author: Mr. Justice Douglas Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Black,

text:
    SNIADACH v. FAMILY FINANCE CORP. OF BAY VIEW et al.
    No. 130.
    Argued April 21, 1969.
    Decided June 9, 1969.

      Jack Greenberg argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were James M. Nabrit III, Thomas M. Jacobson, and William F. Young, Jr.

      Sheldon D. Frank argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

      Rhoda H. Karpatkin and Marvin M. Karpatkin filed a brief for the Consumers Union of United States, Inc., as amicus curiae urging reversal.
   Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondents instituted a garnishment action against petitioner as defendant and Miller Harris Instrument Co., her employer, as garnishee. The complaint alleged a claim of $420 on a promissory note. The garnishee filed its answer stating it had wages of $63.18 under its control earned .by petitioner and unpaid, and that it would pay one-half to petitioner as a subsistence allowance and hold the other half subject to the order of the court.

Petitioner moved that the garnishment proceedings be dismissed for failure to satisfy the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Wisconsin Supreme Court sustained the lower state court in approving the procedure. 37 Wis. 2d 163, 154 N. W. 2d 259. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari. 393 U. S. 1078.

The Wisconsin statute gives a plaintiff 10 days in which to serve the summons and complaint on the defendant after service on the garnishee. In this case petitioner was served the same day as the garnishee. She nonetheless claims that the Wisconsin garnishment procedure violates that due process required by the Fourteenth Amendment, in that notice and an opportunity to be heard are not given before the in rem seizure of the wages. What happens in Wisconsin is that the clerk of the court issues the summons at the request of the creditor’s lawyer; and it is the latter who by serving the garnishee sets in motion the machinery whereby the wages are frozen. They may, it is true, be unfrozen if the trial of the main suit is ever had and the wage earner wins on the merits. But in the interim the wage earner is deprived of his enjoyment of earned wages without any opportunity to be heard and to tender any defense he may have, whether it be fraud or otherwise.

Such summary procedure may well meet the requirements of due process in extraordinary situations. Cf. Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U. S. 245, 253-254; Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U. S. 594, 598-600; Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94, 110-112; Coffin Bros. v. Bennett, 277 U. S. 29, 31. But in the present case no situation requiring special protection to a state or creditor interest is presented by the facts; nor is the Wisconsin statute narrowly drawn to meet any such unusual condition. Petitioner was a resident of this Wisconsin community and in personam jurisdiction was readily obtainable.

The question is not whether the Wisconsin law is a wise law or unwise law. Our concern is not what philosophy Wisconsin should or should not embrace. See Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233. We do not sit as a super-legislative body. In this case the sole question is whether there has been a taking of property without that procedural due process that is required by the Fourteenth Amendment. We have dealt over and over again with the question of what constitutes “the right to be heard” (Schroeder v. New York, 371 U. S. 208, 212) within the meaning of procedural due process. See Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 314. In the latter case we said that the right to be heard “has little reality or worth unless one is informed that the matter is pending and can choose for himself whether to appear or default, acquiesce or contest.” 339 U. S., at 314. In the context of this case the question is whether the interim freezing of the wages without a chance to be heard violates procedural due process.

A procedural rule that may satisfy due process for attachments in general, see McKay v. McInnes, 279 U. S. 820, does not necessarily satisfy procedural due process in every case. The fact that a procedure would pass muster under a feudal regime does not mean it gives necessary protection to all property in its modern forms. We deal here with wages — a specialized type of property presenting distinct problems in our economic system. We turn then to the nature of that property and problems of procedural due process.

A prejudgment garnishment of the Wisconsin type is a taking which may impose tremendous hardship on wage earners with families to support. Until a recent Act of Congress, § 304 of which forbids discharge of employees on the ground that their wages have been garnished, garnishment often meant the loss of a job. Over and beyond that was the great drain on family income. As stated by Congressman Reuss:

“The idea of wage garnishment in advance of judgment, of trustee process, of wage attachment, or whatever it is called is a most inhuman doctrine. It compels the wage earner, trying to keep his family together, to be driven below the poverty level.”

Recent investigations of the problem have disclosed the grave injustices made possible by prejudgment garnishment whereby the sole opportunity to be heard comes after the taking. Congressman Sullivan, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs who held extensive hearings on this and related problems stated:

“What we know from our study of this problem is that in a vast number of cases the debt is a fraudulent one, saddled on a poor ignorant person who is trapped in an easy credit nightmare, in which he is charged double for something he could not pay for even if the proper price was called for, and then hounded into giving up his pound of flesh, and being fired besides.” 114 Cong. Rec. 1832.

The leverage of the creditor on the wage earner is enormous. The creditor tenders not only the original debt but the “collection fees” incurred by his attorneys in the garnishment proceedings:

“The debtor whose wages are tied up by a writ of garnishment, and who is usually in need of money, is in no position to resist demands for collection fees. If the debt is small, the debtor will be under considerable pressure to pay the debt and collection charges in order to get his wages back. If the debt is large, he will often sign a new contract of ‘payment schedule’ which incorporates these additional charges.”

Apart from those collateral consequences, it appears that in Wisconsin the statutory exemption granted the wage earner is “generally insufficient to support the debtor for any one week.”

The result is that a prejudgment garnishment of the Wisconsin type may as a practical matter drive a wage-earning family to the wall. Where the taking of one’s property is so obvious, it needs no extended argument to conclude that absent notice and a prior hearing (cf. Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U. S. 413, 423) this prejudgment garnishment procedure violates the fundamental principles of due process.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Harlan,

concurring.

Particularly in light of my Brother Black’s dissent, I think it not amiss for me to make explicit the precise basis on which I join the Court’s opinion. The “property” of which petitioner has been deprived is the use of the garnished portion of her wages during the interim period between the garnishment and the culmination of the main suit. Since this deprivation cannot be characterized as de minimis, she must be accorded the usual requisites of procedural due process: notice and a prior hearing.

The rejoinder which this statement of position has drawn from my Brother Black prompts an additional word. His and my divergence in this case rests, I think, upon a basic difference over whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits state action by norms of “fundamental fairness” whose content in any given instance is to be judicially derived not alone, as my colleague believes it should be, from the specifics of the Constitution, but also, as I believe, from concepts which are part of the Anglo-American legal heritage— not, as my Brother Black continues to insist, from the mere predilections of individual judges.

From my standpoint, I do not consider that the requirements of “notice” and “hearing” are satisfied by the fact that the petitioner was advised of the garnishment simultaneously with the garnishee, or by the fact that she will not permanently lose the garnished property until after a plenary adverse adjudication of the underlying claim against her, or by the fact that relief from the garnishment may have been available in the interim under less than clear circumstances. Compare the majority and dissenting opinions in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 37 Wis. 2d 163, 178, 154 N. W. 2d 259, 267 (1967). Apart from special situations, some of which are referred to in this Court’s opinion, see ante, at 339, I think that due process is afforded only by the kinds of “notice” and “hearing” which are aimed at establishing the validity, or at least the probable validity, of the underlying claim against the alleged debtor before he can be deprived of his property or its unrestricted use. I think this is the thrust of the past cases in this Court. See, e. g., Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 313 (1950); Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 152-153 (1941); United States v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 291 U. S. 457, 463 (1934); Londoner v. City & County of Denver, 210 U. S. 373, 385-386 (1908). And I am quite unwilling to take the unexplicated per curiam in McKay v. McInnes, 279 U. S. 820 (1929), as vitiating or diluting these essential elements of due process.

Mr. Justice Black,

dissenting.

