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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 10–507
_________________
PACIFIC OPERATORS OFFSHORE, LLP, et al.,
PETITIONERS
v. LUISA L. VALLADOLID et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit
[January 11, 2012]
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA)
extends the federal workers’ compensation scheme established
in the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act
(LHWCA), 33 U. S. C. §901
et seq., to
injuries “occurring as the result of operations conducted on
the outer Continental Shelf” for the purpose of extracting
natural resources from the shelf. 43 U. S. C.
§1333(b). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit determined that the OCSLA extends coverage to an employee
who can establish a substantial nexus between his injury and his
employer’s extractive operations on the Outer Continental
Shelf. We affirm.
I
Petitioner Pacific Operators Offshore, LLP
(Pacific), operates two drilling platforms on the Outer Continental
Shelf off the coast of California and an onshore oil and gas
processing facility in Ventura County, California. Pacific employed
Juan Valladolid as a general manual laborer—known in the
trade as a roustabout—in its oil exploration and extraction
business. Valladolid spent about 98 percent of his time on one of
Pacific’s offshore drilling platforms performing maintenance
duties, such as picking up litter, emptying trashcans, washing
decks, painting, maintaining equipment, and helping to load and
unload the platform crane. Valladolid spent the remainder of his
time working at Pacific’s onshore processing facility, where
he also performed maintenance duties, including painting,
sandblasting, pulling weeds, cleaning drain cul-verts, and
operating a forklift.
While on duty at the onshore facility,
Valladolid died in a forklift accident. His widow, a respondent
here, filed a claim for benefits under the LHWCA pursuant to the
extension of that Act contained within the OCSLA. The OCSLA
provides, in relevant part:
“With respect to disability or death
of an employee resulting from any injury occurring as the result of
operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf for the purpose
of exploring for, developing, removing, or transporting by pipeline
the natural resources, or involving rights to the natural
resources, of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental
Shelf, compensation shall be payable under the provisions of the
[LHWCA].” 43 U. S. C. §1333(b).
After a hearing, an Administrative Law Judge
(ALJ) dismissed respondent’s claim. The ALJ reasoned that
Valladolid’s fatal injury was not covered under §1333(b)
because his accident occurred on land, rather than on the Outer
Continental Shelf. On appeal, the United States Department of
Labor’s Benefits Review Board affirmed, concluding that
Congress intended to limit the coverage provided by the OCSLA to
injuries suffered by employees within the “geographical
locale” of the Outer Continental Shelf.
L. V. v.
Pacific Operations Offshore, LLP, 42 BRBS 67, 71 (2008)
(per curiam).
The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that
§1333(b) neither contains a “situs-of-injury”
requirement, as the Fifth Circuit has held, nor imposes a
“but for” causation requirement, as the Third Circuit
has held. See 604 F.3d 1126, 1130–1140 (2010) (rejecting the
holdings of
Mills v.
Director, Office of Workers’
Compensation Programs, 877 F.2d 356 (CA5 1989) (en banc);
Curtis v.
Schlumberger Offshore Service, Inc., 849
F.2d 805 (CA3 1988)). Instead, the Ninth Circuit concluded that
“the claimant must establish a substantial nexus between the
injury and ex-tractive operations on the shelf” to qualify
for workers’ compensation benefits under the OCSLA. 604
F. 3d, at 1139. We granted Pacific’s petition for a writ
of certiorari to resolve this conflict. 562 U. S. ___
(2011).
II
In 1953, Congress enacted the Submerged Lands
Act, 67Stat. 29, 43 U. S. C. §1301
et seq., which extended the boundaries of Coastal
States three geographic miles into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
and three marine leagues into the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time,
Congress enacted the OCSLA, affirming the Federal
Government’s authority and control over the “outer
Continental Shelf,” defined as the submerged lands subject to
the jurisdiction and control of the United States lying seaward and
outside of the submerged lands within the extended State
bound-aries. 67Stat. 462, 43 U. S. C.
§§1331(a), 1332(1). As defined by the OCSLA, the Outer
Continental Shelf includes the “submerged lands” beyond
the extended state boundaries, §1331(a), but not the waters
above those submerged lands or artificial islands or installations
attached to the seabed. For simplicity’s sake, we refer to
the entire geographical zone as the “OCS.”
