In re O'Hara
| Decision Date | 29 February 1924 |
| Parties | O'HARA'S CASE. BRANDIES' CASE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; McLaughlin, Judge.
Proceeding by Adolph Brandies under Workmen's Compensation Act, to obtain compensation for personal injuries, opposed by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, the employer, and the United States Mutual Liability Insurance Company, the insurer. There was an award of compensation and a decree, and the insurer appeals. The O'Hara case, being controlled by the same principles of law, is decided. Decree in each case reversed, and decree rendered in favor of insurer.E. Field, of Boston (H. L. Brown, of Boston, on the brief), for appellant.
E. B. Cook, of Boston, for appellee Brandies.
F. W. Mansfield, of Boston, for appellee O'Hara.
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.
Brandeis 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' Case, 232 Mass. 515, 122 N. E. 642. It imports a finding of all subsidiaryfacts necessary to uphold it so far as justified by the evidence. Adams v. Dick, 226 Mass. 46, 52, 115 N. E. 227.
The claimant 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 Brandies 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 oceangoing 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 subcontractorsby whom the complainant was employed were not so insured. See G. L. c. 152, § 18, White v. George A. Fuller Co., 226 Mass. 1, 114 N. E. 829, and Bindbeutel v. L. D. Willcutt & Sons Co., 244 Mass. 195, 138 N. E. 239.
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. Article 3, § 2, article 1, § 8, of the United States Constitution; Gillard's Case, 244 Mass. 47, 51, 52, 138 N. E. 384.
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, 37 Sup. Ct. 524, 61 L. Ed. 1086, L. R. A. 1918C, 451, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 900, it was held respecting a stevedore injured on a gangway connecting an oceangoing 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 S. S. Co., 247 U. S. 372, 38 Sup. Ct. 501, 62 L. Ed. 1171;Union Fish Co. v. Erickson, 248 U. S. 308, 39 Sup. Ct. 112, 63 L. Ed. 261;Peters v. Veasey, 251 U. S. 121, 40 Sup. Ct. 65, 64 L. Ed. 180;Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 40 Sup. Ct. 438, 64 L. Ed. 834, 11 A. L. R. 1145. See, also, other decisions herein cited. It was held in Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, 242, 42 Sup. Ct. 89, 90 (66 L. Ed. 210), as the logical result of prior decisions, that where death upon navigable waters within a state resulted--
The adjudication in Grant Smith-Porter Co. v. Rohde, 257 U. S. 469, 42 Sup. Ct. 157, 66 L. Ed. 321, 25 A. L. R. 1008, following earlier decisions, was that the construction of a new and uncompleted vessel lying in navigable waters had no direct relation to navigation or commerce and was non-maritime in nature, and hence that rights and liabilities with respect to injury to a workman injured while engaged in such construction were governed by a Workmen's Compensation Act. This case was followed in Gallard's Case, 244 Mass. 47, 138 N. E. 384,Danielson v. Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co., 235 N. Y. 439, 139 N. E. 567, and Zahler v. Department of Labor and Industries, 125 Wash. 410, 217 Pac. 55. The converse of this principle was illustrated in New Bedford Dry Dock Co. v. Purdy, 258 U. S. 96, 42 Sup. Ct. 243, 66 L. Ed. 482, where it was held that a contract for converting a vessel into a different kind of water craft was for repair rather than for original construction and hence was maritime in nature. In Carlisle Packing Co. v. Sandanger, 259 U. S. 255, 42 Sup. Ct. 475, 66 L. Ed. 927, the principle was reiterated that when one of a crew sustains injuries while on a vessel in navigable waters, ‘the general rules of the maritime law apply whether the proceeding be instituted in an admiralty or common law court.’ The decision rested on the ground that the vessel was unseaworthy and that in such instances the maritime law affords compensatory damages. Proctor v. Dillon, 235 Mass. 538,129 N. E. 265. The decision in Industrial Commission v. Nordenholt Corp., 259 U. S. 263, 42 Sup. Ct. 473,56 L. Ed. 933,25 A. L. R. 1013,was that a longshoreman, injured while engaged in unloading a vessel lying in navigable waters but actually at work on the dock (an extension of the land [Cleveland Terminal & Valley Railroad Co. v. Cleveland Steamship Co., 208 U. S. 316, 28 Sup. Ct. 414, 52 L. Ed. 508, 13 Ann. Cas. 1215]), was subject to the Workmen's Compensation Act of the state and not to maritime law. While the contract under which he was working was maritime in its nature, it was held in effect that, the place of injury being on land, the local law governed. It was said at page 273, of 259 U. S. (42 Sup. Ct. 474), quoting from the Rohde Case:
‘The general doctrine that in contract matters admiralty jurisdiction depends upon the nature of the transaction and in tort matters upon the locality, has been so frequently asserted by this court that it must now be treated as settled.’
In Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479, 43 Sup. Ct. 418, 67 L. Ed. 756, a boiler maker employed to perform services as called upon was injured while repairing a vessel lying in navigable waters. It was held that admiralty law governed, the court saying:
‘Not only was the tort committed and effective on navigable waters, but the rights and liabilities of the parties are matters which have direct relation to navigation and commerce.’
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