Employers' Liability Assurance Corp. v. Industrial Accident Commission

SLOSS, J.

While working as a ship-joiner, Charles F. Mann sustained injuries which resulted in his death. Upon the application of his widow, the Industrial Accident Commission made an award of compensation against J. A. Johnson, as employer, and Employers’ Liability Assurance Corporation, as insurance carrier. Upon the petition of the Insurance Company, a writ of

certiorari

was issued to review the award.

At the hearing the parties stipulated, among other things:

“2.

That the employment that said employee was engaged in . . . was such as to subject both the employer and the employee to the compensation provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation, Insurance and Safety Act and to the jurisdiction of this commission. 3. That on March 9, 1917, Charles F. Mann met with injuries on the Oakland Estuary,

[774]

in Alameda County, California, and that said Charles F. Mann died on May 14, 1917.” The application alleged that, at the time of his injury, Mann was engaged in work on a ship.

By its petition to the commission for rehearing the petitioner advanced, for the first time, the contention that the claim of the applicant was maritime in character, and that, under the decision of the United States supreme court in

Southern Pacific Co.

v.

Jensen,

244 U. S. 205, [Ann. Cas. 1917E, 900, 61 L. Ed. 1086, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 524], handed down while the proceeding was pending, the commission was without jurisdiction. A rehearing was denied, and the point is again presented here. But the record does not disclose a state of facts to which the rule invoked is applicable. The maritime jurisdiction does not extend to claims arising out of work done (prior, at least, to the launching of the hull) in the construction of vessels.

(Olsen

v.