Otis v. State

176 Misc. 389, 27 N.Y.S.2d 527, 1941 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1763
CourtNew York Court of Claims
DecidedApril 22, 1941
DocketClaim No. 25702
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 176 Misc. 389 (Otis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Otis v. State, 176 Misc. 389, 27 N.Y.S.2d 527, 1941 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1763 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1941).

Opinion

Greenberg, J.

The State moves to dismiss the claim on the ground that it fails to allege facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against the State of New York. The motion is made upon the claim as filed herein and a stipulation of facts entered upon the record.

[390]*390In accordance with the claim and the stipulation entered into, the facts alleged are, in substance, as follows: that on or about the 21st day of June, 1938, the deceased, Vincent D. Otis, was in the employ of the State of New York and was working in the hold of the steamship Harry L. Findlay, owned and operated by the Kinsman Transit Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and which was then docked and lying in the navigable waters of Lake Ontario at the Port of Oswego in the State of New York; that the said steamship was then discharging a cargo of grain into the State elevator at said port; that said Vincent D. Otis was one of a number of employees at said State elevator, whose exclusive duties were to enter in and upon the various grain boats which docked at the New York State Terminal in Oswego Harbor, for the purpose of discharging their cargoes of grain into the State elevator; that the ship’s crew did not unload or assist in unloading its cargo; that at or about eight-thirty p. m., while the decedent was in the hold of said steamship and was engaged in the preparation of certain power shovels for the purpose of shoveling or scooping grain to and toward a certain marine log or conveyor consisting of buckets attached to an endless belt which had been lowered into the grain from the movable towers of said State elevator, he met his death by suffocation in said grain, due to the alleged negligence of the State of New York, its officers, agents and employees.

The claimant, Michael F. Otis, has filed said claim against the State of New York pursuant to the provisions of the Court of Claims Act and pursuant to the provisions of the so-called “ Jones Act,” being section 33 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (41 U. S. Stat. at Large, 1007, chap. 250; U. S. Code, tit. 46, § 688).

It is the State’s contention that pursuant to the last sentence contained in section 12-a of the former Court of Claims Act (section 8 of the present act) which provides that “ nothing herein contained shall be construed so as to affect, alter or repeal any provision of the Workmen’s Compensation Law,” the only remedy available herein is under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, and that the Court of Claims does not have jurisdiction of this claim. Group 16 of subdivision 1 of section 3 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law provides that any employment by the State is within the provisions of the said statute. The claimant, however, contends that while, generally, the Workmen’s Compensation Law is the exclusive remedy available to an employee of the State, pursuant to the first sentence contained in section 12-a (supra), the liability of the State must be determined in accordance with the same rules of law as apply to an action in the Supreme Court against an individual or corporation; that if an individual or cor[391]*391poration were involved herein instead of the State, the claim herein would be governed by the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction and that the Workmen’s Compensation Law would be inapplicable because the accident, resulting in decedent’s death, occurred while the decedent was engaged in an employment connected with interstate commerce.

Generally the Workmen’s Compensation Law is the exclusive remedy (Schwartz v. State of New York, 251 App. Div. 634; affd., 277 N. Y. 567), but the claim herein is the exception to the general rule because it comes within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States.

Subdivision 1 of section 2 of article 3 of the United States Constitution extends the judicial power of the United States “To all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.” This reference in the Constitution is to “ the general system of maritime law which was familiar to the lawyers and statesmen of the country when the Constitution was adopted ” and it was not the intention of this provision “ to place the rules and limits of maritime law under the disposal and regulation of the several States, as that would have defeated the uniformity and consistency at which the Constitution aimed on all subjects of a commercial character affecting the intercourse of the States with each other or with foreign States.” (The Lottawanna, 88 U. S. [21 Wall.] 558, at p. 574; 22 L. Ed. 654.) Subdivision 18 of section 8 of article 1 of the United States Constitution confers on Congress the authority to make all laws necessary to carry into execution the powers vested in the government or any department thereof by the Constitution. Pursuant to that authorization, the United States Judicial Code gives to the District Courts of the United States exclusive original jurisdiction “ Of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,” except that it saved “ to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy where the common-law is competent to give it.” (Judicial Code, § 24, subd. (3); § 256, subd. third; U. S. Code, tit. 28, §§41, 371.)

The first case in which this subject was treated and a formal decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court was that of Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen (244 U. S. 205; 37 S. Ct. 524; 61 L. Ed. 1086). The widow of Jensen presented a claim for compensation under the New York Workmen’s Compensation Law. Jensen was operating an electric truck for the Southern Pacific Company and while driving the truck out of a vessel, docked in New York harbor, upon a gangway leading from the vessel to a pier, Jensen struck his head against a hatchway, thereby causing his death. The Court of Appeals held that claimant was properly' [392]*392entitled to compensation. The United States Supreme Court reversed this case, holding that Jensen was engaged in the work of a stevedore; that his injuries being received upon a vessel were maritime in nature; that the Workmen’s Compensation"Law was invalid in so far as Jensen’s employment was concerned as it destroyed the uniformity of the maritime law; that, being read into the contract of employment, the act, in effect, if held to be valid, would subject such contracts to the variant compensation laws of the several States; that Admiralty Courts had no means of enforcing the provisions of the act, and that it would not furnish a remedy saved to suitors under the Judicial Code because it was not a common-law remedy but a remedy unknown to the common law.

Subsequent to the Jensen case Congress attempted to meet the objections therein stated by adding to the clause in the Judicial Code (supra) saving common-law remedies, the following words, And to claimants the rights and remedies under the Workmen’s Compensation Law of any State.” The validity of this amendment was first tested in another New York case (Stewart v. Knickerbocker Ice Co., 226 N. Y. 302), where the Court of Appeals held the amendment constitutional. The widow of a bargeman drowned in the Hudson river was held to be properly compensable under the Workmen’s Compensation Law. The United States Supreme Court reversed this decision (253 U. S. 149; 40 S. Ct. 438; 64 L. Ed.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Maloney v. State
2 A.D.2d 195 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1956)
Militano v. United States
55 F. Supp. 904 (S.D. New York, 1943)
Otis v. State
178 Misc. 288 (New York State Court of Claims, 1942)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
176 Misc. 389, 27 N.Y.S.2d 527, 1941 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1763, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/otis-v-state-nyclaimsct-1941.