Section 1333 extends various provisions of state
and federal law to certain aspects of the OCS. For example,
§1333(a)(1) extends the Constitution and federal laws of civil
and political jurisdiction “to the subsoil and seabed of the
outer Continental Shelf and to all artificial islands, and all
installations and other devices permanently or temporarily attached
to the seabed,” for the purpose of extracting its natural
resources. Section 1333(a)(2)(A) makes the civil and criminal laws
of each adjacent State applicable to “that portion of the
subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and artificial
islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which would be within
the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to
the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf.” Section
1333(b), the provision involved in this case, makes LHWCA
workers’ compensation benefits available for the
“disability or death of an employee resulting from any injury
occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer
Continental Shelf ” for the purpose of extracting its
natural resources.
The question before us is the scope of coverage
under §1333(b). The parties agree that §1333(b) covers
employees, such as oil rig and drilling platform workers, who are
injured while working directly on the OCS to extract its natural
resources. They disagree, however, whether employees who are
involved in extraction operations but who are injured beyond the
OCS are also covered under the OCSLA. This dispute focuses on the
meaning of the phrase “any injury occurring as the result of
operations conducted on the outer Continental Shelf” in
§1333(b).
The Courts of Appeals have offered competing
interpretations. In
Curtis v.
Schlumberger Offshore
Service, Inc., 849 F. 2d
, at 811, the Third Circuit
held that, because Congress intended LHWCA coverage to be
expansive, §1333(b) extends to all injuries that would not
have occurred “but for” operations on the OCS. The
Third Circuit thus concluded that an employee who worked on a
semisubmersible drill rig, but who was killed in a car accident on
the way to the helicopter that was to fly him to that rig, was
eligible for §1333(b) benefits.
Id., at 806, 811. As
the Third Circuit summarized, “ ‘But for’
[Curtis’] travelling to [his drill rig] for the purpose of
conducting ‘operations’ within §1333(b), employee
Curtis would not have sustained injuries in the automobile
accident.”
Id., at 811.
In
Mills v.
Director, supra, the
Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, adopted a narrower interpretation
of §1333(b). The court concluded that Congress intended to
establish “a bright-line geographic boundary for
§1333(b) coverage,” and held that §1333(b) extends
coverage only to employees engaged in OCS extractive activities who
“suffer injury or death on an OCS platform or the waters
above the OCS.”
Id., at 362. Applying its
“situs-of-injury” test, the Fifth Circuit held that a
welder who was injured on land during the construction of an
offshore oil platform was not eligible for §1333(b) benefits.
Id., at 357, 362.
In the case below, the Ninth Circuit rejected
the Fifth Circuit’s “situs-of-injury” requirement
as unsupported by the text of §1333(b), and the Third
Circuit’s “but for” test as too broad to be
consistent with Congress’ intent. 604 F. 3d, at 1137,
1139. Instead, the Ninth Circuit adopted a third interpretation of
§1333(b), holding that a “claimant must establish a
substantial nexus between the injury and extractive operations on
the shelf ” to be eligible for §1333(b) benefits.
Id., at 1139. “To meet the standard,” the Ninth
Circuit explained, “the claimant must show that the work
performed directly furthers outer continental shelf operations and
is in the regular course of such operations.”
Ibid.
The Solicitor General suggests yet a fourth
interpretation of §1333(b).[
1] This interpretation would extend coverage to two
categories of injuries: (1) all on-OCS injuries suffered by
employees of companies engaged in resource extraction on the OCS;
and (2) the off-OCS injuries of those employees who spend a
substantial portion of their worktime on the OCS engaging in
extractive operations. Brief for Federal Respondent 32–33.
According to the Solicitor General, this test would provide
§1333(b) coverage for off-OCS injuries only to those employees
whose duties contribute to operations on the OCS and who perform
work on the OCS itself that is substantial in both duration and
nature.
Id., at 35.
III
Pacific argues that the Fifth Circuit’s
“situs-of-injury” test presents the best interpretation
of §1333(b). The crux of Pacific’s argument is that
off-OCS injuries cannot be “the result of operations
conducted on the outer Continental Shelf ” for purposes
of §1333(b). Pacific asserts that because Valladolid was
injured on dry land, his death did not occur as the result of
extraction operations conducted on the OCS, and therefore
respondent is ineligible for LHWCA workers’ compensation
benefits. We disagree.
