Employment — OCSLA

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U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Employment — OCSLA

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act extends coverage to an employee who can establish a substantial nexus between his injury and his employer’s extractive operations on the Outer Continental Shelf.  Nothing in the text of §1333(b) suggests that an injury must occur on the OCS. The provision has only two requirements: The extractive operations must be “conducted on the [OCS],” and the employee’s injury must occur “as the result of” those operations. If, as Pacific suggests, the purpose of §1333(b) was to geographically limit the scope of OCSLA coverage to injuries that occur on the OCS, Congress could easily have achieved that goal by omitting from §1333(b) the words “as the result of operations conducted.” Moreover, Congress’ decision to specify situs limitations in other subsections, but not in §1333(b), indicates that it did not intend to so limit §1333(b). This conclusion is not foreclosed by Herb’s Welding, Inc. v. Gray, 470 U. S. 414, or Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U. S. 207, neither of which held that §1333(b) coverage was limited to on-OCS injuries. Section 1333(b)’s text also gives no indication that Congress intended to exclude OCS workers who are eligible for state benefits from LHWCA coverage. To the contrary, the LHWCA scheme incorporated by the OCSLA explicitly anticipates that injured employees might be eligible for both state and federal benefits.

604 F. 3d 1126, affirmed and remanded.

10-507 Pacific Operators Offshore, LLP, v. Valladolid

Thomas, J.; Scalia, J., concurring.