Millers’ Indemnity Underwriters v. Braud, 270 U.S. 59 (1926)

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Millers’ Indemnity Underwriters v. Braud

No. 124

Argued January 13, 1926
Decided February 1, 1926
270 U.S. 59

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE STATE OF TEXAS

Syllabus

Plaintiff’s intestate, while employed as a diver by a shipbuilding company, submerged himself from a floating barge anchored in a navigable river in Texas thirty-five feet from the bank for the purpose of sawing off timbers of an abandoned set of ways, once used for launching ships, which had become an obstruction to navigation. While thus submerged, he died of suffocation due to failure of the air supply. Damages for the death were recovered from the employer’s insurer under the workmen’s compensation law of Texas.

Held,

1. That the fact disclosed a maritime tort to which the general admiralty jurisdiction would extend save for the state compensation law, but the matter was of mere local concern, and its regulation by the state would work no material prejudice to any characteristic feature of the general maritime law. P. 64.

2. The state compensation law prescribed the only remedy, and its exclusive features abrogated the right to resort to the admiralty court which otherwise would exist. Id.

Affirmed.

Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Texas affirming a judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals which affirmed a recovery in a suit under the workmen’s compensation law of Texas. See 245 S.W. 1025; 261 id. 127.