Capetola v. Barclay White Co., 8360.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1943
• Docket Number: No. 8360.,8360.
• Citation: 153 ALR 1046,139 F.2d 556
• Parties: CAPETOLA et al. v. BARCLAY WHITE CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

153 ALR 1046, 139 F.2d 556 (1943)

CAPETOLA et al. v. BARCLAY WHITE CO.

No. 8360.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued October 18, 1943.

Decided December 22, 1943.

John J. McDevitt, Jr., of Philadelphia, Pa. (Leon Rosenfield of Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellants.

Joseph W. Henderson, of Philadelphia, Pa. (Rawle & Henderson and Harrison G. Kildare, all of Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.

Before JONES, GOODRICH, and McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judges.

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The basic question raised by this appeal is whether the Pennsylvania State Workmen's Compensation Act¹ applies to an employee who was injured while working on a building which his private employer was helping to construct at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. If the State Act does so apply, then the judgment entered by the District Court, which denied the employee a recovery in trespass against the employer's general contractor, the subcontracting employer having answered in compensation, should be affirmed without regard for the further grounds urged by the appellee in support of the judgment. The following are the facts material to the principal question:

The defendant company was the general contractor for the erection of a building in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. It sublet the specified brick and tile work to John B. Kelly, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation having its principal office and place of business in the city of Philadelphia. Capetola, the minor plaintiff, was an employee of the Kelly company. While so employed as a bricklayer's helper in the construction of the brick work of the building, Capetola was injured by the sudden dropping of a hoist then being used by the Kelly company to raise bricks from the ground to an upper floor level of the building. The hoist, which was operated by an employee of the defendant, had been erected by the defendant but its use, when required, was available to the subcontractors under an arrangement whereby they furnished the gasoline for the engine while the hoist was being operated for their benefit and also paid the operator for any overtime in connection with such work.

As required by the subcontract between the defendant and the Kelly company, the latter carried workmen's compensation insurance on its employees engaged in the work which it was performing for the defendant; and, after the injury here involved, Capetola, the Kelly company and the latter's insurer entered into a compensation agreement in favor of Capetola which was filed with the State Workmen's Compensation Bureau. Under that agreement, Capetola was paid his medical expenses and a weekly compensation as prescribed by the Pennsylvania compensation statute.

Thereafter the instant suit for damages in behalf of the minor plaintiff and his parents against the Barclay White Company, the general contractor, was instituted on the theory that that company's alleged negligence was the cause of the minor plaintiff's injury and that the Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act, whereby the general contractor would otherwise be relieved from liability because of the subcontractor's obligation to pay and payment of compensation, was not applicable, the injury having occurred on property under the exclusive control of the federal government.

The trial court reversed the latter question and submitted the case to the jury on the questions of negligence and whether the hoist operator was a loaned servant of the subcontractor, Capetola's employer. The jury returned separate verdicts in substantial amounts for the minor plaintiff and for his parents. The trial court decided the question of law reserved adversely to the plaintiffs' contention and entered judgment for the defendant n.o.v., from which the plaintiffs took the present appeal.

The Philadelphia Navy Yard lies within the exterior boundaries of Pennsylvania and embraces property formerly subject to the jurisdiction of that State. By appropriate Acts of the Pennsylvania legislature² and of Congress,³ Pennsylvania ceded jurisdiction of the site occupied by the Navy Yard to the United States in 1868. Thenceforth the federal government exercised exclusive jurisdiction over the area as contemplated by the Acts effecting the cession⁴ and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States.⁵

After a State's cession of land within its borders to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, the area is beyond the operation of the State's laws as such. Standard Oil Company v. California, 291 U.S. 242, 245, 54 S.Ct. 381, 78 L.Ed. 775. While the local laws in effect at the time of the cession of jurisdiction to the United States continue in force in the ceded territory as federal laws except where they are inappropriate to the changed situation or are inconsistent with federal law (James Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula, 309 U.S. 94, 99, 60 S.Ct. 431, 84 L.Ed. 596, 127 A.L.R. 821; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company v. McGlinn, 114 U.S. 542, 546, 5 S.Ct. 1005, 29 L.Ed. 270, laws enacted by a State subsequent to its cession of jurisdiction to the United States are without force in the ceded area unless they be given effect by an Act of Congress. Arlington Hotel Company v. Fant, 278 U.S. 439, 445, 446, 49 S.Ct. 227, 73 L.Ed. 447. We necessarily turn, therefore, to what the federal law relevantly provides or affords as redress for the minor plaintiff's injury. Concededly, the law of the place where the alleged wrong was inflicted governs the rights of the parties. Restatement, Conflict of Laws (1934) § 378.

The Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act was passed in 1915. It is clear, therefore, that if, under the circumstances of this case, it furnishes the exclusive remedy for the injury suffered by the minor plaintiff, it is because Congress has so allowed. That is precisely what we believe Congress both intended and accomplished by the Act of June 25, 1936,⁶ which provided in part here material that the constituted authorities in each of the several States charged with the enforcement of State workmen's compensation laws "* * * shall have the power and authority to apply such laws to all lands and premises owned or held by the United States of America by deed or act of cession, by purchase or otherwise, which is within the exterior boundaries of any State * * * in the same way and to the same extent as if said premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State within whose exterior boundaries such place may be." For these purposes, the Act further provided that "the United States of America hereby vests in the several States within whose exterior boundaries such place may be, insofar as the enforcement of State workmen's compensation...