A
The OCSLA extends the provisions of the LHWCA
to the “disability or death of an employee resulting from any
injury occurring as the result of operations conducted on the outer
Continental Shelf.” §1333(b). Contrary to the view of
Pacific and the Fifth Circuit, nothing in that language suggests
that the injury to the employee must occur on the OCS. Section
1333(b) states only two requirements: The extractive operations
must be “conducted on the outer Continental Shelf,” and
the employee’s injury must occur “as the result
of ” those operations.
Despite the lack of a textual
“situs-of-injury” requirement in §1333(b), Pacific
argues that it is logically impossible for an off-OCS employee to
be injured “as the result of ” on-OCS operations.
Pacific offers no basis for this assertion, and we find none.
Indeed, given that many OCS platforms are physically connected to
onshore processing facilities via oil and gas pipelines, it is not
difficult to imagine an accident occurring on an OCS platform that
could injure employees located off the OCS.
Moreover, if, as Pacific suggests, the purpose
of §1333(b) was to geographically limit the extension of LHWCA
coverage to injuries that occurred on the OCS, Congress could
easily have achieved that goal by omitting the following six words
in §1333(b)’s text: “as the result of operations
conducted.” Had Congress done so, the statute would extend
LHWCA coverage to the “disability or death of an employee
resulting from any injury occurring on the outer Continental
Shelf.” But that is not the text of the statute Congress
enacted.
Pacific also argues that, because all of
§1333(b)’s neighboring subsections contain specific
situs limitations, we should infer that Congress intended to
include a situs-of-injury requirement in §1333(b). See,
e.g., §1333(a)(2)(A) (adopting the civil and criminal
laws of the adjacent State as federal law “for that portion
of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and
artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which
would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were
extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental
Shelf ”).[
2] But our
usual practice is to make the opposite inference.
Russello
v.
United States,
464 U.S.
16, 23 (1983) (“Where Congress includes particular
language in one section of a statute but omits it in another
section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress
acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or
exclusion” (alteration and internal quotation marks
omitted)). Congress’ decision to specify, in scrupulous
detail, exactly where the other subsections of §1333 apply,
but to include no similar restriction on injuries in §1333(b),
convinces us that Congress did not intend §1333(b) to apply
only to injuries suffered on the OCS. Rather, §1333(b) extends
LHWCA workers’ compensation coverage to any employee injury,
regardless of where it happens, as long as it occurs “as the
result of operations conducted on the outer Continental
Shelf.”
Pacific argues that this conclusion is
foreclosed by language in
Herb’s Welding, Inc. v.
Gray,
470 U.S.
414 (1985), and
Offshore Logistics, Inc. v.
Tallentire,
477 U.S.
207 (1986); but neither of those cases held that §1333(b)
extends only to injuries that occur on the OCS. In
Herb’s
Welding, this Court considered whether an oil platform welder,
who worked both within the territorial waters of Louisiana and on
the OCS, was covered under the LHWCA after suffering an injury in
the waters of Louisiana. 470 U. S., at 416–417. The
Court explicitly declined to address whether the employee was
eligible for workers’ compensation benefits under
§1333(b) because that question was neither passed upon by the
Court of Appeals nor fully briefed and argued before this Court.
Id., at 426, n. 12. Although the Court acknowledged
that an employee might walk in and out of workers’
compensation coverage during his employment due to the
“explicit geographic limitation to the [OCSLA’s]
incorporation of the LHWCA,”
id., at 427, the exact
meaning of that statement is unclear. We cannot ascertain whether
the comment was a reference to §1333(b)’s explicit
situs-of-operations requirement, as respondents suggest, or the
recognition of an implicit situs-of-injury requirement, as Pacific
argues. In any event, the ambiguous comment was made without
analysis in dicta and does not control this case.
The same is true of the Court’s opinion in
Offshore Logistics. In that case, the Court considered
whether the widows of oil platform workers who were killed when
their helicopter crashed into the high seas could file
wrongful-death suits under Louisiana law. In the Court’s
analysis of §1333, it stated, “Congress determined that
the general scope of OCSLA’s coverage . . . would
be determined principally by locale, not by the status of the
individual injured or killed.” 477 U. S., at
219–220 (citing the situs requirement in
§1333(a)(2)(A)). In a footnote, the Court commented:
“Only one provision of OCSLA superimposes a status
requirement on the otherwise determinative OCSLA situs requirement;
§1333(b) makes compensation for the death or injury of an
‘employee’ resulting from certain operations on the
Outer Continental Shelf payable under the [LHWCA].”
