Thompson v. Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc.

• Decision Date: 07 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82,82
• Parties: Dan THOMPSON v. TELEDYNE MOVIBLE OFFSHORE, INC., et al. C 0339.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 822

419 So.2d 822

1983 A.M.C. 1224

Dan THOMPSON v. TELEDYNE MOVIBLE OFFSHORE, INC., et al.

No. 82 C 0339.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Sept. 7, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 15, 1982.

Robert L. Beck, Jr., Antoon, Dalrymple & Beck, Alexandria, for relator.

Joel E. Gooch, Allen, Gooch, Bourgeois, Breaux & Robison, Lafayette, for respondents.

CALOGERO, Justice.

The issue involved in this case is whether a worker hired in the state of Louisiana and injured while working on a fixed platform located on the outer Continental Shelf beyond the territorial waters of the State of Louisiana is entitled to recover Louisiana Worker's Compensation benefits, in state court, notwithstanding his entitlement to and receipt of benefits under the federal Longshoreman and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. ¹

Relator Dan Thompson injured his right hand while employed by respondent Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc. on an immovable platform located on the outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Louisiana. ²

He sued in Louisiana state court (the Ninth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Rapides) for workers' compensation benefits. His employer and its compensation carrier, Argonaut Insurance Company, filed exceptions of prescription and lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter. The exception of prescription was abandoned; the district court overruled the exception to the jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit granted a writ on application of defendant, and thereafter made it peremptory, sustaining the defendants' exception of lack of subject matter jurisdiction and dismissing plaintiff's suit at his cost.

We granted relator's writ application to consider the issue expressed at the outset of this opinion. 412 So.2d 81 (La.1982). We determine that there is jurisdiction in the Louisiana state court over the claim involved in this litigation.

Dan Thompson, a Louisiana roustabout, had been employed for approximately one and a half years as a derrick hand for Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc. out of its New Iberia, Louisiana office. Intercoastal City, Louisiana was his departure point to an immovable platform rig in Vermillion Block 26, approximately four miles off the coast of Louisiana in the federal waters of the outer Continental Shelf. While Thompson was working on the platform on March 9, 1980, a pipe fell, striking and injuring his right hand. When his employer and compensation carrier resisted his demand for state compensation benefits, he sued them in Rapides Parish.

The district judge, in written reasons for denial of the exception of lack of jurisdiction, relied upon two United States Supreme Court decisions: Gulf Offshore Co. v. Mobil Oil Corp., et al., 453 U.S. 473, 101 S.Ct. 2870, 69 L.Ed.2d 784 (1981) and Sun Ship, Inc. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al., 447 U.S. 715, 100 S.Ct. 2432, 65 L.Ed.2d 258 (1980). The Court of Appeal, in reversing the district court, cited the earlier cases, Smith v. Chevron Oil Company, et al., 517 F.2d 1154 (5th Cir. 1975) and Strange v. Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York, 262 So.2d 799 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1972).

For the reasons which follow, we find that the Louisiana state courts do have subject matter jurisdiction over a claim for Louisiana compensation benefits because of an employment related accidental injury sustained by a Louisiana worker hired in Louisiana for work on a fixed platform outside the territorial waters of Louisiana.

For many decades past, Louisiana courts have entertained worker's compensation suits by Louisiana residents injured outside Louisiana while engaged in employment having a substantial connection with Louisiana. In 1951, this Court expressly approved earlier jurisprudence in that regard, quoting McKane v. New Amsterdam Casualty Co., 199 So. 175 (La.App.Orl.1940) at 178-79 in its decision, Ohlhausen v. Sternberg, 218 La. 677, 50 So.2d 803 (1951):

Although there is no express stipulation contained in the statute to the effect that it shall have extra-territorial jurisdiction, it has been consistently held by our courts that, if the contract of employment is made within this State, the law will apply even though the employee was injured in another State or in a foreign country. See Hargis v. McWilliams Co., Inc., 9 La.App. 108, 119 So. 88, Festervand v. Laster, 15 La.App. 159, 130 So. 634, and Selser v. Bragmans Bluff Lumber Co., La.App., 146 So. 690. And the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that the State courts have power to grant compensation to employees, locally employed, for injuries received outside of its borders. See Bradford Electric Light Co., Inc. v. Clapper, 286 U.S. 145, 52 S.Ct. 571, 76 L.Ed. 1026, 82 A.L.R. 696, and Alaska Packers Ass'n v. Industrial Accident Commission, 294 U.S. 532, 55 S.Ct. 518, 70 L.Ed. 1044.

