Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cardillo, 8567.

• Decision Date: 20 March 1944
• Docket Number: No. 8567.,8567.
• Parties: TRAVELERS INS. CO. v. CARDILLO, Deputy Commissioner, United States Employees' Compensation Commission, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

78 US App. DC 392, 141 F.2d 362 (1944)

TRAVELERS INS. CO. v. CARDILLO, Deputy Commissioner, United States Employees' Compensation Commission, et al.

No. 8567.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia.

Argued February 14, 1944.

Decided March 20, 1944.

Mr. Ernest A. Swingle, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Edwin A. Swingle and Allan C. Swingle, both of Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. Ward E. Boote, Chief Counsel, United States Employees' Compensation Commission, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, and Daniel B. Maher, Assistant United States Attorney, both of Washington, D. C., were on the brief for appellee Cardillo.

Mr. Robert A. Wilson, of Washington, D. C., for appellee Beard.

Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and EDGERTON and ARNOLD, Associate Justices.

GRONER, C. J.

This is a compensation case. The appeal is from an order of the District Court dismissing appellant's complaint for review of an award by the Deputy Commissioner.

The question is whether compensation was allowable under the District of Columbia Compensation Act.¹

The Deputy Commissioner found that the injury occurred in Maryland; that the employee was a resident of the District; that the employer, a construction company, had its principal office in the District, and at the time of the injury and prior thereto was engaged in construction work there and in the immediate vicinity. Injured, a carpenter, was employed by the employer in April, 1940. He first worked on the National Guard Armory, then on the Naval Research Laboratory, then on the Marine Barracks at Bellevue, then on an office building on 18th and H Streets, Northwest, — all in the District of Columbia, — and then again on the Bellevue job. On July 28, 1941, he was sent to help take down a large building at the National Airport on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. When this work was done the dismantled building was hauled to the Dalecarlia Reservation, located just across the District line in the State of Maryland; and while there, on November 26, 1941, in the performance of his work on a Federal job, he sustained the injury for which he claimed and was awarded compensation in the District of Columbia.

Enough has been said to show that at the time in question the employer was a person carrying on an employment in the District and that injured was an employee of such person. In a similar state of facts we held in B. F. Goodrich Co. v. Britton, Dep. Com'r,² that the injury (occurring in Pennsylvania) was within the coverage of the District of Columbia Act.

In the present case appellant insists that the above cited case is not applicable and that the Maryland Act should be held to be exclusive, because (1), the work being done by the employer at the time of injury was on a Federal job under the control of the War Department, on property acquired and owned by the United States; and (2), because Congress in adopting the "Longshoremen's Act" as the compensation law for the District of Columbia, incorporated, as a part of the local law, Section 3(a) of the National Act.

We think there is no merit in either contention. The ground of the first is that by the Act of June 25, 1936,³ Congress, in extending State compensation laws to construction work on buildings of the United States, vested exclusive jurisdiction in the Board of the State in which the work was being done in the case of injury to an employee in such work. But we think this is a misinterpretation of the Act, for there is no language in the statute which directly or indirectly declares that jurisdiction in the State Compensation Board shall be exclusive. The statute goes no farther than to revest State jurisdiction which, presumably, Congress thought might be divested by the acquisition and ownership of the land by the United States for Federal purposes. The effect of the Act is, therefore, to restore the status quo ante, and the purpose was to make sure that employees of contractors during work on a Federal building in a Federal area would be able to recover compensation benefits for disability or death. If in this case the injured employee had made claim under the Maryland Act, and had pursued it to a final award and...