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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether an employee must be injured on the outer continental shelf to be eligible for workers compensation benefits under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
The case, Pacific Operators Offshore L.L.P. vs. Luisa L. Valladolid et al., stems from a May 13, 2010, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling involving the widow of worker Juan Valladolid.
Mr. Valladolid spent 98% of his work time as a roustabout on an offshore drilling platform about three miles off the coast of California. But he was crushed and killed by a forklift while working at a separate facility about 250 feet from shore.
His widow received death benefits under California’s workers comp system and filed for benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, directly and via an OCSLA extension to outer continental shelf workers.
An administrative law judge and a benefits review board denied the LHWCA claim, finding that Mr. Valladolid was neither engaged in maritime employment nor working within a maritime “situs” when the accident occurred.
The appeals court denied the ruling in part, but also affirmed in part.
It found that the location where the accident occurred was not a maritime situs, so it affirmed the denial of workers compensation benefits under the LHWCA.
Yet it also held that the OCSLA workers comp provision “applies to any injury resulting from operations on the outer continental shelf, regardless of the location of the injury” and said the injury is “the result of outer continental shelf operations if there is a substantial nexus between the injury and the operations.”
Pacific Operators appealed the ruling, which the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear.