Schwirse v. Director, OWCP, No. 11-73172 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePetitioner appealed the denial of benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901-950, for injuries he sustained after falling off a dock while attempting to urinate while intoxicated. The court concluded that an injury "occasioned solely by" intoxication means that the legal cause of the injury was intoxication, regardless of the surface material of the landing on which the intoxicated person fell; the court rejected petitioner's broad definition of the term "injury;" the Board did not err in concluding that substantial evidence supported the ALJ's conclusions; there was no error in the Board's conclusion that petitioner's employer did not have to "rule out" all other possible causes of injury in order to rebut the presumption under section 920(c); and the Board correctly concluded that the ALJ's decision to deny disability benefits, based on the record as a whole, was proper. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review.
Court Description: Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Denying the petition for review, the panel held that the Benefits Review Board did not err when it affirmed the administrative law judge’s denial of petitioner’s claim for compensation under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act due to intoxication. The panel held that the Board did not err in interpreting 33 U.S.C. § 903(c) of the Act, which bars compensation if an “injury was occasioned solely by” the intoxication of the employee. The panel held that an injury “occasioned solely by” intoxication means that the legal cause of the injury was intoxication, regardless of the surface material of the landing on which the intoxicated person fell. The panel therefore rejected petitioner’s broader definition of the term injury, which suggested that because petitioner hit a concrete surface rather than the river or a featherbed, his injury was not solely occasioned by intoxication. The panel held that the Board correctly concluded that substantial evidence in the record supported the ALJ’s conclusion that petitioner’s employer rebutted the statutory presumption that intoxication was not the sole cause of petitioner’s injury.
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