The opinion
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF
CALIFORNIA
BRIAN RANGER,
Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB,
Defendant and Respondent.
S282264
Second Appellate District, Division Eight
B315302
Los Angeles County Superior Court
19STCV22806
February 27, 2025
Justice Evans authored the opinion of the Court, in which
Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Liu, Kruger,
Groban, and Jenkins concurred.
RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
S282264
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
In general, those who are injured while on board a vessel
in navigable waters because of the negligence of their employer
or the vessel owner may have a cause of action under a federal
statute, judge-made general maritime law, or both. (See 1
Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Federalism (6th ed. Nov. 2023
update) §§ 4:1, 5:4.) In this case, plaintiff Brian Ranger
(Ranger) seeks damages under general maritime law for injuries
he alleges were caused by the negligence of his vessel-owning
employer, defendant Alamitos Bay Yacht Club (the Club). The
Club argues that Ranger is barred from asserting these federal
common law claims because he does not qualify as a statutory
“employee” within the meaning of the Longshore and Harbor
Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA; 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.).
The LHWCA, as amended in 1984, excludes from the federal
workers’ compensation scheme individuals who (like Ranger)
are employed by “a club” and “are subject to coverage under a
State workers’ compensation law.” (33 U.S.C. § 902(3)(B).) The
Court of Appeal agreed with the Club and affirmed the order
sustaining the Club’s demurrer to Ranger’s complaint without
leave to amend.
We conclude the Court of Appeal erred. The 1984
amendments to the LHWCA specify which workers’
compensation scheme — federal or state — applies, but they did
not themselves purport to abrogate available general maritime
remedies for those outside the LHWCA’s scope. Nor, under the
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
supremacy clause of the federal Constitution, may the exclusive-
remedy provision in California’s workers’ compensation scheme
be applied to deprive a plaintiff of a substantive federal
maritime right. Whether Ranger’s general maritime claims
might be barred under other provisions of the LHWCA — and
whether Ranger’s claims properly invoked admiralty
jurisdiction in the first place — are issues the Court of Appeal
has not yet addressed. We therefore reverse the judgment of the
Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings.
I. BACKGROUND
Ranger was a maintenance worker for the Club. As part
of his duties, he painted, cleaned, maintained, and repaired the
Club’s fleet of vessels. He also was tasked with hoisting the
Club’s vessels in and out of navigable waters and mooring them.
On August 28, 2018, Ranger was assigned to lower a vessel into
navigable waters using “a hoist, boom and hook, and thereafter
to moor the vessel in navigable waters.” Once the vessel had
been lowered into the water, Ranger boarded to unlock the
vessel from the boom and moor it to the dock. Ranger alleges
that he was required to board “directly onto an uneven, slippery
and sloped surface at the bow of the vessel without adequate
means of maintaining balance and stability,” causing him to slip
and fall, “proximately causing him to sustain serious injuries
and damages.” Ranger applied for state workers’ compensation
and then sued the Club in superior court. (Ranger v. Alamitos
Bay Yacht Club (2023) 95 Cal.App.5th 240, 242 (Ranger).)
Ranger’s second amended complaint asserted two claims
under general maritime law, which is “a species of judge-made
federal common law.” (Yamaha Motor Corp. v. Calhoun (1996)
516 U.S. 199, 206.) The first cause of action asserted that the
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
Club negligently failed to provide Ranger with adequate
training, policies and procedures for safe docking and boarding,
and safe access to the vessel. The second cause of action
asserted that the Club caused the vessel to be “unseaworthy,
dangerous, unsafe and hazardous to employees . . . who were
required to board said vessel.” The trial court sustained the
Club’s demurrer without leave to amend on the ground Ranger
had failed to allege facts to implicate federal admiralty
jurisdiction. Although the court found (and the parties agreed)
that Ranger had adequately alleged the tort occurred on
navigable waters, the court concluded he had failed to
demonstrate his fall posed “more than a fanciful risk to
maritime commerce.”
