London Guarantee Accident Co v. Industrial Accident Commission of California

• Decision Date: 08 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 491,491
• Parties: LONDON GUARANTEE & ACCIDENT CO., Limited, v. INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

279 U.S. 109

49 S.Ct. 296

73 L.Ed. 632

LONDON GUARANTEE & ACCIDENT CO., Limited,

v INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al.

No. 491.

Argued March 7, 1929.

Decided April 8, 1929.

Mr. Leo C. Weiler, of New York City, for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 110-111 intentionally omitted] Mr. George C. Faulkner, Jr., of San Francisco, Cal., for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 112-114 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

This proceeding was begun by a petition to the Industrial Accident Commission of California to obtain an award for the death of John James Uttley Brooke, an unmarried minor 19 years of age, who was drowned in Santa Monica Bay on April 8, 1926, while in the service of the Morris Pleasure Fishing, Inc. The appellant was the insurance carrier of the employer, and the question presented in this appeal is whether the case was for the exclusive cognizance of a court of admiralty under section 256 of the Judicial Code (28 USCA § 371), or might be brought within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Act of California (St. Cal. 1917, p. 831, as amended).

The petition was filed by the mother and the stepfather of the deceased before the commission, which on October 6, 1926, made its findings and held that he was not at the time of his death engaged in maritime employment, and that both he and his employer were subject to the provisions of the Compensation Act. The commission found that neither the mother nor the stepfather was dependent on him, and accordingly that the award should be limited to the reasonable expenses of burial fixed at $150.

There was a proceeding in certiorari in the District Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division 2, to review the award of the commission. The District Court of Appeal found that the Workmen's Compensation Act of California did not give jurisdiction of this cause and annulled the award. 256 P. 857. The Supreme Court of the state reversed the District Court of Appeal, and affirmed the award of the Industrial Accident Commission. 265 P. 825. An appeal to this court was then allowed.

The facts as shown before the commission and as stated by the District Court of Appeal were as follows:

'The Morris Pleasure Fishing, Inc., is a corporation which carries on the business of maintaining and operating from Santa Monica Bay a small fleet of fishing vessels, for the accommodation of the public seeking recreation in deep sea fishing. In the fishing season its practice has been to have excursions daily from Santa Monica Bay to the ocean fishing grounds, a distance of three to five miles, with fixed charges both for half-day and full-day trips. For use in this business the company has several vessels, ranging from four to fourteen tons registry, equipped with gas engines and capable of cruising a distance of 500 miles. The business has been confined entirely to the maintenance of these pleasure fishing vessels and the transportation of patrons to and fro by water, except that excursionists have also been supplied with bait. As one of the necessary incidents to its business the company employs seamen to navigate its vessels; and before and at the time of the accident which occasioned Brooke's death, he was in the company's employ as an apprentice navigator and seaman. In that capacity he made daily trips as required with the company's vessels, and at times substituted as 'spare skipper' for one of the regular skippers. On April 8, 1926, one of the company's fishing vessels called W. K., of about seven tons registry, was moored, with no one aboard, in Santa Monica Bay about three-quarters of a mile to a mile from the pier. A storm having arisen, the vessel broke from her moorings early in the afternoon, and began to drift toward the shore. In an effort to save the vessel from destruction, Capt. Morris, as Brooke's superior officer, had Brooke and another employe , named Gregory, put off from the pier, with the captain himself, in a boat about 18 feet long, with the purpose in mind of boarding the W. K and returning her to her anchorage. But as they neared the drifting vessel, their boat was capsized by a heavy wave and all three were drowned.'

The appellant contends that under section 256 of the Judicial Code this is a cause of action in admiralty, enforceable in a court of admiralty, or at common law if the latter affords a remedy, and is not a matter of which cognizance may be had under a state Workmen's Compensation Act.

The commission contends that the matter is one of local concern which does not affect commerce or navigation and of which the commission is not deprived of jurisdiction.

Section 256 of the Judicial Code provides that jurisdiction vested in the courts of the United States in all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction shall be exclusive of the courts of the several states, saving, however, to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy where the common law is competent to give it.

In Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205, 37 S. Ct. 524, 61 L. Ed. 1086, L. R. A. 1918C, 451, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 900, where a stevedore engaged in unloading a ship in navigable waters in New York was killed, and an award of compensation was made against the ship owner under the state Workmen's Compensation Act, it was held that that remedy providing for compensation under a prescribed scale for injuries and deaths of employe § without regard to fault, and being administered through a state administrative commission, was a remedy unknown to the common law and incapable of enforcement by the ordinary processes of any court, and hence was not among the common law remedies saved to suitors under section 256, and therefore such a remedy was contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States. The same principle was followed in Clyde Steamship Co. v. Walker, 244 U. S. 255, 37 S. Ct. 545, 61 L. Ed. 1116.

In Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U. S. 149, 40 S. Ct. 438, 64 L. Ed. 834, 11 A. L. R. 1145, it was held that an addition to the saving clause of section 256, by which rights and remedies under the workmen's compensation law of any state were given to claimants thereunder, was unconstitutional as being a delegation of legislative power to states and a defeat of the purpose of the Constitution in preserving the harmony and uniformity of maritime law.

In Union Fish Co. v. Erickson, 248 U. S. 308, 38 S. Ct. 112, 63 L. Ed. 261, it was held that a maritime contract of employment was not affected by the California statute of frauds requiring such an agreement where not to be performed within a year to be in writing, and that such a contract was not subject to state limitation, because such limitation would materially prejudice the characteristically uniform features of the general maritime law.

The same principle was applied in State of Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co., 264 U. S. 219, 44 S. Ct. 302, 68 L. Ed. 646, where it was sought to compel an employer of stevedores to contribute to an accident fund created by the Workmen's Compensation Act of the state. Under the same title, it was held on the same principle that workmen's compensation under a state statute could not be awarded for the death of a workman killed while engaged at maritime work under a maritime contract upon a vessel moored on navigable waters and discharging her cargo.

In Robins Dry Dock Co. v. Dahl, 266 U. S. 449, 45 S. Ct. 157, 69 L. Ed. 372, the same principle was recognized and enforced in a case of maritime tort suffered by one doing repair work on board a completed vessel. The case was reversed, on the ground that the liability of the employer in such a suit could not be affected by the provision of a state law regulating the duties of employers generally to furnish safe scaffolds.

Another class of cases is illustrated by Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia, 257 U. S. 233, 42 S. Ct. 89, 66 L. Ed. 210. There a stevedore was killed while at work in the hold of a vessel under charter to the fuel company. The Workmen's Compensation Commission granted an award to the widow and children. This was annulled by the state court, and then the widow and children brought a suit in admiralty against the fuel company in the District Court of the United States, alleging death by negligence, and prayed for damages. The District Court was held to have jurisdiction in admiralty under La Bourgogne, 210 U. S. 95, 28 S. Ct. 664, 52 L. Ed. 973; American Steamboat Co. v. Chase, 16 Wall. 531, 21 L. Ed. 369; The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398, 28 S. Ct. 133, 52 L. Ed. 264. The plaintiff was defeated in the admiralty suit by application of the state statute of limitations. This court thus recognized a well-established exception to the nonapplication of state statutes to admiralty jurisdiction, which is when they give a common law remedy for death by wrongful act. But this court in the Knickebocker Ice Co. Case decided that it could not extend the saving clause of section 256 to include an award under a state Workmen's Compensation Act. Such cases as the Garcia Case, supra, Northern Coal Co. v. Strand, 278 U. S. 142, 49 S. Ct. 88, 73 L. Ed. —, and Great Lakes Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479, 43 S. Ct. 418, 67 L. Ed. 756, are therefore hardly to be regarded as real exceptions to the exclusive jurisdiction of admiralty by section 256.

Other cases, however, are cited to sustain the state jurisdiction in this case. The first and chief one is Grant Smith-Porter Co. v. Rohde, 257 U. S. 469, 42 S. Ct. 157, 66 L. Ed. 321, 25 A. L. R. 1008. That was a proceeding to recover an award under a Workmen's Compensation Act from a shipbuilder for injuries which a carpenter received while he was working on an unfinished vessel moored in the Willamette river. The contract for constructing the vessel was nonmaritime, and although the uncompleted structure upon which the accident occurred was lying in navigable waters, neither ...