The Court here holds unconstitutional a Wisconsin statute permitting garnishment before a judgment has been obtained against the principal debtor. The law, however, requires that notice be given to the principal debtor and authorizes him to present all of his legal defenses at the regular hearing and trial of the case. The Wisconsin law is said to violate the “fundamental principles of due process.” Of course the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment contains no words that indicate that this Court has power to play so fast and loose with state laws. The arguments the Court makes to reach what I consider to be its unconstitutional conclusion, however, show why it strikes down this state law. It is because it considers a garnishment law of this kind to be bad state policy, a judgment I think the state legislature, not this Court, has power to make. The Court shows it believes the garnishment policy to be a “ ‘most inhuman doctrine’ ”; that it “ ‘compels the wage earner, trying to keep his family together, to be driven below the poverty level’ ”; that “ ‘in a vast number of cases the debt is a fraudulent one, saddled on a poor ignorant person who is trapped in an easy credit nightmare, in which he is charged double for something he could not pay for even if the proper price was called for, and then hounded into giving up his pound of flesh, and being fired besides.’ ”

The foregoing emotional rhetoric might be very appropriate for Congressmen to make against some phases of garnishment laws. Indeed, the quoted statements were made by Congressmen during a debate over a proposed federal garnishment law. The arguments would also be appropriate for Wisconsin’s legislators to make against that State’s garnishment laws. But made in a Court opinion, holding Wisconsin’s law unconstitutional, they amount to what I believe to be a plain, judicial usurpation of state legislative power to decide what the State’s laws shall be. There is not one word in our Federal Constitution or in any of its Amendments and not a word in the reports of that document’s passage from which one can draw the slightest inference that we have authority thus to try to supplement or strike down the State’s selection of its own policies. The Wisconsin law is simply nullified by this Court as though the Court had been granted a super-legislative power to step in and frustrate policies of States adopted by their own elected legislatures. The Court thus steps back into the due process philosophy which brought on President Roosevelt’s Court fight. Arguments can be made for outlawing loan sharks and installment sales companies but such decisions, I think, should be made by state and federal legislators, and not by this Court.

This brings me to the short concurring opinion of my Brother Harlan, which makes “explicit the precise basis” on which he joins the Court’s opinion. That basis is:

“The ‘property’ of which petitioner has been deprived is the use of the garnished portion of her wages during the interim period between the garnishment and the culmination of the main suit. Since this deprivation cannot be characterized as de minimis, she must be accorded the usual requisites of procedural due process: notice and a prior hearing.”

Every argument implicit in this summary statement of my Brother Harlan’s views has been, in my judgment, satisfactorily answered in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in this case — an outstanding opinion on constitutional law. 37 Wis. 2d 163, 154 N. W. 2d 259. That opinion shows that petitioner was not required to wait until the “culmination of the main suit,” that is, the suit between the creditor and the petitioner. In fact the case now before us was not a final determination of the merits of that controversy but was, in accordance with well-established state court procedure, the result of a motion made by the petitioner to dismiss the garnishment proceedings. With reference to my Brother Harlan’s statement that petitioner’s deprivation could not be characterized as de minimis, it is pertinent to note that the garnishment was served on her and her employer on the same day, November 21, 1966; that she, without waiting for a trial on the merits, filed a motion to dismiss the garnishment on December 23, 1966, which motion was denied by the Circuit Court on April 18, 1967; and that it is that judgment which is before us today. The amount of her wages held up by the garnishment was $31.59. The amount of interest on the wages withheld even if computed at 10% annually would have been about $3. Whether that would be classified as de minimis I do not know and in fact it is not material to know for the decision of this case.

In the motion to dismiss, petitioner, according to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, asserted a “number of grounds based on injustices and deprivations which have been, or are likely to be, suffered by others, but which she has not personally experienced.” 37 Wis. 2d 163, 166, 154 N. W. 2d 259, 261. The court went further and pointed out that under Wisconsin law the court would not strike down a law as unconstitutional on the ground that some person other than the challenger of that law might in the future be injured by its unconstitutional part. It would seem, therefore, that the great number of our cases holding that we do not determine the constitutionality of state statutes where the judgment on them was based on state law would prevent our passing on this case at all.

