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Polar Tankers, Inc. v. Valdez, Alaska

Issues

Whether a city's property tax only on large vessels using the city's ports violates the Tonnage Clause of the Constitution, and whether a state's inclusion of certain out-of-state activities in its calculations of percentage value violates the Commerce and Due Process Clauses of the Constitution.

Court below

 

In 1999, the city of Valdez imposed a tax on vessels using its harbors. This case concerns the constitutionality of that tax and the apportionment methodology used to assess the tax. Petitioner Polar Tankers claims that the tax is a tonnage duty prohibited by the Constitution's Tonnage Clause. Polar Tankers argues that the apportionment methodology utilized by Respondent Valdez distorts a vessel's value, and that the effect of the distortion is to allow Valdez to make revenue that is grossly disproportionate to the amount of time a vessel actually spends using Valdez' ports. Furthermore, Polar Tankers argues that Valdez' apportionment scheme creates a risk of double taxation for vessels. Valdez, however, claims that the tax is nothing more than an ad valorem property tax. Valdez argues that the Tonnage Clause does not apply to ad valoremtaxes, and that its apportionment scheme is based on a vessel's productive activity in Valdez. Lastly, in response to the charge of creating a risk of double taxation for vessels, Valdez states that domicile states do not have exclusive authority to tax vessels for time spent on the high seas. Thus, the outcome of this case will affect taxation as it relates to interstate commerce.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

1. Whether a municipal personal property tax that falls exclusively on large vessels using the municipality's harbor violates the Tonnage Clause of the Constitution, art. I, § 10, cl. 3.

2. Whether a municipal personal property tax that is apportioned to reach the value of property with an out-of-State domicile for periods when the property is on the high seas or otherwise outside the taxing jurisdiction of any State violates the Commerce and Due Process Clauses of the Constitution.

Situated on the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, Respondent the City of Valdez ("Valdez") serves as a crucial link in the transportation of crude oil from Alaskan oil fields to refineries. See City of Valdez v.

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Roberts v. Sea-Land Services

Issues

Whether, in order to determine the appropriate method for calculating the maximum and minimum compensation owed under Section 6 of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, “newly awarded compensation” means that compensation is awarded at the time the employee becomes entitled to the compensation, or at the time the administrative order directing compensation is issued.

 

In 2002, Petitioner Dana Roberts slipped on a patch of ice while working for his employer, Respondent Sea-Land Services. After the fall, Roberts claimed disability and sought compensation under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Initially, Sea-Land paid Roberts, but, in May 2005, Sea-Land discontinued payments. An administrative law judge ordered Sea-Land to resume payments, but a dispute arose concerning the proper method for calculating payment. In this case, the Supreme Court will decide when Petitioner Roberts was “newly awarded compensation” under the Act. Roberts argues that this occurred in 2007, when the administrative law judge entered the compensation order. However, Sea-Land Services argues that the judge correctly determined that this occurred in 2002, the year Roberts became entitled to compensation. The Court’s decision will determine which fiscal year is used to calculate the maximum compensation owed. The result could substantially increase Roberts’s compensation under the Act, and will determine how such calculations are performed in similar federal compensation programs.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

The Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-50 ("Longshore Act") provides generally for compensation for total disability in periodic payments at a rate of two-thirds of the "average weekly wage of the injured employee at the time of the injury," and for most partial disabilities the same fraction of the difference between that weekly wage and the worker's residual "wage-earning capacity." §§ 8-10, 33 U.S.C. §§ 908-10. But it has always imposed upper and lower limits on the rate payable as so determined.

Section 6(b) of the Act, 33 U.S.C. § 906(b), provides that the compensation rate cannot be more than twice "the applicable national average weekly wage," as determined for each fiscal year; nor can compensation for total disability be less than the lesser of half the "applicable national average weekly wage" so determined and the worker's full pre-injury earnings.

The question which fiscal year's limits are the "applicable" ones is addressed by § 6(c):

Determinations under subsection (b)(3) of this section with respect to a [fiscal year] shall apply to employees or survivors currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death benefits during such period, as well as those newly awarded compensation during such period. 33 U.S.C. § 906(c). The identity of the years whose limits are "applicable" under this provision has divided the two courts of appeals with the heaviest Longshore Act dockets.

The questions presented are simple and straightforward:

1. Whether the phrase "those newly awarded compensation during such period" in Longshore Act § 6(c), applicable to all classes of disability except permanent total, can be read to mean "those first entitled to compensation during such period," regardless of when it is awarded.

2. Whether the phrase "employees or survivors currently receiving compensation for permanent total disability or death benefits during such period" in § 6(c) can likewise be read to mean those "entitled to [such] compensation during such period," without reference to when it is received.

Petitioner Dana Roberts worked as a gatehouse dispatcher in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, for Respondent Sea-Land Services (“Sea-Land”). See Roberts v. Office of Workers’ Comp. Programs, 625 F.3d 1204, 1205 (9th Cir.

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Additional Resources

Business Law Daily, BLD Staff: U.S. Supreme Court to Hear LHWCA Case (Sept. 27, 2011).

Business Insurance, Roberto Ceniceros: Supreme Court to Hear Case Determining LHWCA Wage Time Frame (Sept. 27, 2011).

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