Kindle v. Cudd Pressure Control, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-4398,85-4398
• Citation: 792 F.2d 507
• Parties: William Martin KINDLE and Murline Kindle, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CUDD PRESSURE CONTROL, INC., and National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., Inc., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 507

792 F.2d 507

William Martin KINDLE and Murline Kindle, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CUDD PRESSURE CONTROL, INC., and National Union Fire

Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., Inc.,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 85-4398.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

June 20, 1986.

H. Alston Johnson, III, Baton Rouge, La., and Kim Hanson LaVigne, Mayer, Smith & Roberts, Shreveport, La., for defendants-appellants.

James R. Dawson, Miller, Dawson & Askew, Shreveport, La., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before POLITZ, HIGGINBOTHAM, and JONES, Circuit Judges.

POLITZ, Circuit Judge:

In this diversity case, we must determine the scope and effect of Acts 1980, No. 509, amending La.R.S. 23:1231, ¹ a section of the Louisiana Worker's Compensation Law establishing compensation payments for work-related deaths. This is a case of first impression. Considering the express language of the amending Act, in light of the jurisprudential development of the Louisiana worker's compensation regime, and considering precedent of the Supreme Court and of this court, we conclude that the district court correctly applied Louisiana law, Kindle v. Cudd Pressure Control, Inc., 608 F.Supp. 544 (W.D.La.1985), and affirm its decision.

Facts

This case was tried to the court on comprehensive, stipulated facts. We summarize the relevant portions.

William Martin Kindle and Murline Kindle are the surviving parents of William T. Kindle, who was killed in an oil-rig accident during the course and scope of his employment by Cudd Pressure Control, Inc., an oilfield service company. At the time of his death William T. Kindle was 25 years old. He had married Paulette McKenzie Kindle in December 1980 in Wood County, Texas and they lived together at Van, Texas in a mobile home owned by Paulette Kindle until October of 1982 when he abandoned the matrimonial domicile. There was no reconciliation, and after their separation William T. Kindle provided Paulette Kindle with no monetary or material support whatever. The two were never divorced or legally separated.

William T. Kindle had no children. At the time of his death no one was dependent on him for financial support. Although he used his parents' home in Van, Texas as his permanent address, he did not live with them or contribute towards their support.

In November 1982, William T. Kindle was employed by the Longview, Texas office of Cudd Pressure. At that time he resided in an apartment in Longview. On March 1, 1983, Kindle was dispatched to work on a rig in Jackson Parish, Louisiana. He and his fellow workers were lodged in a motel in a nearby city. On March 3, 1983 he was killed in a well blowout.

The Texas Industrial Accident Board considered the workers' compensation claims of the parents and surviving spouse and determined that Paulette Kindle was the proper person to receive death benefits under the Texas Workers' Compensation Act. ² National Union Fire Insurance Company, Cudd's compensation carrier, sought judicial review. ³ The Texas state district court upheld the Board's decision.

Invoking diversity jurisdiction, William M. and Murline Kindle brought the present action against Cudd and National Union, seeking the $20,000 lump-sum benefit conditionally granted to each parent by the 1980 amendment to La.R.S. 23:1231. The Kindles claimed entitlement to this payment because their son was survived by no "legal dependents." The district court agreed. Cudd and National Union timely appealed, contending that the trial court erred by giving an unduly restricted interpretation to the term "legal dependents" and by failing to give proper consideration to the Texas proceedings.

Analysis

In this diversity case we are Erie-bound to apply Louisiana law as we find or fathom it. It is clear that the Louisiana courts would exercise subject-matter jurisdiction and apply Louisiana law to claims for worker's compensation benefits when the death or injury occurs in Louisiana, no matter where the parties were domiciled, and regardless of the place of the employment contract. Banks v. Carl Ott Poles and Piling, Inc., 440 So.2d 803 (La.App.1983), writ denied, 444 So.2d 1244 (La.1984); see generally, Malone & Johnson, 14 Louisiana Civil Law Treatise: Workers' Compensation Law and Practice II, Sec. 404, pp. 313-15 (2d ed. 1980). Although briefed and argued at both the trial and appellate levels, this case does not turn on the choice of law between Texas and Louisiana. Louisiana law determines and controls the resolution of this litigation.

