LHWCA.8
Although Rodrigue‘s analysis of the Lands Aсt is largely irrelevant to the issues in the instant case, a closer examination of the Lands Act as a whole reveals that its authors held views which actually support coverage in this case. In a number of instances unrelated to the Rodrigue case, the Lands Act evidences a congressional understanding that work on fixed offshore platforms has maritime attributes. Even though the Lands Act did not generally apply admiralty law to fixed rigs on the Outer Continental Shelf, it also did not leave the law of worker safety in the exclusive hands of the States. First, it explicitly provided for LHWCA coverage of Outer Continental Shelf fixed platform workers. See
C
The Court‘s analysis in the instant case is flawed not only because it uses particularly irrelevant pre-1972 decisions to define the outer boundaries of “maritime employment,” but
III
After erroneously determining that its decision in this case is mandated by Rodrigue and the legislative history of the Lands Act, the Court turns to its formulation of a “test” for “maritime employment.” Its discussion of the statutory language, legislative history, and prior Court interpretations of the “maritime employment” provision of
The only “test” that the Court comes close to announcing seems to involve an inquiry into whether an occupation is sufficiently related to maritime commerce (which seems to be confined to ship construction and cargo moving, ante, at 423-424) for it to be within a class of tasks “inherently maritime.” Ante, at 425. The Court offers no justification for why the category should be so limited, nor does it seriously evaluate whether fixed offshore rig workers could fall into the cate-
This “test” is adopted in spite of the fact that no prior decisions of this Court have held the status test to be so limited. Caputo and P. C. Pfeiffer Co. which the Court cites as if they had established those limits, ante, at 423-424, were decisions that analyzed the concept of occupational status as it applied to different aspects of longshoring operations. Although those decisions contain important discussions concerning the structure and history of the Act, the only discussions on the limits of “maritime employment” were within the particular factual setting of those cases, that is, the decisions only sought to distinguish among those occupations normally found on a pier during the loading and unloading of a
In Perini, we held that a construction worker injured while working on a barge during the construction of a riverside sewage treatment plant was “engaged in maritime employment.” Although Perini‘s precise holding concerned only the occupational status of a worker injured while required to be on the actual navigable waters, the necessary implications of that holding are of course not limited to the facts of that case. The Court reads Perini as having no importance to an understanding of what the term “maritime employment” might mean outside the situation where a worker is injured on the actual navigable waters. Ante, at 424-425, n. 10. But the statute applies the term “maritime employment” to all coverage situations, with no hint that its meaning should radically change depending on an injury‘s exact situs. See P. C. Pfeiffer Co., 444 U. S., at 78-79. Nor does the Act‘s structure or language allow for an interpretation that, in effect, exempts workers injured on the actual navigable waters from the requirement that they be “engaged in maritime employment.” Perini declined to rest on a rationale that focused only on the situs of the injury. It instead saw location as significant principally because an occupation‘s location is an aspect of the occupation‘s status.
“[W]e emphasize that we in no way hold that Congress meant for such employees to receive LHWCA coverage merely by meeting the situs test, and without any regard to the ‘maritime employment’ language. . . . We consider those employees to be ‘engaged in maritime employment’ not simply because they are injured in a historically maritime locale, but because they are required to perform their employment duties upon navigable waters.” 459 U. S., at 323-324.
Perini is also relevant because it repeatedly refused to rest its holding on any inquiry into whether the claimant‘s work had a “direct” or “substantial relation” to navigation or traditional notions of maritime commerce. See Perini, 459 U. S., at 311, n. 21, 315, 318. Such a test was urged on the Court as a test that would deny coverage to the claimant, and Perini, after extensively discussing the Act‘s history, see n. 11, supra, firmly concluded that the 1972 Congress did not mean to incorporate such an inquiry into the analysis of occupational status. The Court today offers an analysis quite close to that which Perini explicitly rejected.
IV
To determine whether an offshore fixed platform worker is “engaged in maritime employment” the Court should have turned to three principles that we have previously applied to such questions. First, prior cases make clear that we must interpret coverage in light of the overall purposes of the Act. A major purpose of the 1972 Amendments was to eliminate those aspects of the prior system that made coverage depend on the “fortuitous circumstance of whether the injury occurred on land or over water,” S. Rep., at 13; H. R. Rep., at 10, and to provide workers with a “uniform compensation system to apply to employees who would otherwise be covered by this Act for part of their activity.” Id., at 10-11. Cf. Sun Ship, 447 U. S., at 725-726 (“The legislative policy animating the LHWCA‘s landward shift was remedial [and] the amendments’ framers acted out of solicitude for the workers“).
Second, we have said that Congress’ concerns in extending coverage went beyond a concern for the exact locations of any
Third, we have said that a major factor in the determination of “maritime employment” is whether the members of an occupation are “required to perform their employment duties upon navigable waters.” Perini, supra, at 323-324.
