In re Walker

• Decision Date: 13 July 1915
• Citation: 109 N.E. 604,215 N.Y. 529
• Parties: In re WALKER.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

215 N.Y. 529

109 N.E. 604

In re WALKER.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 13, 1915.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Claim by William Alfred Walker for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act against the Clyde Steamship Company, employer and self-insurer. From an order of the Appellate Division (152 N.Y. Supp. 1147), affirming an award of the state workmen's compensation commission, the employer appeals. Affirmed.

Norman B. Beecher, of New York City, for appellant.

Egburt E. Woodbury, Atty.Gen. (E.C. Aiken, of Albany, of counsel), for respondent.

MILLER, J.

[1] This case involves a point not considered in Matter of Jensen, 109 N.E. 600, decided herewith. The claimant was injured on a steamship lying alongside a pier in the Hudson river, and the case was therefore one of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. It is urged that the Workmen's Compensation Act was not intended to apply to such a case, and that if it was, it is unconstitutional for denying the equal protection of the laws. Article 3, § 2 of the Constitution of the United States provides:

“The judicial power shall extend * * * to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.”

The Judicial Code of the United States of March 3, 1911 (chapter 231, 36 Stat. 1087) provides:

“Section 24. The district courts shall have original jurisdiction as follows: * * * Third. Of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy where the common law is competent to give it.”

“Section 256. The jurisdiction vested in the courts of the United States in the cases and proceedings hereinafter mentioned, shall be exclusive of the courts of the several states. * * * Third. Of all civil cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; saving to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.”

Whilst Congress has conferred admiralty jurisdiction upon the district courts, that jurisdiction is derived from the Constitution of the United States, and is governed by the rules of the maritime law. Congress has not established “a rule of liability or method of compensation” within the meaning of section 114 of the Workmen's Compensation Act set forth in the opinion in the Jensen Case. The act, therefore, applies unless the admiralty jurisdiction is exclusive. But the sections of the Judicial Code above quoted, like the provisions of the Judiciary Act from which it was compiled, saves to suitors common-law remedies. The jurisdiction peculiar to admiralty, which cannot be exercised by state courts, is the jurisdiction to enforce maritime liens by proceedings in rem. A suitor must pursue that remedy in the District Court of the United States, but he may if he choose resort to his common-law remedy by action against the master or owner of the vessel in any court, state or federal, having jurisdiction. The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411, 18 L.Ed. 397;Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, 18 L.Ed. 451;The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, 19 L.Ed. 266;Steamboat Co. v. Chace, 16 Wall. 522, 21 L.Ed. 369;The Lottawanna, 21 Wall. 558, 22 L.Ed. 654;The Glide, 167 U.S. 606, 17 Sup.Ct. 930, 42 L.Ed. 296. The remedy provided by the Workmen's Compensation Act is a substitute for the common-law remedy. It is in no sense a proceeding in rem to enforce a maritime lien, and may therefore exist concurrently with the remedy in admiralty. The state cannot interfere with the admiralty jurisdiction ( The Lottawanna, supra ; Workman v. New York City, 179 U.S. 552, 21 Sup.Ct. 212, 45 L.Ed. 314), and if the act be valid, an injured employee may, in certain cases, have a choice of remedies, one under the act and another in admiralty, precisely as before he could choose between his common-law remedy and the right to proceed in admiralty.

[2] But it is argued that the act purports to grant exemption from further liability to those who comply with it, and that as such exemption is not effectual...