ESCAPE FROM THE LABYRINTH: CALL FOR THE ADMIRALTY JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT TO RECONSIDER SEAMAN STATUS.

• Author: Engerrand, Kenneth G.

1. ROLE OF ADMIRALTY JUDGES II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LABYRINTH A. Enactment of the Jones act and LHWCA B. Judicial Response to the Statutory Remedies III. INTERVENTION OF THE SUPREME COURT AFTER 33 YEARS. IV. RETURN OF THE LABYRINTH A. Nature Element of the Connection Test B. Duration Element of the Connection Test V. ESCAPE FROM THE LABYRINTH I. ROLE OF ADMIRALTY JUDGES (1)

   There is only one grant of jurisdiction in Article III of the Constitution that encompasses an area of substantive law--the power to hear "all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction." (2) That jurisdiction was conferred on the federal courts "without controversy," (3) and its importance was explained by Alexander Hamilton in the ratification debate: "The most bigoted idolizers of State authority have not thus far shown a disposition to deny the national judiciary the cognizance of maritime causes." (4) Accordingly, the "duty of the judicial department to say what the law is" (5) has no greater application than with the obligation to enunciate uniform principles of admiralty and maritime law pursuant to Article III. (6)

   Although Article I of the Constitution contains no express grant of authority to Congress to legislate on admiralty law, the Supreme Court has recognized that the Commerce Clause (7) comprehends navigation, permitting Congress to legislate on maritime matters. (8) However, when Congress does exercise its authority to amend or revise maritime law, its legislation must conform to the uniformity required by Article III: "The definite object of the grant was to commit direct control to the Federal Government; to relieve maritime commerce from unnecessary burdens and disadvantages incident to discordant legislation; and to establish, so far as practicable, harmonious and uniform rules applicable throughout every part of the Union." (9)

   In striking down a Congressional enactment providing for the application of state workers' compensation remedies for maritime workers, the Supreme Court reasoned that "the manifest purpose" of the statute "was to permit any State to alter the maritime law and thereby introduce conflicting requirements." (10) As the subject of maritime injuries is "national," the Court held that the federal legislation was unconstitutional, stating: "Local interests must yield to the common welfare. The Constitution is supreme." (11) The role of the Supreme Court in insuring application of uniform principles of maritime law in state and federal courts across the nation is now at issue in the jurisprudence determining who is a seaman under the Jones Act (12) and general maritime law.

   As Congress has legislated on maritime subjects, the role of admiralty judges has evolved so that they "not only steer through channels of precedent that were charted by the leading admiralty jurists of the past, but they must also consider increasing numbers of federal and state regulations and legislation." (13) Interpreting federal statutes and incorporating them into the general maritime law does not render admiralty judges "flotsam on the sea of maritime law." (14) However, the navigation by admiralty judges between statutes and general maritime law is "even more difficult" when the Supreme Court "defer[s] the formulation of general maritime law principles" to the lower courts. (15)

   The law of seaman status--determining which maritime workers are entitled to recover under the Jones Act--went through a period of decades of what the Supreme Court described as "wayward case law" (16) that "led the lower courts to a myriad of standards and lack of uniformity in administering the elements of seaman status." (17) Finally, after allowing the lower courts to flounder for thirty-three years, the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions (18) to "find our way out" of the "labyrinth" in which the courts had become "lost." (19)

   After the Supreme Court endeavored to find the way out of the labyrinth with three important decisions between 1991 and 1997, the lower courts began constructing a new "maze" (20) of conflicting decisions that have brought a lack of uniformity back to the seaman status inquiry. (21) While the Supreme Court has declined to hear conflicting cases from both seamen and employers, (22) some lower courts have extended the labyrinth to the point of declining to apply the elements of the test enunciated by the Supreme Court. (23)

   When the cases reach the point that lower courts no longer apply the test set forth by the Supreme Court, leading to conflicts across the country and decisions reaching the opposite result in state and federal courts within the same state, (24) it is time for the admiralty judges of the Supreme Court to give relief from the "bewildering array of decisions" (25) and to restore uniformity to the general maritime law and the interpretation of the Jones Act.

