Parker v. South Louisiana Contractors, Inc., 75-2075

• Decision Date: 16 August 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-2075,75-2075
• Citation: 537 F.2d 113
• Parties: Robert Lee PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTH LOUISIANA CONTRACTORS, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 113

537 F.2d 113

Robert Lee PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTH LOUISIANA CONTRACTORS, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 75-2075.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 16, 1976.

Steven B. Witman, Louis R. Koerner, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Donald L. King, New Orleans, La., for So. La. Contractors, Inc., and others.

Winston E. Rice, James H. Roussel, New Orleans, La., for H. J. Serrette.

Stephen T. Victory, New Orleans, La., for Martin Exploration Corp.

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

Before TUTTLE, AINSWORTH and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge:

This tort action raises a number of jurisdictional questions concerned primarily with the scope of federal judicial power to adjudicate maritime claims, particularly in view of the 1972 Amendments to the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (hereinafter referred to as the "LHWCA" or simply as "the Act"). ¹ Robert Lee Parker filed this suit on August 27, 1975 to recover damages for physical injuries he suffered as a result of an accident that occurred approximately three weeks earlier. ² Named as defendants in his complaint were Soloco Pipeline Contractors, Inc. and South Louisiana Contractors, Inc., owners and/or lessees of a barge and tug used to transport a truck that Parker was to drive; Martin Exploration Corporation, which leased and/or owned a landing on the Atchafalaya River where the injury occurred; and H. J. Serette, who owned a crewboat used to transport Parker after the accident. The District Court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissal due to lack of jurisdiction on February 19, 1975, and entered a final judgment to that effect the following day.

Appellant maintains that the District Court erred in failing to recognize that jurisdiction should have been predicated on some or all of the following bases: (1) admiralty and general maritime law under 28 U.S.C. § 1333; (2) the Admiralty Extension Act, 46 U.S.C. § 740; (3) the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA; and (4) 28 U.S.C. § 1337, which confers jurisdiction in civil actions arising under Acts of Congress regulating commerce. We find that none of these asserted bases of jurisdiction are applicable here and therefore affirm.

I. The Accident

At the time of the accident, Parker was employed as a truck driver by Atlas Truck Lines, Inc. On August 5, 1974, he was instructed to deliver a truckload of pipecasing to Martin Exploration Corporation at the Butte-LaRose landing on the Atchafalaya River. From there, he and the truck he was driving were transported by barge to another landing on the east bank of the Atchafalaya in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, near an oil well drilling site located on land. After arriving there late at night, Parker was to drive his truck off the barge along a steel ramp designed for the loading and unloading of overland vehicles. The ramp, which weighed several tons, rested on land and had an apron extending over the water's edge which could be raised and lowered by winches to permit ingress and egress from docking barges. Before driving his truck off the barge, Parker walked along the ramp, a board road, and beyond, reconnoitering the route toward the drilling site. On his way back to the barge, he overheard members of the barge's crew saying that one of the winches was stuck. In the process of walking across the ramp to render assistance, he slipped in the unilluminated gap that ran longitudinally along the center of the ramp and suffered a severe injury to his right foot and other injuries complained of in this litigation.

II. Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1333

The Supreme Court has recently reiterated the traditional view going back to the time of Justice Story and beyond, "that the jurisdiction of the admiralty (with regard to torts) is exclusively dependent upon the locality of the act." Victory Carriers, Inc. v. Law, 404 U.S. 202, 205, 92 S.Ct. 418, 421, 30 L.Ed.2d 383 (1971), quoting Thomas v. Lane, 23 Fed.Cas. No. 13,902, pp. 957, 960 (C.C.Me.1813) (Story, J.). ³ As historically construed by the Supreme Court, maritime jurisdiction does not embrace accidents on land, or injuries inflicted to or on extensions of the land such as docks and piers. Victory Carriers, supra, 404 U.S. at 206-07 & nn. 3-4, 92 S.Ct. 422 & nn. 3-4; Nacirema Operating Co. v. Johnson, 396 U.S. 212, 214-15, 90 S.Ct. 347, 349, 24 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969).