The Court of Appeal affirmed, but on different grounds. It
declined to consider whether admiralty jurisdiction was
implicated because it held instead that the LHWCA displaced
general maritime law and made California’s workers’
compensation scheme Ranger’s exclusive remedy. (Ranger,
supra, 95 Cal.App.5th at pp. 242–243.) In so holding, the Court
of Appeal created a split in authority with Freeze v. Lost Isle
Partners (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 45 (Freeze). (Ranger, at p. 246.)
We granted review to resolve the conflict.
II. DISCUSSION
In reviewing an order sustaining a demurrer, we accept as
true all the material allegations of the complaint. (King v.
CompPartners, Inc. (2018) 5 Cal.5th 1039, 1049, fn. 2 (King).)
Further, because the Court of Appeal never considered whether
Ranger’s accident came within maritime jurisdiction — but the
federal maritime claims here presuppose the existence of such
jurisdiction — we will assume, for purposes of this proceeding,
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
that federal admiralty jurisdiction is implicated. That means
we will assume Ranger’s tort claims satisfy conditions “both of
location and of connection with maritime activity.” (Jerome B.
Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, Inc. (1995) 513 U.S.
527, 534 (Grubart).)
Even though federal courts’ jurisdiction over admiralty
and maritime is said to be “exclusive,” state courts are
nonetheless “ ‘competent’ to adjudicate maritime causes of
action in proceedings ‘in personam,’ that is, where the defendant
is a person, not a ship or some other instrument of navigation.”
(Madruga v. Superior Court of California (1954) 346 U.S. 556,
560–561; accord, Donaldson v. National Marine, Inc. (2005) 35
Cal.4th 503, 509 [“maritime law rights of action may be enforced
in either state or federal courts”]; see generally 28 U.S.C. § 1333
[“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of
the courts of the States, of: [¶] (1) Any civil case of admiralty
or maritime jurisdiction, saving to suitors in all cases all other
remedies to which they are otherwise entitled”].) State courts
in such circumstances are “constrained by a so-called ‘reverse-
Erie’ doctrine which requires that the substantive remedies
afforded by the States conform to governing federal maritime
standards.” (Offshore Logistics v. Tallentine (1986) 477 U.S.
207, 223.)
Consequently, one key question in this case is what federal
maritime law provides. The Court of Appeal held that as a
result of the 1984 amendments to the LHWCA, Ranger had no
federal maritime claim of any sort. In its view, Congress made
state workers’ compensation law “paramount” (Ranger, supra,
95 Cal.App.5th at p. 243) when it decided to exclude club
workers like Ranger from the act’s scope where, as here, they
“are subject to coverage under a State workers’ compensation
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
law” (33 U.S.C. § 902(3)(B)). Applying California’s workers’
compensation law — including its exclusive-remedy provision
(Lab Code, § 3602, subd. (a)) — the Court of Appeal concluded
the federal maritime claims were properly dismissed. (Ranger,
at p. 250.) Ranger responds that the Court of Appeal accorded
undue significance to the LHWCA in analyzing his common law
claims. In his view, the exclusion of club workers from the act’s
coverage meant only that the state, rather than the federal,
workers’ compensation system applies, but did not otherwise
deprive such workers of their federal right to pursue available
tort remedies under general maritime law.
We agree with Ranger.
A. The Longshore and Harbor Workers’
Compensation Act
The LHWCA provides employees in traditional maritime
occupations — excluding seamen, who are covered by the Jones
Act (46 U.S.C. Appen. § 688 et seq.) — with no-fault federal
workers’ compensation remedies for injuries suffered while
working on the navigable waters of the United States or in
adjoining areas. (Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v.
Garris (2001) 532 U.S. 811, 818 (Garris).) In 1984, Congress
amended the LHWCA to exclude club workers, among others,
from the federal workers’ compensation scheme, provided that
the workers “are subject to coverage under a State workers’
compensation law.” (33 U.S.C. § 902(3)(C); see Sen.Rep. No. 98-
81, 1st Sess., p. 2 (1983) (Sen.Rep. No. 98-81).) Consequently,
the text of the LHWCA specifies which workers’ compensation
scheme — the federal LHWCA or state compensation laws —
should apply to club workers like Ranger.
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
The 1984 amendments to the LHWCA, however, did not
explicitly state whether workers excluded from its scope could
pursue otherwise available common law maritime remedies.
