Lucas v. "Brinknes" Schiffahrts Ges. Franz Lange G.m.B.H. & Co.

387 F. Supp. 440, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11379
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 30, 1974
DocketCiv. A. Nos. 73-1120, 73-2150
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 387 F. Supp. 440 (Lucas v. "Brinknes" Schiffahrts Ges. Franz Lange G.m.B.H. & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lucas v. "Brinknes" Schiffahrts Ges. Franz Lange G.m.B.H. & Co., 387 F. Supp. 440, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11379 (E.D. Pa. 1974).

Opinion

[441]*441OPINION

HUYETT, District Judge.

Before us is a series of motions1 in two admiralty actions arising out of shipboard injuries to longshoremen. These motions test the constitutionality of 33 U.S.C. § 905(b),2 one of the 1972 amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. as amended (Supp. II 1972).

MOTION TO STRIKE

By a motion to strike defendant shipowners’ affirmative defense denying liability under the warranty of seaworthiness, plaintiffs question the power of Congress to eliminate through § 905(b) a longshoreman’s right to recover under the warranty of seaworthiness conferred on him in Seas Shipping Co., Inc. v. Sieraeki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099 (1946). We deny the motion to strike.

Plaintiffs argue that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority under Article III, section 2,3 when it eliminated the warranty of seaworthiness as a basis upon which longshoremen can recover.4 Their argument relies heavily on the following excerpt from a passage in Panama Railway Co. v. Johnson, 264 U.S. 375, 386, 44 S.Ct. 391, 394, 68 L.Ed. 748 (1924):

[Tjhere are boundaries to the maritime law and admiralty jurisdiction [442]*442which inhere in those subjects and cannot be altered by legislation, as by excluding a thing falling clearly within them or including a thing falling clearly without.

Plaintiffs point out that this language of limitation is echoed in subsequent Supreme Court cases.5 Such limiting language, plaintiffs contend, precludes Congress from eliminating this “most substantial and most important” admiralty remedy, the warranty of seaworthiness.6

Since plaintiffs rely so strongly on Panama Railway Co. v. Johnson, we start by examining the lengthy passage from Panama of which the language cited by plaintiffs comprises a sentence. The passage begins with a long section in which the Court acknowledges the necessarily broad discretion of Congress to legislate in the area of substantive maritime law.7 In discussing the nature of Article III, section 2, the Court states

Although containing no express grant of legislative power over the substantive law, the provision [Article III, section 2] was regarded from the beginning as implicitly investing such power in the United States. Commentators took that view; Congress acted on it, and the courts, including this Court, gave effect to it. Practically therefore the situation is as if that view were written into the provision.
[443]*443After the Constitution went into effect, the substantive law theretofore in force was not regarded as superceded or as being only the law of the several states, but as having become the law of the United States, — subject to power in Congress to alter, qualify or supplement it as experience or changing conditions might require. When all is considered, therefore, there is no room to doubt that the power of Congress extends to the entire subject and permits of the exercise of a wide discretion.

264 U.S. at 386, 44 S.Ct. at 393. Immediately following this discussion, the Court does identify two constitutional limits on the legislative power. The first limit is the one invoked by plaintiffs — “that there are boundaries to the maritime law and admiralty jurisdiction which inhere in those subjects.” Id. The second limit, and one the Court has acted upon, restrains Congress from enacting legislation which undermines the uniformity of maritime law and thereby contravenes the constitutional policy upon which a federal maritime law is based.

This second limit on the national Congress, and in one case on the New York legislature, led the Court to strike down several legislative schemes in a line of cases just prior to Panama Railway Co. v. Johnson. In Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, 37 S.Ct. 524, 61 L.Ed. 1086 (1917), Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart, 253 U.S. 149, 40 S.Ct. 438, 64 L.Ed. 834 (1920), and Washington v. Dawson & Co., 264 U.S. 219, 44 S.Ct. 302, 68 L.Ed. 646 (1924), the Court declared unconstitutional under Article III, section 2, an attempt by the New York legislature and two attempts by the national Congress respectively to apply state workmen’s compensation schemes to maritime injuries. The Court struck down these attempts because maritime law is constitutionally designated federal law and must be uniform wherever the Constitution reaches.

Plaintiffs do not suggest in their briefs that § 905(b) exceeds this second limit. They argue instead that denial to longshoremen of the warranty of seaworthiness exceeds the first limit, the one imposed by the inherent nature of the subject. With this theory we cannot agree. Despite the use of the conjunctive “maritime law and admiralty jurisdiction” 8 in the excerpt on which plaintiffs rely, we conclude that the language of limitation under discussion places boundaries on congressional power to expand and contract admiralty jurisdiction, not on its power to arrange and rearrange substantive maritime remedies.9 We base our conclusion on several considerations. As we have already suggested, the language from [444]*444Panama Railway Co. v Johnson that plaintiffs cite is but a short excerpt from a long passage the predominant theme of which is the broad range of congressional discretion to alter and amend maritime law. This pattern, limiting language sounding a minor theme in a case in which the major theme is the wide-ranging congressional power to enact maritime law, is repeated in Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 52 S.Ct. 285, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932), and Detroit Trust Co. v. The Thomas Barlum, 293 U.S. 21, 55 S.Ct. 31, 79 L.Ed. 176 (1934), two other cases upon which plaintiffs rely. Further, in Panama Railway Co. v. Johnson and Crowell v. Benson, the Court upheld the federal legislation under constitutional attack despite thoroughgoing congressional rearrangement of substantive maritime remedies. In Panama Railway v. Johnson the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 688, which conferred on seamen a negligence remedy governed by “all statutes of the United States conferring or regulating the right of action for death in the case of railway employees.” In Crowell v. Benson the Court upheld the original Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act of 1927, 33 U.S.C.

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387 F. Supp. 440, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11379, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lucas-v-brinknes-schiffahrts-ges-franz-lange-gmbh-co-paed-1974.