St. Louis Shipbuilding Co. v. Director of Office of Workers' Compensation Programs

551 F.2d 1119
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedMarch 29, 1977
DocketNo. 76-1530
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 551 F.2d 1119 (St. Louis Shipbuilding Co. v. Director of Office of Workers' Compensation Programs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Louis Shipbuilding Co. v. Director of Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 551 F.2d 1119 (8th Cir. 1977).

Opinion

HARPER, Senior District Judge. .

The Benefits Review Board, affirming the decision of an administrative law judge, ordered St. Louis Shipbuilding Company and United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company (hereinafter collectively referred to as Petitioners) to pay Robert Maybes (hereinafter sometimes referred to as Claimant) permanent partial disability benefits under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, as in effect on July 13, 1972, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. (1970). In this petition for review the Petitioners challenge the administrative determinations, denying that the Longshoremen’s Act provided coverage for the injury which Claimant sustained.

Claimant was the sole witness to testify at the hearing conducted by the administrative law judge. His testimony may be briefly summarized as follows: In 1972, Maybes was employed by St. Louis Shipbuilding as a welder .at their facilities on the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri. His duties as a welder were performed both on land and on vessels floating in the Mississippi. On July 13, 1972, Maybes was repairing cracked welds on girders supporting the engine of a newly constructed tugboat. This tugboat, the launching of which was apparently imminent, was resting on “frames” located approximately fifty yards from the edge of the Mississippi and some ten yards from a “cradle” mechanism. The cradle, along with connected chains, was eventually to be utilized to lower the new [1122]*1122tugboat into the river. It was while welding inside this tugboat that Maybes sustained the injury to his left eye which is the subject of this claim.

The administrative law judge hearing the claim held that the injury was compensable under the Longshoremen’s Act and ordered Petitioners to pay permanent partial disability benefits to Claimant for fifty percent proportionate loss of the use of his left eye. The order further provided that Petitioners were to be given credit in the computation of these benefits for $4,550.00 previously paid to Claimant pursuant to a Missouri Workmen’s Compensation award arising from the same incident and injury.

As in effect at the time of Claimant’s injury, Longshoremen’s Act Section 3(a), 33 U.S.C. § 903(a), provided in pertinent part:

Compensation shall be payable under this chapter in respect of disability or death of an employee, but only if the disability or death results from an injury occurring upon the navigable' waters of the United States (including any dry dock) .

The administrative law judge based his determination of jurisdiction under the Longshoremen’s Act on the finding that the frames upon which the newly built tugboat rested were:

. necessarily a part of the cradle apparatus, i. e., that the assembled frames were an attendant structure, an appurtenance, or an extension of the cradle, a type of marine railway, and that Claimant was at work on a “drydock.”

The finding that Claimant was injured on a dry dock thus placed his claim within the coverage of the Longshoremen’s Act by virtue of 33 U.S.C. § 903(a). The Benefits Review Board affirmed the decision and order of the administrative law judge on the basis that the record considered as a whole presented substantial evidence in support of the finding that the frames upon which Claimant was working at the time of the injury constituted a dry dock within the meaning of 33 U.S.C. § 903(a).

The scope of review of an administrative law judge’s findings is well defined. Such findings are to be accepted unless unsupported by. substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole. Banks v. Chicago Grain Trimmers Assn., Inc., 390 U.S. 459, 467, 88 S.Ct. 1140, 20 L.Ed.2d 30 (1968); O’Keeffe v. Smith, Hinchman & Grylls Associates, Inc., 380 U.S. 359, 362, 85 S.Ct. 1012, 13 L.Ed.2d 895 (1965). This standard on review remains applicable despite the substitution of administrative law judges for the deputy commissioners previously adjudicating claims under the Longshoremen’s Act, and the substitution of the Benefits Review Board for the United States district courts to which initial review of compensation orders were formerly made. 33 U.S.C. § 921(b)(3). Further, such standard is also applicable to an appellate court’s review of the findings of the Benefits Review Board. See Potenza v. United Terminals, Inc., 524 F.2d 1136, 1137 (2d Cir. 1975), for the statement:

On review by the Board, the findings of fact of the administrative law judge are “conclusive if supported by substantial evidence in the record considered as a whole.” 33 U.S.C. § 921(b)(3). Although the quoted statutory language appears to apply in terms only to review by the Board, the legislative history makes clear, as must logically be the case in any event, that the same standard was intended to apply to review in the courts of appeals. See H.R.Rep.No.92-1441, 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News p. 4698, at 4709, 4718.

Accordingly, it is this Court’s responsibility on review to determine whether there is substantial evidence in the record considered as a whole to support the finding that Claimant sustained his injury upon a dry dock.

Mr. Justice Douglas, in his concurring opinion to Avondale Marine Ways, Inc. v. Henderson, 346 U.S. 366, 367, 74 S.Ct. 100, 101, 98 L.Ed. 77 (1953) has noted:

. , there are three kinds of dry docks. (1) A floating dry dock, as its name makes clear, floats on the water, [1123]*1123the vessel resting on the bottom of the dry dock after the water has been removed. (2) A graven dry dock is dug into the land. The vessel floats in but rests on land once the water has been pumped out. (3) Finally there is a marine railway, on which the vessel is drawn out of the water, instead of the water being drawn away from the vessel.

Claimant’s description of the frames upon which he was working at the time of his injury discloses that the structure cannot be considered either a “floating” or a “graven” dry dock. It, therefore, appears that if the frames are to be found a dry dock they must be found to have formed a section of a marine railway. Certainly, there is ample support for the proposition that structures known as marine railways are within the coverage of the Longshoremen’s Act by virtue of their status as dry docks. See Calbeck v. Travelers Insurance Co., 370 U.S. 114, 129, 82 S.Ct. 1196, 8 L.Ed.2d 368 (1962); Delome v. Union Barge Line Co.,

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551 F.2d 1119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-louis-shipbuilding-co-v-director-of-office-of-workers-compensation-ca8-1977.