Present Status of Compensation Acts in Admiralty

Abstract

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, denying to state compensation acts any validity as to cases coming within the jurisdiction of admiralty, has already been commented on in these pages. Relying on this decision, state courts have been compelled to refuse awards to injured maritime employees--"innocent victims of the old feud between federal and state control." This was the situation as regards eight New York cases considered at one time by the Appellate Division, in all of which compensation was denied, and in all but one of which awards made by the Industrial Commission were set aside. Sullivan v. Hudson Nay. Co. (1918, App. Div.) 169 N. Y. Supp. 645. The majority held that awards made prior to the Jensen decision, either with the assent of the insurers, or without the question of jurisdiction having been raised, might now be reopened and set aside. They also held that the decision included within its scope not only carpenters engaged as repair men and injured while so engaged on board a ship anchored in navigable waters, but also dockworkers who were not working upon navigable waters but were employed under maritime contracts.