Two issues are posited. Are the Kindles entitled to the lump-sum payment under La.R.S. 23:1231 as parents of an employee not survived by any legal dependents? If that query is answered in the affirmative, would that payment be in derogation of the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution? ⁴

Legal Dependents

The claim of the Kindles turns on the meaning assigned to the term "legal dependents" in Acts 1980, No. 509. Does that term envision a legal dependent determined exclusively under the Louisiana worker's compensation statute, or does it contemplate a legal dependent under the compensation statute of any of the other 49 states whose workers' compensation legislation might be applicable to a given work-related death? We conclude that this decision must be made considering only the Louisiana compensation statute. Otherwise the sure, certain, and quick payment, the hallmark of all compensation schemes, would become unsure, uncertain, and anything but quick as the forum state examined into not only what occurred but what might have occurred under the law of all other concerned jurisdictions. Having made this threshold determination, we review the design of Louisiana's worker's compensation death-benefits provisions.

Under La.R.S. 23:1251 children and a surviving spouse living with the decedent are conclusively presumed to be dependents. ⁵ No proof of dependency is required and no challenge to that dependency is allowed. Anyone else claiming dependency upon the deceased employee must prove the extent and degree of support provided by the decedent. ⁶ The first category is legally presumed to be dependent. The second, broader category is entirely fact-bound.

Louisiana's first compensation statute, Acts 1914, No. 20, Sec. 8(1)(e), provided for payments to "legal dependents" of the deceased employee, and included both those wholly dependent and those "only partly dependent" on the decedent. Two years later the language was changed and death benefits were made payable to the surviving spouse and children, and then alternatively to the parents, "if dependent," and siblings, "if actually dependent." Acts 1916, No. 243, Sec. 1(f)(11). In 1926, the Louisiana Legislature returned to its original language and established death benefits for "legal dependents" whether "actually and wholly dependent" or "only partially actually dependent." Acts 1926, No. 85, Sec. 8(2). Death benefits have continued to extend to "legal dependents" throughout the intervening 60 years.

There can be no doubt that the purpose of death benefits under the Louisiana worker's compensation scheme is "to provide compensation for dependents deprived of support through the work-caused death of a wage earner." McDermott v. Funel, 258 La. 657, 664, 247 So.2d 567, 569 (La.1971) (Tate, J.). See Malone & Johnson, supra, Sec. 302, p. 6 (death benefits are intended to replace "the loss of needed support which was formerly provided by the deceased worker"). As these scholars appropriately concluded "proof of dependency is essential to recovery." Id.

The term "legal dependents," in a worker's compensation death-benefits setting, has been defined by the Louisiana Supreme Court as "dependents who are legally entitled to compensation under the statute." Thompson v. Vestal Lumber & Mfg. Co., 208 La. 83, 118, 22 So.2d 842, 853 (La.1945) (on rehearing). That necessarily includes any person who is conclusively presumed to be dependent under Sec. 23:1251 and any person who can prove actual dependency under Sec. 23:1252. Thompson; McDermott v. Funel, 235 So.2d 207 (La.App.1970), rev'd on other grounds, 258 La. 657, 247 So.2d 567 (1971); Fidelity & Casualty Co. of N.Y. v. Ivory, 129 So.2d 894 (La.App.1961) (on rehearing). As relates to a surviving spouse, legal dependency is subject to a significant qualification, for La.R.S. Sec. 23:1255 mandates:

No compensation shall be payable under [the death-benefits] Part to a surviving spouse unless he or she was living with the deceased spouse at the time of the injury or death, or was then actually dependent upon the deceased spouse for support.

The stipulated facts, in civil litigation the highest form of proof, unequivocally establish that Paulette McKenzie Kindle was not living with the decedent at the time of his death, was receiving no support from him, and was in no way materially or financially dependent upon him. She does not meet either test of legal dependency and she would be foreclosed from receiving any death benefits under Louisiana's compensation statute. These facts are not disputed. No one qualifies under Louisiana law as a legal dependent of William T. Kindle. It necessarily follows that each of his parents is entitled to receive the $20,000 lump-sum payment provided by Acts 1980, No. 509, unless there is a compelling reason to the contrary.

In so concluding, we are cognizant that this payment is inconsistent with the death benefits traditionally paid under the Louisiana compensation format. No dependency, legally presumed or factually proven, is involved. Indeed the absence of such is a prerequisite to the payment. Acts 1980, No. 509, appears to engraft a modest tort-type wrongful-death payment onto the patina of the compensation act. But consistency is not the determinant; the express legislative will is. We are mindful of the first article of the Louisiana...