Ranger asserts causes of action for negligence and
unseaworthiness, which are “settled” remedies under general
maritime law. (Garris, supra, 532 U.S. at p. 813.) Assuming for
purposes of this proceeding that Ranger would otherwise be
entitled to assert these maritime claims, the narrow inquiry
before us is whether those claims are barred by the 1984
amendments to the LHWCA. To resolve that question, we apply
the “longstanding” canon that “[i]n order to abrogate a common-
law principle, the statute must ‘speak directly’ to the question
addressed by the common law.” (United States v. Texas (1993)
507 U.S. 529, 534; see Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker (2008) 554
U.S. 471, 489 (Baker).)
The Club nowhere claims the LHWCA speaks directly to
the availability of general maritime remedies for workers
excluded by the act, and it would be difficult to make such an
argument. The LHWCA by its terms does not narrow admiralty
jurisdiction for noncovered employees (see Director, OWCP v.
Perini North River Associates (1983) 459 U.S. 297, 320, fn. 29
(Perini)), nor does it purport to articulate what general maritime
remedies are or are not available to club workers. The Club
assumes, mistakenly, that “judge-made general maritime law
tort causes of action against the worker’s employer . . . are
recognized exclusively as being for the benefit of maritime
workers.” In reality, common law maritime remedies “may be
invoked by virtually anyone who suffers injury or loss in an
admiralty setting.” (1 Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime
Law, supra, § 5:4; see generally Grubart, supra, 513 U.S. at
p. 543 [“Although we agree with petitioners that these cases do
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
not say that every tort involving a vessel on navigable waters
falls within the scope of admiralty jurisdiction no matter what,
they do show that ordinarily that will be so”].) Had the LHWCA
intended to abrogate general maritime remedies for every
worker who was not an employee as defined in the act, one would
expect to see that intent expressed more clearly.
The Club draws our attention to certain characterizations
about excluded workers that appear in the Senate report
concerning the bill that initiated the 1984 amendments. The
report explained that although these workers “by circumstance
happened to work on or adjacent to navigable waters,” they “lack
a sufficient nexus to maritime navigation and commerce” and
“are more aptly covered under appropriate state compensation
laws.” (Sen.Rep. No. 98-81, supra, at p. 25.) The Club infers
from these passages that Congress must have likewise deemed
the excluded workers too attenuated from a connection to
maritime activity to justify maritime jurisdiction. We disagree.
At the time of the 1984 amendments, the high court had already
made clear that although the term “maritime” appears in both
the LHWCA and in the codification of federal court admiralty
jurisdiction, they do not carry identical meanings: “these are
two different statutes ‘each with different legislative histories
and jurisprudential interpretations over the course of decades.’ ”
(Perini, supra, 459 U.S. at p. 320, fn. 29.) Accordingly, the
exclusion of club workers from the ambit of the LHWCA did not
clearly signal these workers fell outside the broad parameters of
admiralty jurisdiction and the reverse-Erie doctrine.
The available legislative materials further undermine any
supposed intent to abrogate common law remedies for workers
excluded from the LHWCA. Rather, the Senate committee that
originated the 1984 amendments articulated its goal in more
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
modest terms. According to the Senate report, Congress did not
“attempt[] an overall evaluation or rationalization” of the
general maritime law “because the existing body of statutory
and decisional law does not admit to easy synthesis.” (Sen.Rep.
No. 98-81, supra, p. 25.) The report then offered the “obvious”
observation that the 1984 amendments made only “limited
changes” to the LHWCA, leaving “undisturbed” the “large body
of decisional law relative to traditional maritime employers and
harbor workers.” (Sen.Rep. No. 98-81, supra, p. 26.) We
therefore lack a “clear indication” (Baker, supra, 554 U.S. at
p. 489) that Congress intended to prevent club workers like
Ranger from asserting claims in admiralty under general
maritime tort principles.
