US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Respondents, employees of petitioner railroads, were injured while working at petitioners' Virginia terminals, where coal was being loaded from railway cars to ships on.navigable waters. The injuries to respondents in No. 87-1979, who were laborers doing housekeeping and janitorial services, occurred while they were undertaking one of their duties: cleaning spilled coal from loading equipment to prevent fouling. The injury to respondent in No. 88-127, a pier machinist, occurred when he was engaged in his primary duty of repairing coal loading equipment. Each respondent brought suit in state court under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. Petitioners challenged jurisdiction under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA or Act), which, inter alia, provides the exclusive remedy for an employee injured at a relevant situs while

"engaged in maritime employment, including any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations, and any harbor-worker including a ship repairman, shipbuilder, and ship-breaker."

33 U.S.C. § 902(3). The trial courts dismissed the suits, concluding that each respondent was an employee covered by the LHWCA. The Supreme Court of Virginia consolidated the appeals of respondents in No. 87-1979 and reversed the dismissal of their cases, stating that the key question was whether an employee's activities had a realistically significant relationship to the loading of cargo on ships, and ruling that the activities of employees performing purely maintenance tasks did not. On the basis of this decision, the court then reversed the dismissal of the suit by respondent repairman in No. 88-127.

Held: Respondents were engaged in maritime employment within the meaning of § 902(3). 493 U. S. 45-48.

(a) Since employment that is maritime within the meaning of § 902(3) includes not only the specified occupations or employees who physically handle cargo, but also land-based activity occurring within the relevant situs if it is an integral or essential part of loading or unloading a vessel, Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249; @ 444 U. S. 45-48.

(b) Each of the respondents is covered by the LHWCA. It makes no difference that the particular kinds of repairs being done by respondent in No. 88-127 might be considered traditional railroad work or might be done by railroad employees wherever railroad cars are unloaded, since the determinative consideration is that the shiploading process could not continue unless the equipment respondent worked on was operating properly and loading was, in fact, stopped while he made the repairs. Respondents in No. 87-1979 were also performing duties essential to the overall loading process, in light of testimony that, if coal which spills onto the loading equipment is not periodically removed, the equipment may become clogged and inoperable. Equipment cleaning that is necessary to keep machines operative is a form of maintenance and is only different in degree from repair work. P. 493 U. S. 48.

No. 87-1979, 235 Va. 27, 365 S.E.2d 742, and No. 88-127, reversed.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J.,and BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which MARSHALL and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, post, 493 U. S. 49. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, 493 U. S. 50. chanrobles.com-red

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