1. A longshoreman in the employ of a stevedoring company, while
on a pier and engaged in loading cargo on a ship lying alongside in
a harbor, was struck by a life raft which fell from the vessel and
injured him.
Held, he has no right of recovery against his employer
under the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46 U.S.C. § 688.
International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S.
50;
O'Donnell v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock
Co., 318 U. S. 36,
differentiated. Pp.
328 U. S. 2,
328 U. S. 7.
2. By legislation subsequent to the Jones Act and the decision
in the
Haverty case, Congress has expressed its purpose to
restrict the liability of the employer under federal statutes to
injuries to his employees occurring on navigable waters or
inflicted upon an employee who is either a master or a member of a
crew of the vessel, injured in the course of his employment as
such. P.
328 U.S. 5.
3. The effect of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers'
Compensation Act of March 4, 1927, 33 U.S.C. 901
et seq.,
is to confine the benefits of the Jones Act to the members of the
crew of a vessel plying in navigable waters, and to substitute for
the right of recovery recognized by the
Haverty case only
such rights to compensation as are given by the Longshoremen's Act.
P.
328 U. S. 7.
4. Since the Longshoremen's Act is restricted to compensation
for injuries occurring on navigable waters, it excludes from its
own terms and from the Jones Act any remedies against the employer
for injuries inflicted on shore. P.
328 U. S. 7.
Page 328 U. S. 2
5. It leaves the injured employees in such cases to pursue the
remedies afforded by the local law, which this Court has often held
permits recovery against the employer for injuries inflicted by
land torts on his employees who are not members of the crew of a
vessel. P.
328 U. S. 7.
6. It leaves unaffected the rights of members of the crew of a
vessel to recover under the Jones Act when injured while pursuing
their maritime employment, whether on board or on shore. Pp.
328 U. S. 7-8.
149 F.2d 646 affirmed.
Petitioner, a longshoreman in the employ of respondent
stevedoring company, sued to recover under the Jones Act, 41 Stat.
1007, for injuries suffered while on a pier and engaged in loading
cargo on a vessel lying alongside in the harbor. The District Court
dismissed the complaint. 57 F. Supp. 456. The Circuit Court of
Appeals affirmed. 149 F.2d 646. This Court granted certiorari. 326
U.S. 710.
Affirmed, p.
328 U. S. 8.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a longshoreman in the employ of respondent
stevedoring company, while on a pier and engaged in loading cargo
on a vessel lying alongside in the harbor of Philadelphia, was
struck by a life raft which fell from the vessel and injured him.
The question for decision, which was reserved in
O'Donnell v.
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 318 U. S.
36,
318 U. S. 43-44,
is whether petitioner may maintain a suit against his employer to
recover for the injury under the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46
U.S.C. § 688.
Petitioner, after having sought and received compensation for
his injury under the state employers liability
Page 328 U. S. 3
act of Pennsylvania, brought the present suit in the District
Court for Eastern Pennsylvania "pursuant to the Maritime Law as
modified by Section 33 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920" (the
Jones Act). He alleged as the cause of the injury respondent's
breach of duty in failing to provide a safe and seaworthy vessel
and appliances and a safe place for petitioner to work, and in
failing to make the life raft secure and to make adequate
inspection of it. The district court dismissed the complaint,
holding that there could be no recovery under the Jones Act by one
not a seaman for an injury suffered by him while on shore. 57 F.
Supp. 456. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. We
granted certiorari, 326 U.S. 710, because of the novelty and
importance of the question presented.
The Jones Act provides in pertinent part:
"Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of
his employment may at his election, maintain an action for damages
at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all
statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common law
right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees
shall apply. . . ."
The Act thus made applicable to seamen, injured in the course of
their employment, the provisions of the Federal Employers'
Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51
et seq., which give to
railroad employees a right of recovery for injuries resulting from
the negligence of their employer, its agents, or employees.
Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.
S. 375;
The Arizona v. Anelich, 298 U.
S. 110,
298 U. S.
118.
We have held that a stevedore who was injured while storing
cargo, and while on but not employed by a vessel lying in navigable
waters, was authorized by the Jones Act to bring suit against his
employer to recover for injury caused by the employer's negligence.
International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S.
50;
Uravic v. F. Jarka
&
Page 328 U. S. 4
Co., 282 U. S. 234. It
was thought that both the language and the policy of the Act
indicated that, by taking over principles of recovery already
established for the employees of interstate railroads and in making
them applicable in the admiralty setting, Congress intended to
extend them to stevedores, the employees of an independent
contractor, while working on a vessel in navigable waters and while
rendering services customarily performed by seamen.
International Stevedore Co. v. Haverty, supra,
272 U. S. 52;
see O'Donnell v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., supra,
318 U. S.
38-39.
Petitioner, in urging that the doctrine of the
Haverty
case be extended so as to allow him to recover for his injuries
sustained on shore, places his reliance on
O'Donnell v. Great
Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., supra. We there held the
shipowner liable, under the Jones Act, for injuries caused to a
seaman by a fellow servant while the former was on shore engaged in
repairing a conduit which was a part of the vessel and used for
discharging its cargo. But, in that case, we sustained the recovery
because the injured person was a seaman and an employee of the
vessel, engaged in the course of his employment as such. An
incident to his employment by the vessel as a seaman was his right
to maintenance and cure for injuries received in the course of his
employment, a cause of action traditionally cognizable in
admiralty.
The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158,
189 U. S. 175;
Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U.