Ibid., n. 2. These comments about the scope of the
OCSLA’s coverage and its determinative “situs
requirement” do not provide definitive evidence that
§1333(b) applies only to injuries that occur on the OCS. As in
Herb’s Welding, it is unclear whether the statement in
the
Offshore Logistics footnote regarding §1333(b) was
referring to the explicit situs-of-operations requirement or to an
implicit situs-of-injury requirement. Moreover, the entire footnote
is dictum because, as the Court explicitly stated, §1333(b)
had no bearing on the case. 470 U. S., at 219–220.
Finally, Pacific argues that including off-OCS
injuries within the scope of the workers’ compensation
coverage created by §1333(b) runs counter to Congress’
intent in drafting the OCSLA. According to Pacific, Congress
intended to create a uniform OCS compensation scheme that both
filled the jurisdictional voids and eliminated juris-dictional
overlaps between existing state and federal pro-grams. Pacific
points out that, without a situs-of-injury requirement to narrow
the scope of §1333(b), an off-OCS worker could be eligible for
both state and federal workers’ compensation coverage.
There is no indication in the text, however,
that the OCSLA excludes OCS workers from LHWCA coverage when they
are also eligible for state benefits. To the contrary, the LHWCA
workers’ compensation scheme incorporated by the OCSLA
explicitly anticipates that injured employees might be eligible for
both state and federal benefits. An offsetting provision in the
LHWCA provides that “any amounts paid to an employee for the
same in-jury, disability, or death for which benefits are claimed
under [the LHWCA] pursuant to any other workers’ compensation
law or [the Jones Act] shall be credited against any liability
imposed by [the LHWCA].” 33 U. S. C. §903(e).
This provision, in addition to the lack of any textual support for
Pacific’s argument, convinces us that Congress did not limit
the scope of 43 U. S. C. §1333(b)’s coverage
to only those geographic areas where state workers’
compensation schemes do not apply.
B
Pacific also offers an alternative argument
derived from the interaction of §1333(b) and a provision of
the LHWCA. Specifically, Pacific argues that because the LHWCA
contains an explicit situs-of-injury requirement, see 33
U. S. C. §903(a) (providing benefits only for
injuries occurring “upon the navigable waters” of the
United States), and because 43 U. S. C. §1333(b)
extends the LHWCA workers’ compensation scheme to the OCS,
§1333(b) incorporates the strict LHWCA situs-of-injury
requirement from §903(a). According to Pacific, the words
“occurring as the result of operations” in
§1333(b) impose a status requirement in addition to the
imported LHWCA situs-of-injury requirement, with the result that
employees who are injured on the OCS, but whose jobs are not
related to extractive operations, are excluded from the
workers’ compensation coverage created by §1333(b).
Thus, an accountant who is injured on a field trip to the drilling
platform would be ineligible under §1333(b) despite being an
employee who is injured on the OCS.
Although this alternative argument has the
advantage of assigning some meaning to the words “occurring
as the result of operations” in §1333(b), we still find
it unpersuasive. First, it is unlikely that Congress intended to
impose a situs-of-injury requirement in §1333(b) through such
a nonintuitive and convoluted combination of two separate
legislative Acts. As we have already noted, creating an express
situs-of-injury requirement in the text of §1333(b) would have
been simple. Second, combining the §1333(b) definition of
“United States” with the LHWCA situs-of-injury
requirement in 33 U. S. C. §903(a) would result in
an OCS workers’ compensation scheme that applies only to the
seabed of the OCS and to any artificial islands and fixed
structures thereon. See 43 U. S. C. §1333(b)(3)
(stating that “the term ‘United States’ when used
in a geographical sense includes the outer Continental Shelf and
artificial islands and fixed structures thereon”). Pacific
concedes that this scheme would exclude the navigable waters above
the shelf, including the waters immediately adjacent to any
drilling platforms. Consequently, under Pacific’s view, even
employees on a crew ship immediately adjacent to an OCS platform
who are injured during a platform explosion would be excluded from
§1333(b) coverage. That view cannot be squared with the text
of the statute, which applies to “any injury occurring as the
result of operations conducted” on the OCS.