The Club, like the Court of Appeal below, argues that
Ranger is nonetheless barred from asserting otherwise available
maritime remedies because the United States Supreme Court
has instructed admiralty courts exercising their inherent
common-law authority to “ ‘look primarily to these legislative
enactments for policy guidance.’ ” (Dutra Group v. Batterton
(2019) 588 U.S. 358, 361 (Batterton).) The Club emphasizes, in
particular, that the LHWCA in many respects restricts workers
within its scope from asserting general maritime claims. (See
33 U.S.C. § 905.) From this, it divines a general congressional
policy that excluded workers similarly should not be allowed to
prosecute maritime claims. We conclude the Club’s reliance on
Batterton is misplaced.
In Batterton, supra, 588 U.S. 358, the plaintiff seaman
suffered injuries and sued the defendant vessel owner under
various causes of action, including unseaworthiness. The claim
sought both general and punitive damages. (Id. at p. 368.) In
disallowing the claim for punitive damages, the high court
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
highlighted two key points: (1) that punitive damages had not
traditionally been awarded for claims of unseaworthiness (id. at
pp. 370–372), and (2) that punitive damages are not recoverable
under the Jones Act (id. at pp. 372–374), which is “so similar” to
and has “significant overlap” with unseaworthiness (id. at
p. 367). Although it deemed these arguments “practically
dispositive” (id. at p. 371), the high court went on to address the
plaintiff’s attempt to justify punitive damages “on policy
grounds.” (Id. at p. 374.) The court stated: “it would exceed our
current role to introduce novel remedies contradictory to those
Congress has provided in similar areas” and was “particularly
loath to impose more expansive liabilities on a claim [like
unseaworthiness] governed by strict liability than Congress has
imposed for comparable claims based in negligence.” (Ibid.)
We are not persuaded that general maritime causes of
action can be analogized to punitive damages. As stated above,
negligence and unseaworthiness are far from “novel remedies”
(Batterton, supra, 588 U.S. at p. 374) or “new entitlement[s]” (id.
at p. 377). Negligence, for example, has traditionally been
available to anyone who falls within admiralty jurisdiction.
(Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (1959) 358
U.S. 625, 630.) The Club fails to explain how allowing Ranger
to assert general maritime causes of action would require the
court “to sanction a new remedy.” (Batterton, at p. 372.)
Nor would allowing club workers who are covered by state
workers’ compensation laws to prosecute general maritime
claims flout “the policy expressed in congressional enactments.”
(Batterton, supra, 558 U.S. at p. 374.) Workers who are covered
by the LHWCA give up their right to pursue certain maritime
remedies. (See 33 U.S.C. § 905.) In exchange, though, covered
workers receive “generous” compensation under the LHWCA.
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
(Service Eng’g Co. v. Emery (9th Cir. 1996) 100 F.3d 659, 661.)
In particular, the LHWCA provides benefits that “generally are
far greater than the corresponding benefits under state law”; for
example, benefits under the LHWCA “are nearly three times
larger than the corresponding maximum California benefits.”
(Service Eng’g Co., at p. 661.) The Club does not explain why
workers who are excluded from the LHWCA — and who did not
receive the benefit of the bargain Congress struck with covered
workers — must nonetheless suffer the limitations that are a
part of that federal scheme. It would not “create bizarre
disparities in the law” (Batterton, at p. 376) to hold that club
workers are excluded from the bitter as well as the sweet of the
LHWCA. Moreover, workers whose injuries lack sufficient
“connection with maritime activity” as to fall outside admiralty
jurisdiction altogether will still be unable to assert maritime
claims. (Grubart, supra, 513 U.S. at p. 534.)
The Club finds it significant that workers are excluded
from the LHWCA only if they are eligible for state workers’
compensation. But the act’s reference to state workers’
compensation laws does not compel the conclusion that
Congress intended for the state remedy to be exclusive. Because
state compensation laws can vary (see 1 Schoenbaum,
Admiralty and Maritime Law, supra, § 7:5), the mere
availability of no-fault compensation under a state workers’
compensation scheme does not inevitably connote an exclusive
remedy. (See, e.g., Amesquita v. Gilster-Mary Lee Corp.
(Mo.Ct.App. 2013) 408 S.W.3d 293, 302 [“it is not absurd or
unprecedented for the legislature to have provided injured
workers with a non-exclusive workers’ compensation remedy”].)