S. 525,
303 U. S.
527-528. The jurisdiction of admiralty over such a cause
of action depends not on the place where the injury is inflicted,
compare 70 U. S. 3
Wall. 20;
Cleveland Terminal and Valley R. Co. v. Cleveland
Steamboat Co., 208 U. S. 316;
see Minnie v. Port Huron Terminal Co., 295 U.
S. 647;
The Admiral Peoples, 295 U.
S. 649, but on the nature of the seaman's service, his
status as a member of the vessel, and his relationship as such to
the vessel and its operation in navigable waters.
O'Donnell
Page 328 U. S. 5
v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., supra,
318 U. S. 42-43;
cf. Calmar S.S. Corp. v. Taylor, supra.
Congress, in thus enlarging an admiralty remedy, was exercising
its constitutional power to regulate commerce, and to make laws
which shall be necessary and proper to carry into execution powers
vested by the Constitution in the Government or any department of
it, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18, including the judicial power which, by
Art. III, § 2, extends "to all Cases of admiralty and maritime
Jurisdiction." By § 9 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 76, 28
U.S.C. § 371 (Third), Congress conferred on the district courts
"exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty
and maritime jurisdiction . . . saving to suitors, in all cases,
the right to a common law remedy where the common law is competent
to give it. . . ."
By the grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction in the
Judiciary Article, and by § 9 of the Judiciary Act, the national
Government took over the traditional body of rules, precepts, and
practices known to lawyers and legislators as the maritime law so
far as the courts invested with admiralty jurisdiction should
accept and apply them.
See O'Donnell v. Great Lakes Dredge
& Dock Co., supra, 318 U. S. 40,
and cases cited.
We have no occasion to consider here whether Congress, by the
Jones Act, undertook to or could give a remedy against the employer
for injuries caused by a vessel to his employees, not members of
the crew of the vessel, while working on shore. For Congress, by
later legislation, has expressed its purpose to restrict the
liability of the employer under federal statutes to injuries to his
employees occurring on navigable waters or inflicted upon an
employee who is either a master or a member of a crew of the
vessel, injured in the course of his employment as such.
Page 328 U. S. 6
Within six months after the decision in the
Haverty
case and nearly sixteen years before our decision in the
O'Donnell case, Congress enacted the Longshoremen's and
Harbor Workers' Compensation Act of March 4, 1927, 44 Stat. 1424,
33 U.S.C. § 901
et seq., which gave a remedy against
employers by way of compensation for disability or death suffered
on navigable waters by any employee not a "master or member of a
crew of any vessel." § 903. The liability of employers to pay the
prescribed compensation is, by § 905, made "exclusive and in place
of all other liability of such employer to the employee," his legal
representative, and any other person entitled to recover damages
"at law or in admiralty" from the employer for the injury or death.
By § 903(a)(1), recovery may be had under the Act only "if recovery
for the disability or death through workmen's compensation
proceedings may not be validly provided by State law."
The Act both imposes liability on the employer for injuries on
navigable waters to employees not including the master or members
of a crew of a vessel, and makes the prescribed liability to
employees within the coverage of the Act exclusive. The Act thus
excludes from its benefits stevedores not members of the crew who
are injured on navigable waters from recovering under the Jones Act
as interpreted by the
Haverty case. Those provisions make
it plain that Congress' own interpretation of the Jones Act is such
as to preclude the extension of the doctrine of that case to the
specified employees injured on land.
We can hardly suppose that Congress, while explicitly denying a
right of recovery under the Jones Act to maritime workers not
members of a crew who are injured on board a vessel, either thought
that the Jones Act extended to injuries inflicted on shore to
employees not members of a crew,
see State Industrial
Commission of the New York v. Nordenholt Corp., 259 U.
S. 263,
259 U. S. 273;
Smith & Son v.
Taylor, 276 U.S.
Page 328 U. S. 7
179, or intended that there should be established for such
workers injured on shore, by extension of the doctrine of the
Haverty case, a right of recovery which it at the same
time withdrew from such workers when injured on navigable waters.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, in recommending the legislation
which became the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation
Act, expressed doubt as to the constitutional power of Congress to
give recovery to such employees injured on shore, saying,
"These men are mainly employed in loading, unloading, refitting,
and repairing ships, but it should be remarked that injuries
occurring in loading and 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."
Sen.Rep. No.973, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 16.
Cf. Cleveland
Terminal and Valley R. Co. v. Cleveland Steamship Co., supra; The
Admiral Peoples, supra.
We must take it that the effect of these provisions of the
Longshoremen's Act is to confine the benefits of the Jones Act to
the members of the crew of a vessel plying in navigable waters, and
to substitute for the right of recovery recognized by the
Haverty case only such rights to compensation as are given
by the Longshoremen's Act. But, since this Act is restricted to
compensation for injuries occurring on navigable waters, it
excludes from its own terms and from the Jones Act any remedies
against the employer for injuries inflicted on shore. The Act
leaves the injured employees in such cases to pursue the remedies
afforded by the local law, which this Court has often held permits
recovery against the employer for injuries inflicted by land torts
on his employees who are not members of the crew of a vessel.
State Industrial Commission of the New York v. Nordenholt
Corp., supra; Smith & Son v. Taylor, supra; cf. Minnie v. Port
Huron Terminal Co., supra. And it leaves unaffected
Page 328 U. S. 8
the rights of members of the crew of a vessel to recover under
the Jones Act when injured while pursuing their maritime employment
whether on board,
Warner v. Goltra, 293 U.
S. 155;
Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U.
S. 565;
see South Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v.
Bassett, 309 U. S. 251,
309 U. S.
255-256, or on shore,
O'Donnell v. Great Lakes
Dredge & Dock Co., supra.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or
decision of this case.