Landry v. Carlson Mooring Service

• Decision Date: 27 April 1981
• Docket Number: 79-1479,Nos. 79-1274,s. 79-1274
• Citation: 643 F.2d 1080
• Parties: Wilson P. LANDRY, Petitioner, v. CARLSON MOORING SERVICE and Houston General Insurance Company, Respondents. DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Petitioner, v. CARLSON MOORING SERVICE and Houston General Insurance Company, Respondents.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1080

643 F.2d 1080

Wilson P. LANDRY, Petitioner, v. CARLSON MOORING SERVICE and Houston General Insurance

Company, Respondents.

DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAMS, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Petitioner, v. CARLSON MOORING SERVICE and Houston General Insurance

Company, Respondents.

Nos. 79-1274, 79-1479.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 27, 1981.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 28, 1981.

Mandell & Wright, Stephen M. Vaughan, Houston, Tex., Gravel, Robertson & Brady, David W. Robertson, Alexandria, La., for petitioner.

Mehaffy, Weber, Keith & Gonsoulin, Daniel V. Flatten, Beaumont, Tex., Brian Raymond Davis, Austin, Tex., for respondents in both cases.

Stewart E. Niles, Jr., Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre, Madeleine Fischer, New Orleans, La., amicus curiae, for Louisiana Shipbuilding & Repair Ass'n.

Laurie M. Streeter, Joshua T. Gillelan, II, Atty., U.S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Petitions for Review of an Order of the Benefits Review Board.

Before TJOFLAT, POLITZ and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

Wilson Landry and the Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, have filed these consolidated petitions for review of a decision of the United States Department of Labor Benefits Review Board precluding Landry from asserting a right to compensation under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 901 et seq. (1976). (For convenience, we hereinafter refer to Landry and the Director in the singular.) We reverse the decision of the Board.

I

Petitioner suffered a heart attack on February 18, 1974, while employed by respondent, Carlson Mooring Service, at Port Arthur, Texas. Thereafter, he filed compensation claims against his employer under the LHWCA and the Texas Workmen's Compensation Act, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. arts. 8306 et seq. (Vernon). The Texas Industrial Accident Board dismissed petitioner's state workers' compensation claim, but on review the state district court reversed, holding that Landry could seek relief under the Texas act. At this juncture, the parties settled the case. Pursuant to the requirements of Texas law, the parties submitted their settlement of the worker's compensation claim to the Texas court for formal entry of judgment. See Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat. art. 8307 Secs. 5 & 12 (Vernon). The final judgment specified that Landry was to receive the lump sum of $20,000 "in full settlement and satisfaction of all claims and causes of action ... on account of personal injuries sustained by plaintiff ..." Brief for Respondent at 3. Of this amount, $5,000 was awarded to petitioner's attorney.

Upon payment of this lump sum, petitioner executed a general release prepared by his employer's insurance carrier. In pertinent part, that release purported to discharge the insurer's liability for all

"claims ... or kind of action whether at common law or under any statute, state or federal ... growing out of ... personal injuries alleged to have been sustained and suffered by Wilson P. Landry ..."

Record, vol. 1 at 23. After executing this release, Landry withdrew his Longshoremen's Act claim.

Landry later reopened his LHWCA claim. In that action, the administrative law judge awarded compensation. On appeal to the Benefits Review Board, however, the administrative law judge was reversed. The Board held that Landry was precluded from pursuing his LHWCA claim by the doctrines of res judicata, full faith and credit, and election of remedies. Reasoning that Texas courts would accord res judicata status to judicial approval of a compensation settlement, the Board ruled that Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430, 64 S.Ct. 208, 88 L.Ed. 149 (1943), required it to extend full faith and credit to that final judgment when it was offered as a bar to prosecution of the LHWCA claim. As an alternate, independent ground of decision, the Board held that Landry had elected to pursue his state compensation remedy despite the simultaneous availability of relief under LHWCA, and thus the doctrine of election of remedies prevented him from asserting his rights under the LHWCA. This appeal followed.

II

It is undisputed that petitioner's employment brought him under the coverage of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, and that his injury was compensable. The only issues presented for review are whether the doctrines of full faith and credit or election of remedies preclude Landry's reassertion of his LHWCA claim, and, if not, whether his compensation claim under LHWCA should be decreased by the full amount of his state compensation award or decreased by the amount of that award less the sum awarded to his attorney.