Indeed, the Club does not point to anything in the text of the
LHWCA or in the Senate report to indicate Congress intended
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
that state workers’ compensation awards be exclusive.
Accordingly, the Club has failed to show it would be contrary to
“the policy preferences” expressed by Congress (Batterton,
supra, 588 U.S. at p. 370, fn. 6) to allow club workers who are
injured under admiralty jurisdiction, but excluded from the
LHWCA, to pursue otherwise available general maritime
remedies.
Finally, we note that subsequent to the 1984 amendments,
the high court declared that injured maritime workers who do
not qualify under the LHWCA’s no-fault workers’ compensation
scheme or as seamen under the Jones Act “may still recover
under an applicable state workers’ compensation scheme or, in
admiralty, under general maritime tort principles.” (Chandris,
Inc. v. Latsis (1995) 515 U.S. 347, 356, italics added; cf. Chan v.
Society Expeditions, Inc. (9th Cir. 1994) 39 F.3d 1398, 1403
[“Whether or not he is deemed to be an employee for some
purposes, he still has a general claim in admiralty for
negligence, and adjudication of that claim is governed by federal
common law” (fn. omitted)].) In this case, the ordinary default
rule governs: “Absent a relevant statute, the general maritime
law, as developed by the judiciary, applies.” (East River S.S.
Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval (1986) 476 U.S. 858, 864.)
For all these reasons, we conclude that the 1984
amendments to the LHWCA did not bar Ranger from asserting
otherwise available maritime claims.
B. The California Workers’ Compensation Act
To the extent the Court of Appeal’s opinion suggests that
California’s workers’ compensation scheme in itself displaces
general maritime remedies and constitutes Ranger’s exclusive
remedy, we disagree. It is true that California’s workers’
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
compensation system provides “a comprehensive statutory
scheme governing compensation given to California employees
for injuries incurred in the course and scope of their
employment.” (Charles J. Vacanti, M.D., Inc. v. State Comp. Ins.
Fund (2001) 24 Cal.4th 800, 810.) Under Labor Code section
3602, the workers’ compensation remedy “provides an injured
employee’s ‘exclusive’ remedy against an employer for
compensable work-related injuries.” (King, supra, 5 Cal.5th at
p. 1046.) We conclude, though, that the exclusive-remedy
provision does not displace federal law in this case.
“As a general rule, the substantive law to be applied in
maritime actions is the general maritime law.” (Societa Per
Azioni De Navigazione Italia v. City of Los Angeles (1982) 31
Cal.3d 446, 455, fn. 10 (City of Los Angeles).) “[A] state court
may ‘ “adopt such remedies, and . . . attach to them such
incidents, as it sees fit,” so long as it does not attempt to make
changes in the “substantive maritime law.” ’ ” (American
Dredging Co. v. Miller (1994) 510 U.S. 443, 447.) Consequently,
state law may be applied “only where it does not conflict with an
established federal maritime rule or does not otherwise interfere
with a needed uniformity in the characteristic features of the
federal maritime law.” (City of Los Angeles, at p. 455, fn. 10;
accord, Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn. v. Goldstene (9th Cir.
2011) 639 F.3d 1154, 1178 (Goldstene) [“ ‘states may supplement
federal admiralty law as applied to matters of local concern, so
long as state law does not actually conflict with federal law or
interfere with the uniform working of the maritime legal
system’ ”].)
The exclusive-remedy provision in California’s workers’
compensation law would conflict with the established maritime
claim for negligence, a tort that maritime law has recognized
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Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
“for more than a century.” (Garris, supra, 532 U.S. at p. 820.)
