King v. Pan American World Airways

• Citation: 166 F. Supp. 136
• Decision Date: 30 September 1958
• Docket Number: No. 27645.,27645.
• Parties: Virginia J. KING, as Administratrix of the Estate of John Elvins King, Libelant, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, a corporation, et al., Respondents.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

166 F. Supp. 136

Virginia J. KING, as Administratrix of the Estate of John Elvins King, Libelant, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS, a corporation, et al., Respondents.

No. 27645.

United States District Court N. D. California, S. D.

September 30, 1958.

Smith & Parrish, Oakland, Cal., for libelant.

Steinhart, Goldberg, Feigenbaum & Ladar, San Francisco, Cal., for respondent, Pan American World Airways.

GOODMAN, Chief Judge.

This cause presents the novel question whether the California Workmen's Compensation Act precludes an action for wrongful death under the Federal Death on the High Seas Act by the administratrix of the estate of an airline employee who in the course of his employment was killed in the crash of an airliner on the high seas.

The stipulated facts show that the decedent entered the employ of respondent Pan American World Airways, a New York corporation, at San Francisco, California, on October 12, 1942. He was steadily employed thereafter by Pan American and since December, 1947 was continuously based at San Francisco. On May 1, 1957, the decedent was assigned the position of Flight Service Supervisor. The duties of this position required him to spend the majority of his working time at the San Francisco base and the remaining working time in inflight supervision and observation of pursers, stewards and stewardesses employed on Pan American aircraft flying in and out of San Francisco. On November 8, 1957, he was in the course of his employment aboard a Pan American airliner which crashed upon the high seas between the United States and Hawaii. Although it does not appear whether he was killed in the air or upon impact with the water, it is stipulated that he did not survive the crash.

On December 2, 1957, Pan American and its compensation insurance carrier filed an application with the California Industrial Accident Commission to determine their liability for death benefit and burial expenses under the California Workmen's Compensation Act. At the hearing of this application on February 20, 1958, the decedent's wife, the libelant herein, appeared specially and contested the jurisdiction of the Industrial Accident Commission. On March 31, 1958, the Commission made an order finding that it had jurisdiction and awarded decedent's wife and minor children a death benefit totaling $15,000. Meanwhile, on February 3, 1958, decedent's wife filed this libel under the Death on the High Seas Act¹ in her capacity as administratrix of decedent's estate.

It is established that a suit may be brought in admiralty under the Death on the High Seas Act for a death resulting from the crash of an aircraft upon the high seas. Wilson v. Transocean Airlines, D.C.N.D.Cal.1954, 121 F.Supp. 85. There is no doubt that, in the absence of the California Workmen's Compensation Act, the libelant could maintain this action under the Death on the High Seas Act. But respondent contends that the California Workmen's Compensation Act has been properly applied to this case and affords the exclusive remedy against it for decedent's death.

The California Workmen's Compensation Act expressly provides compensation for the death, outside the State, of an employee hired or regularly employed in the State. West's Ann.California Labor Code, § 3600.5. The right to recover such compensation is declared by the Act to be the exclusive remedy against the employer. West's Ann.California Labor Code, § 3601.

The United States Supreme Court has upheld the power of the California legislature to provide compensation to California employees for industrial accidents occurring in other States of the Union and in the Territories. Alaska Packers Association v. Industrial Accident Commission, 1935, 294 U.S. 532, 55 S.Ct. 518, 79 L.Ed. 1044. Does this power also extend to the High Seas?

In Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 1917, 244 U.S. 205, 37 S.Ct. 524, 61 L.Ed. 1086, the Supreme Court held that the New York Workmen's Compensation Law, § 1 et seq., could not be applied to a stevedore killed aboard a vessel in New York Harbor. Such an application of a state compensation law, the Court stated, would destroy the uniformity in respect to maritime matters which was intended to be preserved by the constitutional provisions granting the Congress paramount power to fix and determine the maritime law. The Jensen rule was qualified by later cases in which the Supreme Court held that State compensation acts might be applied to injuries or deaths within the admiralty jurisdiction provided the application of the State Acts did not work material prejudice to any characteristic features of the general maritime law or interfere with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law in its international and interstate impacts.

In Grant Smith-Porter Ship Co. v. Rohde, 1922, 257 U.S. 469, 42 S.Ct. 157, 66 L.Ed. 321, a carpenter was injured while working on a partially completed vessel lying at a dock in the Willamette River at Portland, Oregon. The Court held that his sole remedy lay under the Oregon Workmen's Compensation Act, ORS 656.002 et seq., which abrogated the otherwise existing right to recover damages in an admiralty court. In Millers' Indemnity Underwriters v. Braud, 1956, 270 U.S. 59, 46 S.Ct. 194, 70 L.Ed. 470, a diver was suffocated while submerged from a floating barge anchored in the navigable Sabine River in Texas. The Court ruled that the Texas Workmen's Compensation Law, Vernon's Ann. Civ.St. art. 8306 et seq., prescribed the only remedy for his death and that its exclusive features abrogated the right to resort to the admiralty court which otherwise would exist.²

In Alaska Packers' Association v. Industrial Accident Commission, 1928, 276 U.S. 467, 48 S.Ct. 346, 72 L.Ed. 656, the Supreme Court sanctioned the application of the California Act to a cannery worker injured while attempting to push a stranded fishing...