A

The crux of respondent's defense is that full faith and credit, as mandated by 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1738 (1976), ¹ requires a ruling that the judicially approved settlement of Landry's state compensation claim bars his subsequent assertion of a remedy under the LHWCA. It is not contended that the LHWCA claim was actually litigated in the state courts--it is abundantly clear that the courts of Texas have no power to either entertain LHWCA claims or to approve settlements of them. See Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock, 583 F.2d 1273, 1278 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 915, 99 S.Ct. 1232, 59 L.Ed.2d 465 (1979). See also 33 U.S.C. Secs. 915(b) & 916 (1976). Rather, the argument is that Texas law provides that recourse to state workers' compensation remedies is, once pursued to final judgment, the exclusive course available to a litigant. Respondent asserts that availing oneself of the Texas courts for satisfaction of a claim based upon a work-related injury necessarily entails abandonment of alternative claims because Texas courts would treat the Texas judgment as a final adjudication of all such claims. Other tribunals, it is argued, including federal administrative tribunals, are required to give the same degree of finality to Texas judgments as those judgments are entitled to in the courts of Texas. Thus, the Texas judgment, precluding as it does all further injury-based claims in Texas, would similarly preclude all other such claims when presented to the courts of other jurisdictions.

The Benefits Review Board adopted this position, citing Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430, 64 S.Ct. 208, 88 L.Ed. 149 (1943), as controlling authority. The issue presented in Magnolia was whether a personal injury award under the Texas workers' compensation act barred further recovery, based on the same injury, under the workers' compensation law of Louisiana. The Court held that it did, and in so ruling articulated narrowly the issue for decision:

Here both Texas and Louisiana have undertaken to adjudicate the rights of the same parties arising from a single injury sustained in the course of employment under the same contract. Each state has awarded to respondent compensation for that injury. But whether the Texas award purported also to adjudicate the rights and duties of the parties under the Louisiana law or to control persons and courts in Louisiana is irrelevant to our present inquiry. For Texas is without power to give extraterritorial effect to its laws.... The significant question in this case is whether [full faith and credit] has deprived Louisiana of the power to deny that the Texas award has the same binding effect on the parties in Louisiana as it has in Texas.

320 U.S. at 440, 64 S.Ct. at 214.

Landry argues that, while the issue for decision in his case initially appears identical to that presented in Magnolia, Magnolia need not be followed because it has been preempted by Industrial Commission of Wisconsin v. McCartin, 330 U.S. 622, 67 S.Ct. 886, 91 L.Ed. 1140 (1947). Further, Landry asserts that even if Magnolia maintains vitality after McCartin, the unique federal power over admiralty mandates according priority to LHWCA remedies despite the requirements of state law. We emphasize that we do not reach Landry's second contention, as the resolution of his case may be achieved through reconciling the precedential implications of Magnolia and McCartin. See Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 346-347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 483, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

The Supreme Court was faced recently with an issue seemingly dispositive of Landry's case. In Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Company, 448 U.S. 261, 100 S.Ct. 2647, 65 L.Ed.2d 757 (1980), the petitioner had received a disability award under the Virginia Workmen's Compensation Act. "[A]s a matter of Virginia law, the Virginia award excluded any other recovery 'at common law or otherwise' on account of the injury in Virginia." Id. at 265 n. 4, 100 S.Ct. at 2652 n. 4. Thereafter, petitioner sought and received benefits under the District of Columbia Workmen's Compensation Act which, for all purposes relevant here, is an exact duplicate of the LHWCA. See id. at 264 n. 2, 100 S.Ct. at 2652 n. 2. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that allowing recovery under the District of Columbia scheme would deny full faith and credit to the Virginia proceeding.

The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit, and allowed recovery under the District of Columbia compensation act. We are bound by the precedential impact of that decision, and must apply its teachings here. As best we can discern, Thomas requires reversal of the Benefits Review Board.

Although the issue for decision in Thomas was clear, the impact of the Supreme Court's holding is not. The Thomas court was faced squarely with the question of whether the ratio deciendi of Magnolia survived McCartin. As adverted to earlier, the Magnolia Court held that a Louisiana award of workers' compensation following an award based on the same injury obtained under the Texas workers' compensation act was barred by the dictates of full faith and credit....