O'leary, Deputy Commissioner, Fourteenth Compensation District, v. Brown-pacific-maxon, Inc. et al. (340 U.S. 504)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 26, 1951 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 340 U.S. 504 · 71 S. Ct. 470
- Decided
- February 26, 1951
- Term
- October Term 1950
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Frankfurter
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Frankfurter delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case we are called upon to review an award of compensation under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Act of March 4, 1927, 44 Stat. 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 901 et seq. The award was made on a claim arising from the accidental death of an employee of Brown-Pacific-Maxon, Inc., a government contractor operating on the island of Guam. Brown-Pacific maintained for its employees a recreation center near the shoreline, along which ran a channel so dangerous for swimmers that its use was forbidden and signs to that effect erected. John Yalak, the employee, spent the afternoon at the center, and was waiting for his employer’s bus to take him from the area when he saw or heard two men, standing on the reefs beyond the channel, signaling for help. Followed by nearly twenty others, he plunged in to effect a rescue. In attempting to swim the channel to reach the two men he was drowned. A claim was filed by his dependent mother, based on the Longshoremen’s Act and on an Act of August 16, 1941, extending the compensation provisions to certain employment in overseas possessions. 55 Stat. 622, 56 Stat. 1035, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1651. In due course of the statutory procedure, the Deputy Commissioner found as a “fact” that “at the time of his drowning and death the deceased was using the…
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