2. DEVELOPMENT OF THE LABYRINTH

   1. Enactment of the Jones Act and LHWCA

      Since the beginning of the nation, the remedies available to maritime workers have differed depending on the status of the worker. (26) The maritime law has treated land-based workers like their shoreside brethren, affording them a negligence remedy against their employer; (27) however, maritime law has provided crew members of vessels with remedies of unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure but not a negligence remedy against their employer. (28) Congress' efforts to modify maritime remedies have led to a century of confusion.

      During and after World War I, Congress discussed a number of maritime matters, including the working conditions for seamen. (29) Without debate on the granting of the remedy, Congress added a section to major shipping legislation in 1915 and 1920 (30) to establish a negligence remedy for seamen. The second enactment, known as the Jones Act, which was necessitated by the insufficiency of the 1915 statute, (31) granted to a "seaman" the negligence action that was unavailable under the general maritime law. (32)

      The absence of discussion about the enactment of the negligence remedy in the Jones Act contrasts with the extensive debate in Congress over the decisions of the Supreme Court between 1917 and 1926 addressing the remedies available when land-based maritime workers are injured or killed on navigable waters. (33) Congress responded to each of the Supreme Court's rulings with legislation designed to provide a workers' compensation remedy for the land-based maritime workers. (34)

      In Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for the state of New York to grant Marie Jensen a state workers' compensation remedy for the death of her husband, Christen Jensen, a longshore worker who was killed while driving a small electric freight truck loaded with cargo onto the gangway of a vessel. (35) In order to overturn the decision in Jensen, Congress amended the Admiralty Jurisdiction Statute (36) so that the statute would save "to claimants the rights and remedies under the workmen's compensation law of any State." (37) Congress made no distinction in that legislation between land-based and sea-based workers, saving to both classes a state workers' compensation remedy. (38)

      Employing reasoning similar to the analysis in Jensen, the Supreme Court struck down Congress' attempt to legislate a state workers' compensation remedy for land-based and sea based workers, stating: "To say that because Congress could have enacted a compensation act applicable to maritime injuries, it could authorize the states to do so, as they might desire, is false reasoning." (39) The Court held that the statute was "beyond the power of Congress (40) as it would "destroy the harmony and uniformity which the Constitution not only contemplated, but actually established." (41)

      Congress did not give up on its effort "to permit the application of the workmen's compensation laws of the several states to injuries within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." (42) In its second attempt to legislate a workers' compensation remedy, Congress recognized the difference between "port workmen" or "local workers" (43) and "sailors" (44) or "seamen," (45) stating that it "has always in legislating distinguished between these port workers and seamen. It has assumed full control over the relation of master and servant at sea." (46) The goal of the legislation was to treat the "peripatetic" workers who travel from port to port with the vessel under "a uniform Federal statute," while the local workers would be subject to "State laws." (47) The basis for the distinction was that "seamen in their normal life are migratory. They pass from port to port, from State to State, from country to country." (48) However, land-based workers "are not migratory but local; their wages,' their conditions of living are governed by local standards." (49)

      Congress believed that uniform laws throughout the country were essential for the seaman as they travel from port to port:

      To permit in their case the application of the varying laws of the several States in respect to injuries suffered in the course of their employment would be unfair both to the ship and to the seamen. Under these laws a seaman might be entitled to different amounts of compensation for different periods, different medical attention, depending upon whether an accident happened in the port of New York or the port of Philadelphia, or in New Orleans. The owner would be compelled to insure against an uncertain liability for he could never tell when his ship started out under what law he might be required to pay compensation. (50) Consequently, Congress amended the Admiralty Jurisdiction Statute in 1922 by saving "to claimants for compensation for injuries to or death of persons other than the master or members of the crew of a vessel their rights and remedies under the workmen's compensation law of any State." (51)

      Applying the principles enunciated in its prior decisions, the Supreme Court declared the 1922...