State courts have concurrent tort jurisdiction under admiralty and maritime law but plaintiff is limited to worker’s compensation recovery
Plaintiff Ranger fell at the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach, California, while lowering a boat into the water. He sued in state court but his tort claims were dismissed as worker's compensation was determined to be his exclusive remedy. (Ranger v. Alamitos Bay Yacht Club (September 6, 2023) B315302.) Specifically, the Hon. Mark C. Kim of the Los Angeles County Superior Court sustained, without leave to amend, a demurer on the grounds that plaintiff Ranger could not state a tort claim in California Superior Court. The Second District, Division Eight, affirmed the trial court but held it did not need to decide the issue of whether or not admiralty jurisdiction applied.
As set forth in both the Constitution and maritime statutes [1], Federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over certain claims. At the same time, state courts may adjudicate in personam “maritime claims” as they have “concurrent jurisdiction” over such suits. (Id., p. 2.)
As the Ranger court explained, this means the issue of whether admiralty jurisdiction applies is “supernumerary,” or excess, to deciding whether California worker’s compensation is the exclusive remedy for a worker such as Ranger injured at a Yacht Club. (Id.)
This is because Ranger was an "employee" excluded from "maritime jurisdiction" under 1984 amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Worker's Act (“Longshore Act”) found at 33 U.S.C. section 902(3) and (3)(b). This act established Federal worker’s compensation for what Ranger termed “maritime employment.” (Ranger, p. 3, citing 33 U.S.C. sections 902 and 905.) More specifically, workers at a “club” are defined as such “employees,” as discussed in more detail below.
In terms of interpreting this statute vis a vis common law precedent, Ranger explained that while what it called “admiralty courts” [2] are ostensibly “common law” courts, they look primarily to legislative enactments for guidance. (Ranger, p. 3; emphasis deleted.) At page three, Ranger therefore summarized what it called “admiralty law" including "general maritime law:"
To set out our analysis in more detail, we begin by defining admiralty law. The Constitution implicitly directed courts sitting in admiralty to proceed as common law courts. Where Congress has not prescribed specific rules, these courts developed an amalgam of traditional, modified, and new common law rules. That amalgam is the general maritime law, which is no longer the exclusive province of federal judges. Congress and the states legislate extensively in these areas. When exercising their common law authority, admiralty courts look primarily to legislative enactments for policy guidance. (Citations omitted.)
Key to deciding Ranger were the 1984 amendments to the Longshore Act. This act excluded many persons defined as an “employee” from Federal worker’s compensation, expressly providing the employee of a “club” is such an excluded employee:
In 1984, Congress responded by introducing a degree of clarity: Congress sharpened the Longshore Act’s focus to exclude employees who, although they happened to work on or next to navigable waters, lacked a sufficient nexus to maritime navigation and commerce. In response to the experiences of many witnesses, Congress adopted what it called a “case-specific approach.”
We now quote the textual result: the pertinent provision— subsection three of section 902 of the Longshore Act—as it stands after the 1984 amendments. Our italics highlight key words.
“The term ‘employee’ means any person engaged in maritime employment, including any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations, . . . but such term does not include—
. . .
“(B) individuals employed by a club, camp, recreational operation, restaurant, museum, or retail outlet. . . (Ranger, p. 4-5; original emphasis.)
The Second District therefore disregarded oft-cited Federal common-law precedent that did not adequately address the 1984 language quoted above even though such cases have not been expressly overruled by Federal courts. These included Green v. Vermilion Corp. (5th Cir. 1998) 144 F. 3d 332, and Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917) 244 U.S. 205, the Ranger court noting the later featured a “celebrated” dissent by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Justice Wiley, writing for the Ranger court, succinctly summed up the court’s holding that, pursuant to California’s Labor Code sections 3351 and 3600, Ranger’s remedy was limited to a worker’s compensation claim:
. . . California’s workers’ compensation law is Ranger’s exclusive remedy. Congress in 1984 decreed this state law aptly covers his situation. A core part of the state workers’ compensation bargain is that injured workers get speedy and predictable relief irrespective of fault. In return, workers are barred from suing their employers in tort. The trial court correctly dismissed Ranger’s tort suit against his employer. (Ranger, p. 13.)
Tips for practitioners
Those prosecuting or defending tort claims should remember the concurrent jurisdiction of state courts in regard to a personal injury involving “navigable waters” which may fall under Federal Maritime Law. They should likewise note that despite what their law school professors may have stressed as to the supremacy of Federal law, the modern — though by no means recent — trend is to recognize “concurrent” state court jurisdiction as to personal injuries even if the claim would otherwise fall under admiralty law.
At the same time, Ranger reminds us that tort claims that otherwise fall under this “concurrent” jurisdiction and might otherwise be decided by a state court may be pre-empted by worker’s compensation exclusivity. Counsel on both sides should therefore look to the Longshore Act, as amended in 1984, and their state law to determine if such a tort claim is instead within the exclusive purview of the worker’s compensation scheme in their state.
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1 — Article Three, Section Two of the United States Constitution states in part:
The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;—between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects. (Emphasis added.)
By virtue of the Judiciary Act of 1989, Federal Courts have exclusive jurisdiction over admiralty and maritime Law claims but state courts retain their own jurisdiction over common law claims:
The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of . . . [a]ny civil case of admiralty or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other remedies to which they are otherwise entitled. (28 U.S.C. section 1333(1); emphasis added.)
2 — While the terms “admiralty” and “maritime” are often used interchangeably, the Constitution expressly gives Federal courts jurisdiction over admiralty "and" maritime law. (See note one.) "Maritime law" may be said to have global application and encompasses international waters, while "admiralty law" encompasses commercial maritime activities and therefore includes disputes involving coastal areas and inland waterways which may be defined as “navigable waters.”