A
In applying these principles to this case, it becomes clear that offshore fixed oil platform workers should be considered in “maritime employment.” When viewed from an occupational perspective, it is a glaring fact that unless clаssified as Jones Act seamen, see n. 3, supra, all offshore oil rig workers who work on floating rigs are engaged in maritime employment for LHWCA purposes, for they all must work “on the actual navigable waters.” See Perini, supra, at 323. See also n. 1, supra. Other than the fact that their rigs were a traditional admiralty situs, there is little to distinguish the job or location of a worker on a floating rig from those of a worker on a fixed rig. Physically, the structures may be quite similar.14 For example, they are similarly small,15 relatively isolated, and totally surrounded by the sea. The two types of structures are parts of similar enterprises and opera-
In Perini we held that the fact that a worker is required to work over the actual navigable waters is weighty evidence of his or her maritime status. 459 U. S., at 323-324. This holding clearly calls for the inclusion of fixed rig workers within the maritime employment classification. Here, Gray‘s job was to do welding, as needеd, on oil rigs scattered over the Bay Marchand oil field. He was thus required to live
The maritime nature of the occupation is even more apparent from examining its location in terms of the expanded situs coverage of the 1972 Amendments. Assuming that a fixed offshore platform is a covered situs under
“Worker transportation is one of the most basic problems associated with offshore operations. Transportation is accomplished either by boats or helicopters. High-speed crew boats transport work crews when time is available and the distance is less than about 50 miles. Helicopters transport crews and other personnel over long distances or when time is important. The transportation of equipment to offshore rigs is accomplished with work boats. These boats . . . are versatile, high powered, and essential to offshore operations. Thus, all platforms must be provided with mooring bits, bumpers, cranes, stairs, etc., for use with work boats and crew boats.” W. Graff, Introduction to Offshore Structures 3 (1981).
The rig is thus an “area [adjoining the navigable waters] customarily used by an employer in loading [or] unloading . . . a vessel.”
Fixed rigs are also physically quite analogous to piers or wharvеs. They are of limited size, see n. 15, supra, so a worker almost anywhere on the deck would be aware of his close proximity to the water. Similarly, the decks are elevated over the water, built to provide access to the water, and situated so that working conditions are influenced by the surrounding marine environment. Given these factors, I have little problem classifying the whole of the platform as a covered situs,18 either because it is an “other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading [or] unloading” or because it is analogous to a pier or wharf facility.
Given this determination, a fixed platform worker is quite distinct from the truckdriver or clerical worker who in the
A last reason for classifying these workers as maritime is that they face working conditions and hazards associated with their maritime location. This was clearly stated in the testimony of a high official of an offshore drilling company before a recent congressional hearing on offshore worker safety:
“Offshore work has a special set of concerns because we are a hybrid industry. In one sense, we are an onshore industry that initially crept out over the water. But it is equally fair to characterize us as a maritime industry, the same as the merchant marine or any other.
“In point of fact, we share all of the concerns of both the drilling and maritime industries, plus a few uniquely ours.”19
The same sentiment is recognized in the delegation of regulatory authority to the Coast Guard and in the Coast Guard regulations, see n. 10, supra, and accompanying text, and has been noted by legal and occupational health authorities.20 Clearly these workers do far more than just “breathe salt air.” See ante, at 423.
B
The Court supports its conclusion that fixed offshore oil rig wоrkers are nonmaritime by arguing that their work is similar to drilling work done on land. But this reasoning must fail for a number of reasons. First, it ignores that while the work is similar to work done on land, it is virtually identical to work on floating oil rigs—which is clearly maritime.
Second, the Court‘s reasoning ignores that many indisputably maritime occupations are quite analogous to nonmaritime occupations. A forklift or crane operator who moves cargo on a pier and a “checker” who inventories that cargo are considered longshoremen with maritime status, even though their work may be quite similar to that of inland workers in a warehousing operation. See Caputo, 432 U. S., at 249 (“checker” was engaged in “maritime employment“); see also Perini, 459 U. S. 297 (1983) (construction worker may be engaged in “maritime employment“). The issue is not whether job duties are similar to those of nonmaritime workers, but whether the enterprise in question
Third, the Court‘s reasoning ignores that whatever the similarities to land-based work, the work schedules, working conditions, and job hazards of offshore workers are in some ways quite different from their land-based counterparts. And most of the differences are the result of the offshore workers’ proximity to the sea. See supra, at 448-449.
V
For the reasons discussed above, respondent Gray was “engaged in maritime employment” within the meaning of
Notes
The Court defends Rodrigue‘s relevance to this case in a curious way. The Court asserts that Rodrigue had gone beyond simply analogizing drilling platforms to piers, and actually held that drilling platforms “are islands.” Ante, at 422, n. 6. This is put forth as if to imply that Rodrigue‘s holding rested on something other than a simple analysis of traditional maritime tort locality. But relevant maritime law recognized no legal distinction between injuries on “piers” and injuries on “islands.” Both were equally understood simply to be injuries on localities that were not “on the navigable waters.” Rodrigue‘s additional metaphor equating drilling platforms with islands added no additional legal point to that decision. It is, to say the least, peculiar to now look back on that opinion‘s casual choice of metaphors as a basis for determining the contours of subsequently created legal rights in an unrelated statute.