Tucker v. Texas Co.
Decision Date | 08 June 1953 |
Docket Number | No. 14230.,14230. |
Citation | 203 F.2d 918 |
Parties | TUCKER v. TEXAS CO. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Warner F. Brock, Houston, Tex., Combs, Brown & Brock, Horace F. Brown, Houston, Tex., for appellant.
Thos. M. Phillips, Houston, Tex., Frank G. Harmon, Ralph Carrigan and Baker, Botts, Andrews & Parish, Houston, Tex., of counsel, for appellee.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and HOLMES and RIVES, Circuit Judges.
This appeal is from a summary judgment entered upon motion of the defendant, appellee. For convenience appellant will be referred to as plaintiff and appellee as defendant.
Plaintiff, a resident of Texas, was a regular employee of the Aber Company, Inc. which had its principal place of business in Houston, Texas. He was sent to Louisiana to work for his employer in carrying out its contract for the insulation of certain equipment owned and operated by the defendant. Under that contract, the defendant was to furnish, erect and dismantle scaffolding required for the insulation work. On May 13, 1949, while engaged in insulating the legs of a spherical tank located at the defendant's cycling plant in Erath, Louisiana, the scaffolding board on which the plaintiff was standing broke, causing him to fall about 9 feet to the cement base below and to suffer serious injuries. The grounds upon which the district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment were that: (a) the rights and liabilities of the parties were governed by the law of Louisiana where the accident occurred; (b) under section 34 of the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act, LSA-Revised Statutes 23:1032,1 the rights and remedies granted under that Act are exclusive; (c) under Section 6 of the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Act, LSA-Revised Statutes 23:1061,2 the plaintiff as an employee of an independent contractor may recover compensation against the defendant where the work undertaken by the independent contractor is a part of the defendant's trade, business, or occupation; and (d) the work undertaken by the Aber Company, Inc. at the Erath Cycling Plant was in fact a part of the trade, business, or occupation of the defendant.
In review of these grounds for entering the summary judgment, this appeal presents two principal questions: (1) are the rights of the plaintiff and the liability of the defendant governed by the law of Louisiana; and (2) if so, does the record present a fact issue for a jury to decide as to whether the business of insulating carried on by the plaintiff's employer, Aber Company, Inc., is a part of the defendant's trade, business, or occupation.
The federal district court sitting in Texas must conform to the conflict of laws rule prevailing in Texas state courts, Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 496, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477; Palmer v. Chamberlin, 5 Cir., 191 F.2d 532, 536, 27 A.L.R.2d 416. Texas, of course, recognizes the general principle that the law of the place of wrong determines whether a person has sustained a legal injury, A.L.I., Restatement, Conflict of Laws, Sec. 378; 11 Am.Jur., Conflict of Laws, Sec. 182; 2 Beale, Conflict of Laws, Sec. 378.1, p. 1288; Mexican National Railroad Co. v. Jackson, 89 Tex. 107, 33 S.W. 857, 31 L.R.A. 276; Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Thompson, 100 Tex. 185, 97 S.W. 459, 7 L.R.A., N.S., 191. The Texas Workmen's Compensation Act, however, provides that, if an employee hired in Texas sustain injury in the course of his employment outside of the State, he shall be entitled to compensation according to the law of the State of Texas.3 The Texas Act also preserves the rights of injured employees as against third persons.4
A series of decisions by the Supreme Court over the course of years has established that an employee may constitutionally seek compensation under the workmen's compensation laws of either the state of his contract or the state of his injury, and may even seek recovery under the acts of both states, if the act under which he secures his first recovery does not in terms make its award final and exclusive. Bradford Electric Light Company, Inc., v. Clapper, Administratrix, 286 U.S. 145, 52 S.Ct. 571, 76 L.Ed. 1026; State of Ohio v. Chattanooga Boiler & Tank Co., 289 U.S. 439, 53 S.Ct. 663, 77 L.Ed. 1307; Alaska Packers Association v. Industrial Accident Commission of California, 294 U.S. 532, 55 S.Ct. 518, 79 L.Ed. 1044; Pacific Employers Insurance Company v. Industrial Accident Commission, 306 U.S. 493, 59 S.Ct. 629, 83 L.Ed. 940; Magnolia Petroleum Company v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430, 64 S.Ct. 208, 88 L.Ed. 149; Industrial Commission of Wisconsin v. McCartin, 330 U.S. 622, 67 S.Ct. 886, 91 L.Ed. 1140. The reasoning which permits a state to project its workmen's compensation laws across state lines is clearly stated in Alaska Packers Association v. Industrial Accident Commission of California, 294 U.S. 532, 540, 541, 55 S.Ct. 518, 521:
It will be noted that the court expressly recognizes that there is no "similar power to control the legal consequences of a tortious act committed elsewhere". When the laws of Texas cannot be extended into Louisiana by reason of a contract, relationship, or status existing in Texas, it is clear that the cause of action for tort can be given only by the law of the place where the tort was committed; in this case by the law of Louisiana. Indeed, the Texas Act in preserving the rights of employees to proceed against third persons does not attempt to create causes of action against third persons for wrongs occurring in other states, Texas Rev.Stat. 8307, § 6a, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. art. 8307, § 6a, footnote 4, supra.
The American Law Institute, Restatement of the Law, 1948 Supplement, pages 151 and 152, modifies and rewrites Sec. 401 of the Restatement, Conflict of Laws, to cover the situation presented in this case:
In support of that position, we would cite further the full discussion by Judge Magruder for the First Circuit in Bagnell v. Springfield Sand & Tile Co., 144 F.2d 65, 68 to 74, and the text of 2 Beale, Conflict of Laws, Sec. 378.1 p. 1288, reading:
* * *." (Emphasis ours.)
Alternatively, the plaintiff insists that the Workmen's Compensation Act of Louisiana does not apply for one of two reasons and, therefore, that even under Louisiana law6 the plaintiff still has a cause of action in tort against the defendant. First, the plaintiff says that the case of McKane v. New Amsterdam Casualty Co., La.App., 199 So. 175, 182, settled...
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