It likewise would conflict with the tort of unseaworthiness,
which has long been “settled” under general maritime law (at
least for seamen covered by the Jones Act). (Garris, at p. 813;
see Cooper Stevedoring of Louisiana, Inc. v. Washington (5th
Cir. 1977) 556 F.2d 268, 273 [tort of unseaworthiness is a
“judicially created substantive right[]” in admiralty].) Assuming
those causes of action are otherwise available to Ranger (see,
ante, p. 2), we resolve the conflict here in favor of the federal
maritime right. As the high court has made clear, “a state may
not deprive a person of any substantial admiralty rights as
defined in controlling acts of Congress or by interpretative
decisions of this Court.” (Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn (1953) 346
U.S. 406, 410; accord, Intagliata v. Shipowners & Merchants
Towboat Co. (1945) 26 Cal.2d 365, 371 [“the state courts must
preserve all substantial admiralty rights of the litigants”]; id. at
p. 373 [“state law cannot be applied in a maritime cause if it
would substantially impair a right arising under federal
maritime law”].) To hold, as the Court of Appeal did, that the
state workers’ compensation remedy supplanted Ranger’s
general maritime claims would violate this fundamental
admiralty principle. (See Stanton v. Bayliner Marine Corp. (Wn.
1993) 866 P.2d 15, 28 (Stanton) [“federal maritime law preempts
application of a conflicting state law where there is a judicially
fashioned admiralty rule on point”].)
Following this logic, numerous federal courts have held
that state workers’ compensation exclusive-remedy provisions
cannot preclude a worker’s general maritime claims for relief.
(See, e.g., Green v. Vermilion Corp. (5th Cir. 1998) 144 F.3d 332,
337, 341 [La. workers’ compensation remedy did not preclude
general maritime claims for slip-and-fall injury]; Purnell v.
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Norned Shipping B.V. (3d Cir. 1986) 801 F.2d 152, 156 [recovery
under Del. workers’ compensation act did not preclude maritime
remedy for wrongful death because, “under the supremacy
clause, that claim cannot be preempted or impaired by state
law”]; King v. Universal Electric Construction Co. (5th Cir. 1986)
799 F.2d 1073, 1074 [“when admiralty jurisdiction exists, ‘an
exclusive remedy provision in a state workman’s compensation
law cannot be applied when it will conflict with maritime policy
and undermine substantive rights afforded by federal maritime
law’ ”]; Bagrowski v. American Export Isbrandtse Lines, Inc. (7th
Cir. 1971) 440 F.2d 502, 507–509 [exclusive remedy under Wis.
workers’ compensation act did not preclude action for
indemnification against employer under maritime law]; Morrow
v. Marinemax, Inc. (D.N.J. 2010) 731 F.Supp.2d 390, 398
(Morrow) [N.J. workers’ compensation law did not preclude
general maritime law claims; “When this Court sits in
admiralty, it may not allow a state’s statute to deny a plaintiff
the opportunity to pursue a cause of action expressly provided
for in the general maritime law”]; Moore v. Capital Finishes, Inc.
(E.D.Va. 2010) 699 F.Supp.2d 772, 783 (Moore) [exclusivity
provision in workers’ compensation act would “be the
quintessence of deprivation. Accordingly, this court cannot
allow the Virginia Act to preclude plaintiff’s federal maritime
tort claim”]; In re Holoholo Litigation (D.Hawaii 1983) 557
F.Supp. 1024, 1026–1029 [Hawaii workers’ compensation
exclusivity provision did not preclude claims under general
maritime law].)
As the Court of Appeal acknowledged, the First Appellate
District, Division Three likewise held in Freeze that a worker’s
“general maritime claims against her employer are not barred
by the exclusivity provision of California’s Workers’
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
Compensation Act.” (Freeze, supra, 96 Cal.App.4th at p. 52.)
But Freeze is hardly an outlier. Our sister states have similarly
held that exclusive-remedy provisions in state workers’
compensation laws must yield to general maritime claims. (See,
e.g., Rosales v. Icicle Seafoods, Inc. (Alaska 2013) 316 P.3d 580,
584 [exclusive remedy of Alaska workers’ compensation act
“does not deprive a maritime employee of his federal remedies”];
Flying Boat, Inc. v. Alberto (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1998) 723 So.2d
866, 867 [“Florida Workers’ Compensation Act’s limitations on
recovery for wrongful death impermissibly conflict with federal
maritime law”]; Richard v. Apache Corp. (La.Ct.App. 2013) 111
So.3d 1156, 1163 [“federal admiralty law overrides the exclusive
remedy provision of the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation
Act”]; Jones v. Tecnico Corp. (2011) 83 Va.Cir. 336, 342–343
[“the exclusivity provision of the Virginia Act shall not operate
to deprive the plaintiffs of their substantive rights recognized by
federal general maritime law”]; Maziar v. State Dept. of
Corrections (Wn. 2009) 216 P.3d 430, 435 [Wn. industrial
insurance act “does not bar Maziar’s federal maritime claims”].)
