Zone of Danger Test Inapplicable to Psychological Injury under Longshore Act
Zone of Danger Test Inapplicable to Psychological Injury under Longshore Act
Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Director 4th Cir. Jan. 27, 2017, No. 15-1041 (No Lexis or WestLaw Cite currently)
This case has a long history arising out of the negligent death of a coworker. Samuel Jackson killed a co-worker while negligently operating a forklift. Claims were filed under both the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act as well as the Longshore Act. The state claim for compensation was denied. (See: Jackson v. Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc., 2016 VA Wrk. Comp. LEXIS 37 (Va. Work. Comp. Comm., Jan. 13, 2016; appeal pending). The claim under the Longshore Act proceeded with benefits awarded to the claimant employee. (See: Ceres Marine Terminals, Inc. v. Director, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 23543 (4th Cir. 2016).
The employer again attempted to assert that psychological injuries under the Act required the employee to be in the zone of danger or to sustain actual physical injury based on Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Gottshall, 512 U.S. 532 (1994). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of the Benefits Review Board (Id.) holding that the Longshore Act does not encompass such a limitation as the zone of danger test is a common law concept of negligence. The initial unpublished decision of the court issued in 2016 (id.) was amended on January 27, 2017 and published. It is not available on Lexis or WestLaw as of this writing.
A copy of the PDF version issued by the court is attached here: Ceres Marine v Jackson