Therefore, had Thompson been working in another state or even a foreign country under the same circumstances (a Louisiana worker injured in the course of hazardous Louisiana connected employment), he could avail himself of Louisiana's compensation law and have access to our courts if need be. Mattel v. Pittman Construction Co., Inc., et al., 248 La. 540, 180 So.2d 696 (1965); Babineaux v. Southeastern Drilling Corp., 170 So.2d 518 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1965).

This jurisprudence was codified in 1975 with the enactment of La.R.S. 23:1035.1 which reads in pertinent part:

(1) If an employee, while working outside the territorial limits of this state, suffers an injury on account of which he, or in the event of his death, his dependents, would have been entitled to the benefits provided by this Chapter had such injury occurred within this state, such employee, or in the event of his death resulting from such injury, his dependents, shall be entitled to the benefits provided by the Chapter, provided that at the time of such injury

(a) his employment is principally localized in this state, or

(b) he is working under a contract of hire made in this state.

(2) The payment or award of benefits under the workmen's compensation law of another state, territory, province, or foreign nation to an employee or his dependents otherwise entitled on account of such injury or death to the benefits of this Chapter shall not be a bar to a claim for benefits under this act; provided that claim under this act is filed within the time limits set forth in R.S. 23:1209. If compensation is paid or awarded under this act:

(a) The medical and related benefits furnished or paid for by the employer under such other workmen's compensation law on account of such injury or death shall be credited against the medical and related benefits to which the employee would have been entitled under this act had claim been made solely under this act;

(b) The total amount of all income benefits paid or awarded the employee under such other workmen's compensation law shall be credited against the total amount of income benefits which would have been due the employee under this act had the claim been made solely under this act.

While this Court has not expressly addressed the issue, there have been Louisiana Court of Appeal cases which have prevented a Louisiana worker injured on the outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Louisiana from seeking redress in Louisiana courts, on the theory that the federal presence in the area excluded state jurisdiction. Strange v. Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York et al., 262 So.2d 799 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1972); Crooks v. American Mutual Liability Ins. Co., et al., 175 So.2d 875 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1965). Writ refused. "No error of Law in the judgment of the Court of Appeal." 248 La. 372, 178 So.2d 659 (1965). However, in an incisive concurring opinion which may be viewed as prophetic in light of the recent pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court discussed hereinafter, Judge Tate, then a judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal of Louisiana said in Crooks, supra at 878:

In summary, I personally feel that the provision in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that a injured employee "shall" be afforded the Longshoremen's remedy means simply that, if he so elects, he shall be afforded such remedy; but it is not intended to bar his resort to the state compensation remedy otherwise applicable because of the state-connected employment relationship in which the state-resident employee is injured.

Little more than a year ago, the U. S. Supreme Court directly addressed the question of whether federal courts have exclusive subject matter jurisdiction in personal injury and indemnity actions arising out of injuries on the outer Continental Shelf. Gulf Offshore Company v. Mobil Oil Corp., 453 U.S. 473, 101 S.Ct. 2870, 69 L.Ed.2d 784 (1981). ³ The Court concluded that the federal political jurisdiction to which the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq.) is directed did not preclude a state court's concurrent judicial jurisdiction over matters traditionally within their province.

The Gulf Offshore decision recognized that concurrent jurisdiction (state and federal) is presumed. This presumption of concurrent jurisdiction can be rebutted however, by " an explicit statutory directive, by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state court jurisdiction and federal interests." Gulf Offshore, supra at 482, 101 S.Ct. at 2875. The Court concluded that none of these considerations barred a state court's assuming jurisdiction over personal injury or indemnification actions stemming from events occurring on the outer Continental Shelf.

The discussion in Gulf Offshore about the text and legislative history of the OCSLA is applicable to the case at hand. On those points, the Court found that despite the reference to exclusive federal jurisdiction in OCSLA, 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(1), wherein the Shelf was equated with a landlocked federal area within a state, ⁴ Congress did not mean by that assertion of political jurisdiction that...