248 Mass. 31 | Mass. | 1924
These are two cases under the workmen’s compensation act. The facts show that the cases are subject to the same controlling principles of law and, although argued separately, they are decided by a single opinion.
Brandéis received injuries in the course of and arising out of his employment by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. The general finding of the board was that the employee’s claim was within-its jurisdiction and not within the exclusive jurisdiction of admiralty. This general finding will be sustained if there is any evidence to support it. Pass’s Case, 232 Mass. 515. It imports a finding of all sub
Brandéis apparently was employed as a joiner or carpenter. He testified that he was at work at the time of his injury on a dry dock, building a staging, that was the work he always did; that he was handing a big plank to a fellow employee and it slipped causing his injury. Other testimony showed that the dry dock was moored to piers and was floating in navigable waters, so that “ the ship sails right into it.” The vessel in the floating dry dock was a steamship in commission which came into the dock for repairs. In order to make the required repairs, it was necessary to erect a staging on the outside of the vessel within the dry dock. The staging consisted of horses twenty-six feet high, which moved on wheels and which were arranged along the inside of the dock against the side of the ship. Planks were placed on these horses to make the staging continuous around the ship. The claimant when injured was engaged in setting up this staging. These appear to be the facts in their light most favorable to the claimant which on the evidence the board might have found. The employer of Brandéis was insured under the workmen’s compensation act.
O’Hara’s Case was submitted on an agreed statement of facts in substance as follows: A contract for certain repairs on an ocean-going steamship was made by her owners with the corporate proprietor of a dry dock. The dry dock rested upon and was attached to land. For the performance of the contract it was necessary that the steamship be floated into the dry dock. That had been done and the water had been partly pumped out of the dock at the time of the injury. O'Hara was in the employ of subcontractors, to whom had been let the chipping of the hull, that is, the removal of old paint in preparation for a new coat of paint. While in the performance of his duties, walking on a plank extending from the side of the dry dock to the side of the steamship, he fell, receiving injuries for which compensation is here sought. The proprietor of the dry dock was insured under the workmen’s compensation act, but the sub
Both these cases are within the scope of the workmen’s compensation act so far as concerns mere matter of verbal construction. That act must be and has been interpreted as operative only upon classes of employment and injury within the jurisdiction of this Commonwealth. It does not extend to “ cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,” which are exclusively under the control of the United States. U. S. Const, art. 3, § 2, art. 1, § 8. Gillard’s Case, 244 Mass. 47, 51, 52.
The single question to be decided is whether these injuries are “ cases of admiralty and ‘maritime jurisdiction.” This is a subject on which decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States constitute the law of the land. Therefore, our only concern is to endeavor to ascertain and apply the governing principles declared by that court.
In the leading case of Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, it was held respecting a stevedore injured on a gangway connecting an ocean-going vessel with the pier while helping to unload her cargo, that his work was “ maritime in its nature; his employment was a maritime contract; the injuries which he received were likewise maritime; and the rights and liabilities of the parties in connection therewith were matters clearly within the admiralty jurisdiction.” As a necessary consequence it further was held that the New York workmen’s. compensation law was not operative because the jurisdiction of the United States over admiralty and maritime affairs was exclusive. This decision according to our understanding has not been modified in its essential features by more recent pronouncements. It has been cited with approval and as a controlling authority on all matters within its scope in all subsequent decisions dealing with the subject. Chelentis v. Luckenbach Steamship Co. Inc. 247 U. S. 372. Union Fish Co. v. Erickson, 248 U. S. 308. Peters v. Veasey, 251 U. S. 121. Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149. See also
In Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co. 264 U. S. 219 decided two days ago by the Supreme Court of the United States, it was adjudged that the workmen’s compensation act of the State of Washington was inoperative over stevedores at work on board ship in navigable waters and that that of the State of California was inoperative over workmen actually engaged in maritime work under a maritime contract on a ship moored at her dock and discharging her cargo, and that the Act of Congress of June 10, 1922, c. 216, 42 U. S. Sts. at Large, 634, amending § 24, cl. 3 and § 256, cl. 3, of the Judicial Code was in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and hence unenforceable. It further was expressly held that “ None of the later cases depart from the doctrine of Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, [244 U. S. 205] and Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart [253 U. S. 149] . . . .” See Danielsen v. Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co. 235 N. Y. 439, certiorari denied in Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Danielson, 262 U. S. 756; and see also
The principle deducible as we think from all these decisions is that the rights and liabilities of parties with respect to injuries received by a workman engaged in repair of a completed vessel lying in navigable waters are governed by maritime law, because the work has direct relation to navigation and the injury occurs on navigable waters. The place of occurrence is decisive as to jurisdiction. The nature of the contract seems to us to be of no significance. But, however that may be, we are of opinion that, so far as parties by their contracts contemplate the performance of labor in repair of vessels lying in navigable waters, the contracts are to that extent maritime in their nature.