Scholarly commentary, too, supports the conclusion that
general maritime law trumps state workers’ compensation
exclusivity provisions. (See Sturley et al., Recent Developments
in Admiralty and Maritime Law at the National Level and in the
Fifth and Eleventh Circuits (Summer 2024) 48 Tul. Mar. L.J.
329, 336-337 [“Under the Supremacy Clause, the exclusive
liability provisions in state workers’ compensation laws cannot
defeat a worker’s cause of action under federal maritime law”];
see generally 1 Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law,
supra, §§ 4:5 [“judge-made general maritime law, when in
conflict with state law, is supreme”], 7:4 [“an exclusive remedy
provision in a state workers’ compensation statute cannot
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deprive a party of a cause of action afforded by federal maritime
law”].)
The Court of Appeal below, which came to the opposite
conclusion, relied on Brockington v. Certified Electric, Inc. (11th
Cir. 1990) 903 F.2d 1523 (Brockington). In Brockington, the
plaintiff electrician was injured in a fall on a boat traveling
between the Georgia coast and an island where a marine
laboratory was being built. After recovering medical and
compensation benefits under the Georgia Workers’
Compensation Act, he filed an action against his employer in
federal court for negligence under general maritime law. (Id. at
pp. 1525–1526, 1531.) The district court held that the claim of
negligence was barred under the exclusive-remedy provisions of
the Georgia act — although it suggested that a claim of
unseaworthiness, in contrast, might have survived. (Id. at
pp. 1531, 1533.) The Eleventh Circuit then adopted the district
court’s opinion as its own. (Id. at pp. 1524–1525.)
Brockington never considered whether the exclusivity
provision in the Georgia workers’ compensation act would
“deprive a person of any substantial admiralty rights as defined
in controlling acts of Congress or by interpretative decisions of
this Court,” including “their long-recognized right to recover in
admiralty for negligence.” (Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, supra,
346 U.S. at pp. 410, 413.) The court instead invoked Eleventh
Circuit precedent and reasoned that “[i]n order to determine
whether to give effect to a state law to the exclusion of a
conflicting admiralty law, courts have generally used a
balancing approach. . . . [¶] . . . . ‘If there is an admiralty-state
law conflict, the comparative interests must be considered —
they may be such that admiralty shall prevail . . . or if the policy
underlying the admiralty rule is not strong and the effect on
16
RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
admiralty is minimal, the state law may be given effect.’ ”
(Brockington, supra, 903 F.2d at p. 1530, quoting Steelmet, Inc.
v. Caribe Towing Corp. (11th Cir. 1986) 779 F.2d 1485, 1488.)
The court concluded that “the state has a strong interest in
application of its worker’s compensation law with no comparable
interest to tip the balance in favor of application of general
maritime law.” (Brockington, at p. 1533.)