C
Pacific also makes several policy arguments in
favor of a situs-of-injury requirement, but policy concerns cannot
justify an interpretation of §1333(b) that is inconsistent
with the text of the OCSLA. “[I]f Congress’ coverage
decisions are mistaken as a matter of policy, it is for Congress to
change them. We should not legislate for them.”
Herb’s Welding, 470 U. S., at 427. The language
of §1333(b) simply does not support a categorical exclusion of
injuries that occur beyond the OCS.
IV
The Solicitor General urges us to adopt a
status-based inquiry that applies one test to on-OCS injuries and a
different test to off-OCS injuries. Specifically, the Government
proposes that when a worker is injured on the OCS, he is eligible
for workers’ compensation benefits if he is employed by a
company engaged in extractive operations on the OCS. But if the
employee is injured off the OCS, the employee will be covered only
if his “duties contribute to operations” on the OCS and
if he performs “work on the [OCS] itself that is substantial
in terms of both its duration and nature.” Brief for Federal
Respondent 35. This approach is derived from our decision in
Chandris, Inc. v.
Latsis,
515
U.S. 347 (1995) (establishing criteria by which an employee
qualifies as a “seaman” under the Jones Act), and might
well have merit as legislation. But it has no basis in the text of
the OCSLA as presently enacted. The “occurring as the result
of operations” language in §1333(b) plainly suggests
causation. Although the Government asserts that a status-based test
would be preferable to a causation-based test, we cannot ignore the
language enacted by Congress.
The Third Circuit’s “but for”
test is nominally based on causation, but it is also incompatible
with §1333(b). Taken to its logical conclusion, the “but
for” test would extend workers’ compensation coverage
to all employees of a business engaged in the extraction of natural
resources from the OCS, no matter where those employees work or
what they are doing when they are injured. This test could
reasonably be interpreted to cover land-based office employees
whose jobs have virtually nothing to do with extractive operations
on the OCS. Because Congress ex-tended LHWCA coverage only to
injuries “occurring as the result of operations conducted on
the outer Continental Shelf,” we think that §1333(b)
should be interpreted in a manner that focuses on injuries that
result from those “operations.” This view is consistent
with our past treatment of similar language in other contexts. In
Holmes v.
Securities Investor Protection Corporation,
503 U.S.
258 (1992), we considered a provision of the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that provided a cause of
action to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property
by reason of a violation of section 1962.” 18
U. S. C. §1964(c) (emphasis added). We rejected a
“but for” interpretation, stating that such a
construction was “hardly compelled” and that it was
highly unlikely that Congress intended to allow all factually
injured plaintiffs to recover. 503 U. S., at 265–266.
Instead, we adopted a proximate-cause standard consistent with our
prior interpretation of the same language in the Sherman and
Clayton Acts.
Id., at 267–268. Similarly, 43
U. S. C. §1333(b)’s language hardly compels
the Third Circuit’s expansive “but for”
interpretation.
Accordingly, we conclude that the Ninth
Circuit’s “substantial-nexus” test is more
faithful to the text of §1333(b). We understand the Ninth
Circuit’s test to require the injured employee to establish a
significant causal link between the injury that he suffered and his
employer’s on-OCS operations conducted for the purpose of
extracting natural resources from the OCS.
Although the Ninth Circuit’s test may not
be the easiest to administer, it best reflects the text of
§1333(b), which establishes neither a situs-of-injury nor a
“but for” test. We are confident that ALJs and courts
will be able to determine whether an injured employee has
established a significant causal link between the injury he
suffered and his employer’s on-OCS extractive operations.
Although we expect that employees injured while performing tasks on
the OCS will regularly satisfy the test, whether an employee
injured while performing an off-OCS task qualifies—like
Valladolid, who died while tasked with onshore scrap metal
consolidation—is a question that will depend on the
individual circumstances of each case. The Ninth Circuit remanded
the case for the Benefits Review Board to apply the
“substantial-nexus” test in the first instance, and we
agree with that disposition.
The judgment is affirmed, and the case is
remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.