Relying on language in Victory Carriers to the effect that "(t)he gangplank has served as a rough dividing line between the state and maritime regimes," 404 U.S. at 207, 92 S.Ct. at 422, appellant contends that the ramp on which his injury occurred was analogous to a gangplank, and that his claim is thus cognizable in admiralty. Appellant places particular emphasis in this regard on dicta in O'Keeffe v. Atlantic Stevedoring Co., 5 Cir., 1965,354 F.2d 48, 50, and on Michigan Mutual Liability Co. v. Arrien, 2 Cir., 1965, 344 F.2d 640, 644. In O'Keeffe, the court held that there was coverage under the LHWCA ⁴ for an accidental death which occurred when a longshoreman working on a dock was snagged by a ship's boom, swung against either the dock or the ship, and dropped into the intervening water. In reaching this result, the O'Keeffe court noted that

a gangplank, not being permanently attached to the land, and traditionally, if not always so in fact, a part of the equipment of the ship, is regarded as a part of the ship so that an injury occurring upon a gangplank is regarded as having occurred upon navigable waters.

354 F.2d at 50. Then, recapitulating the holding in Arrien, supra, the O'Keeffe court continued,

This rule has been recently extended so as to include, as being over water, a skid which was impermanently affixed to the wharf although sufficiently connected with the land as to sustain an award to an injured longshoreman under a state workmen's compensation act. (Citing Arrien.)

Id. Unlike the ramp in the present case, the skid involved in Arrien and referred to in O'Keeffe extended entirely over water and could be easily dismantled and stored on the wharf when not in use. See Arrien, supra, at 642-44. It was a removable wooden platform, approximately six feet by ten feet, which extended over the waters between vessel and wharf. Id. at 642. In contrast, the ramp in the present case rested on land, and removing it would involve a major undertaking calling for heavy equipment. Unlike a gangplank, it cannot reasonably be conceived as an appurtenance of the barges that use it for docking. Cf. Davis v. W. Bruns & Co., 5 Cir., 1973, 476 F.2d 246, 248 (worker injured in conveyor apparatus used to unload bananas on a pier could not recover in admiralty because conveyor was not an appurtenance of the vessel being unloaded at the time of the accident). Since Parker's accident thus occurred on a land-based structure most closely resembling a dock or pier, we conclude that his claim does not come within admiralty jurisdiction under the principles reiterated in Victory Carriers regarding extensions of land. The fact that the point on the ramp where Parker fell may have been above water at the time of his injury does not alter this conclusion. See, e. g., Rodrigue v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 395 U.S. 352, 89 S.Ct. 1835, 23 L.Ed.2d 360 (1969); Bible v. Chevron Oil Co., 5 Cir., 1972, 460 F.2d 1218; Hastings v. Mann, 4 Cir., 1965, 340 F.2d 910, cert. denied, 380 U.S. 963, 85 S.Ct. 1106, 14 L.Ed.2d 153 (1965).

III. The Admiralty Extension Act

Congress passed the Admiralty Extension Act, 46 U.S.C. § 740, to permit recovery in situations where a ship or its gear causes damage or injury on shore. Under that act,

(t)he admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States shall extend to and include all cases of damage or injury, to person or property, caused by a vessel on navigable water, notwithstanding that such damage or injury be done or consummated on land.

In Gutierrez v. Waterman Steamship Corp., 373 U.S. 206, 209-10, 83 S.Ct. 1185, 1188, 10 L.Ed.2d 297 (1963), the Supreme Court held that a claim for injuries suffered by a longshoreman who slipped on some loose beans on a dock came within federal maritime jurisdiction under the Admiralty Extension Act, since the beans were spilled as a result of negligence on the part of the shipowner in allowing beans packed in defective bags to be unloaded. In contrast, Parker's injury was in no sense "caused by a vessel on navigable water," and his contention that jurisdiction could have been predicated on 46 U.S.C. § 740 is accordingly without merit.

IV. Impact of the 1972 Amendments

Parker next contends that even if his claim was not cognizable in admiralty prior to the enactment of the 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, ⁵ the passage of those Amendments had the effect of extending admiralty jurisdiction sufficiently to embrace his claim. His argument takes note of the fact that the Amendments broadened coverage under the Act to make compensation available for injuries occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States, "including any adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway, or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing, or building a vessel." 33 U.S.C. § 903(a) (as amended). Essentially, his contention seems to be that in view of this broadened coverage, it necessarily follows that admiralty jurisdiction with regard to third party claims such as his own had experienced a parallel widening. The fact that compensation coverage was expanded to ensure that the availability of compensation benefits would no longer depend upon the "fortuitous circumstance of whether the injury occurred on land or over water," ⁶ however, does not imply that admiralty jurisdiction has been extended to embrace non-compensation claims brought by employees against parties other...