The injuries were received in the cases at bar, the one in a floating dry dock and the other in a dry dock affixéd to the land. A dry dock designed to receive vessels floating in navigable waters is itself part of navigable waters and subject to admiralty jurisdiction. A vessel employed in navigation is still a maritime object “ within the admiralty jurisdiction when, for the purpose of making necessary repairs to fit her for continuance in navigation, she is placed in a dry dock and the water removed from about her. . . . Nor is there any difference in principle between a vessel floated into a wet dock, which is so extensively utilized in England for .commercial purposes in loading and unloading of vessels at abutting quays, and the dry dock into which a vessel must be floated for the purpose of being repaired, and from which, after being repaired, she is again floated into an adjacent stream. The status of a vessel is not altered merely because in the one case the water is confined within the dock by means of gates closed when the tide begins to ebb, while in the other the water is removed and the gates are closed to prevent the inflow of the water during the work of repair. . . . There is in reason no distinction between the continued control of admiralty over a vessel when she is
It was said in The Robert W. Parsons, 191 U. S. 17, 33, 34, “ A dry dock differs from an ordinary dock only in the fact that it is smaller, and provided with machinery for pumping out the water in order that the vessel may be repaired. . . . But as all serious repairs upon the hulls of vessels are made in dry dock, the proposition that such repairs are made on land would practically deprive the admiralty courts of their largest and most important jurisdiction in connection with repairs.”
There seems also to be no distinction in reason between the admiralty jurisdiction over repairs to a vessel in dry dock and over salvage services in saving a vessel in dry dock from destruction by fire established in the two decisions last cited, arid admiralty jurisdiction over injuries received by a workman in making repairs on a vessel in dry dock. It was expressly so held in The Anglo-Patagonian, 148 C. C. A. 586, petition for writ of certiorari to which was dismissed in 242 U. S. 636, under the name Lord v. Ledwitch Danielsen v. Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co. 235 N. Y. 439.
Whether the dry dock is floating or resting upon and attached to land is also an immaterial factor in view of these decisions. The essential factor is that the vessel floats into it.
These principles and decisions seem to us decisive of the cases at bar. Brandéis was injured in a floating dry dock while making ready the appliances for the repair of a seagoing vessel. We are of opinion that it is as much a part of the repair of a vessel to adjust to her hull the staging within the dry dock upon which men are to stand while performing the repairs as to be actually engaged in the craftsmanship of repair. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479, Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co. just decided, and The Anglo-Patagonian, 148 C. C. A. 586, appear to be precisely in point. O’Hara was injured while walking on a plank extending from the dry dock to
The decisions to which reference already has been made constrain us to hold that the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States excludes the operation of our workmen’s compensation act with reference to the injuries here in issue. This result is not affected by the fact that our act is optional with the parties and is not compulsory. The voluntary and optional feature of statutory laws as distinguished from absolute compulsion sometimes is of decisive significance. Holcombe v. Creamer, 231 Mass. 99. Compare Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 261 U. S. 525. But the Supreme Court of the United States has held that admiralty jurisdiction as to' personal injuries is fixed inexorably by the place of occurrence. “ Every species of tort, however occurring, and whether on board a vessel or not, if upon the high seas or navigable waters, is of admiralty cognizance.” The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20, 36. When that court has held that admiralty jurisdiction is exclusive where the injury takes place on navigable waters in the repair of a completed vessel, to enable her to continue navigation, there seems to us no room for the operation of the workmen’s compensation act. We felt obliged so to hold in Duart v. Simmons, 231 Mass. 313, 320; S. C. 236 Mass. 225, Sterling’s Case, 233 Mass. 485, and Dorman’s Case, 236 Mass. 583. We are bound by these decisions and we feel that they are sound. See also to the same effect with reference to elective statutes, Neff v. Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, 166 Wis. 126, Laws of Wis. 1911, c. 50, §§ 2394-5, 2394-6, Foppen v. Fase & Co. 219 Mich. 136, 2 Compiled Laws of Mich. (1915) §§ 5425-5430. Compare West v. Klozer, 104 Ore. 94.
The considerations already stated serve without further discussion to distinguish the cases at bar from Gillards’s Case, 244 Mass. 47.
We feel compelled to hold that the injuries here in question gave rise to “ cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,” and that they are not within the operation of the workmen’s
We do not regard Act of Congress of June 10, 1922, c. 216, (42 U. S. Sts. at Large, 634,) amending § 24, cl. 3, and § 256, cl. 3, of the Judicial Code, as operative upon the cases at bar in both of which the injuries occurred prior to its passage. That act must be regarded as prospective only in its operation. Hanscom v. Malden & Melrose Gas Light Co. 220 Mass. 1, 3, 4, 5. Shwab v. Doyle, 258 IT. S. 529, 534. But, as already stated, that act by the decision in Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co. ubi supra has just been declared contrary to the Constitution of the United States and to stand on the same footing as the act held contrary to the Constitution in ‘Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 164.
In each case the decree must be reversed and a decree entered in favor of the insurer.
So ordered.