We are not convinced that the direct conflict between state
and federal law in this case can be resolved by a balancing of
interests. Interest balancing is a characteristic of the choice-of-
law inquiry. (See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004) 542 U.S. 692,
709; accord, ABF Capital Corp. v. Berglass (2005) 130
Cal.App.4th 825, 838.) But “in our system of federalism, federal
law and state law ordinarily coexist. When the two overlap,
tensions between them are resolved not by interstate comity and
choice of law principles but by the supremacy clause and
preemption principles.” (Ward v. United Airlines, Inc. (2020) 9
Cal.5th 732, 757.) Indeed, the Club expressly disclaims the need
for a choice-of-law analysis in this case. And whatever role there
may be for interest balancing under certain preemption
principles (see, e.g., Goldstene, supra, 639 F.3d at p. 1178), the
Club does not even purport to balance any interests here. We
therefore do not find Brockington, or the few cases that rely on
its approach, to be persuasive. (Accord, Morrow, supra, 731
F.Supp.2d at p. 398 [rejecting the Eleventh Circuit’s balancing
test and concluding “state law must yield,” which is “most
faithful to Supreme Court precedent”]; Moore, supra, 699
F.Supp.2d at p. 780 [“The applicable law, properly construed,
does not provide for a balancing test in the traditional sense,
under which the relative strength of either side’s interests can
potentially ‘tip the balance in favor of [or against] application of
17
RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
general maritime law’ ”]; cf. Stanton, supra, 866 P.2d at p. 26
[“the court need not engage in ‘interest analysis’ where there is
a conflict between the state and federal remedies for economic
loss; such conflicts are resolved in favor of federal maritime
law”]; see generally Denton, Lifting “The Great Shroud of the
Sea”: A Customary International Law Approach to the Domestic
Application of Maritime Law (Winter 2012) 37 Tul. Mar. L.J. 1,
30 [“the Supremacy Clause precludes a conflict-of-laws-style
balancing of state and federal interests — if maritime law is
federal law, then it is superior to state law”].)
C. Other Issues
The Club advances a number of other arguments for
sustaining its demurrer, among them that Ranger has failed to
establish admiralty jurisdiction, which is the predicate for the
application of general maritime law; that the tort of
unseaworthiness has been abolished for workers, like Ranger,
who are not seamen under the Jones Act; and that Ranger, as a
repair worker, lacks the ability to assert a negligence claim
against his vessel-owning employer because of the LHWCA.
The Court of Appeal has not yet considered these questions, nor
has any court had cause to consider whether amounts Ranger
may receive under his workers’ compensation claim should be
credited against any future award he may obtain under
maritime law.1 We leave these matters for the Court of Appeal
to address on remand in the first instance.
1
The Club has not claimed the current litigation is barred
by the doctrine of election of remedies.
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RANGER v. ALAMITOS BAY YACHT CLUB
Opinion of the Court by Evans, J.
III. CONCLUSION
“The issue of federalism in admiralty and the scope of
application of state law in maritime cases is one of the most
perplexing issues in the law.” (1 Schoenbaum, Admiralty and
Maritime Law, supra, § 4:4.) After careful consideration of case
law from our court and the United States Supreme Court,
decisions from the intermediate federal appellate courts as well
as the courts of our sister states, and the thoughtful
contributions by commentators, we conclude that neither the
1984 amendments to the LHWCA nor the exclusive-remedy
provision in the California Workers’ Compensation Act bars a
plaintiff under admiralty jurisdiction from seeking further relief
for an injury under general maritime law. The judgment of the
Court of Appeal is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
EVANS, J.
We Concur:
GUERRERO, C. J.
CORRIGAN, J.
LIU, J.
KRUGER, J.
GROBAN, J.
JENKINS, J.
19
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who
argued in Supreme Court.
Name of Opinion Ranger v. Alamitos Bay Yacht Club
__________________________________________________________
Procedural Posture (see XX below)
Original Appeal
Original Proceeding
Review Granted (published) XX 95 Cal.App.5th 240
Review Granted (unpublished)
Rehearing Granted
__________________________________________________________
Opinion No. S282264
Date Filed: February 27, 2025
__________________________________________________________
Court: Superior
County: Los Angeles
Judge: Mark C. Kim
__________________________________________________________
Counsel:
Krissman & Silver, Jarod A. Krissman, Kathie Sierra; McGuinn,
Hillsman & Palefsky and John R. Hillsman for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Law Offices of Charles D. Naylor and Charles D. Naylor for Susan J.
Garner, Susan M. Geerlings and Melissa G. Tatman as Amici Curiae
on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.
Cox, Wootton, Lerner, Griffin & Hansen, Neil S. Lerner and Mitchell S.
Griffin for Defendant and Respondent.
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for
publication with opinion):
John R. Hillsman
McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky
220 Jackson Street, Suite 350
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 421-9292
Mitchell S. Griffin
Cox, Wootton, Lerner, Griffin & Hansen, LLP
900 Front Street, Suite 350
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 438-4600