The indebtedness of petitioner was evidenced by a promissory note, but petitioner’s affidavit in support of the motion to dismiss, according to the Wisconsin Supreme Court contained no allegation that she is not indebted thereon to the plaintiff. Of course if it had alleged that, or if it had shown in some other way that this was not a good-faith lawsuit against her, the Wisconsin opinion shows that this could have disposed of the whole case on the summary motion.

Another ground of unconstitutionality, according to the state court, was that the Act permitted a defendant to post a bond and secure the release of garnished property and that this provision denied equal protection of the law “to persons of low income.” With reference to this ground, the Wisconsin court said:

“Appellant has made no showing that she is a person of low income and unable to post a bond.” 37 Wis. 2d, at 167, 154 N. W. 2d, at 261.

Another ground of unconstitutionality urged was that since many employers discharge garnished employees for being unreliable, the law threatened the gainful employment of many wage earners. This contention the Supreme Court of Wisconsin satisfactorily answered by saying that petitioner had “made no showing that her own employer reacted in this manner.”

Another ground challenging the state act was that it affords 10 days’ time to a plaintiff to serve the garnishee summons and complaint on the defendant after service of the summons on the garnishee. This, of course, she could not raise. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s answer to this was that petitioner was served on the same day as the garnishee.

The state court then pointed out that the garnishment proceedings did not involve “any final determination of the title to a defendant’s property, but merely preserve[d] the status quo thereof pending determination of the principal action.” 37 Wis. 2d, at 169, 154 N. W. 2d, at 262. The court then relied on McInnes v. McKay, 127 Me. 110, 141 A. 699. That suit related to a Maine attachment law which, of course, is governed by the same rule as garnishment law. See “garnishment,” Bouvier’s Law Dictionary; see also Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S.. 714. The Maine law was subjected to practically the same challenges that Brother Harlan and the Court raise against this Wisconsin law. About that law the Supreme Court of Maine said:

“But, although an attachment may, within the broad meaning of the preceding definition, deprive one of property, yet conditional and temporary as it is, and part of the legal remedy and procedure by which the property of a debtor may be taken in satisfaction of the debt, if judgment be recovered, we do not think it is the deprivation of property contemplated by the Constitution. And if it be, it is not a deprivation without ‘due process of law’ for it is a part of a process, which during its proceeding gives notice and opportunity for hearing and judgment of some judicial or other authorized tribunal. The requirements of ‘due process of law’ and ‘law of the land’ are satisfied.” 127 Me. 110, 116, 141 A. 699, 702-703.

This Court did not even consider the challenge to the Maine law worthy of a Court opinion but affirmed it in a per curiam, opinion, 279 U. S. 820, on the authority of two prior decisions of this Court. See also Standard Oil Co. v. Superior Court of New Castle County, 44 Del. 538, 62 A. 2d 454, appeal dismissed, 336 U. S. 930; Harris v. Balk, 198 U. S. 215, 222, 227-228.

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin, in upholding the constitutionality of its law also cited the following statement of our Court made in Rothschild v. Knight, 184 U. S. 334, 341:

“To what actions the remedy of attachment may be given is for the legislature of a State to determine and its courts to decide . . .

Accord, Huron Holding Corp. v. Lincoln Mine Operating Co., 312 U. S. 183, 193.

The Supreme Court of Wisconsin properly pointed out:

“The ability to place a lien upon a man’s property, such as to temporarily deprive him of its beneficial use, without any judicial determination of probable cause dates back not only to medieval England but also to Roman times.” 37 Wis. 2d, at 171, 154 N. W. 2d, at 264.

The State Supreme Court then went on to point out a statement made by Mr. Justice Holmes in Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 31:

“The Fourteenth Amendment, itself a historical product, did not destroy history for the States and substitute mechanical compartments of law all exactly alike. If a thing has been practiced for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it, as is well illustrated by Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94, 104, 112.”

The Ownbey case, which was one of the two cited by this Court in its per curiam affirmance of McInnes v. McKay, supra, sustained the constitutionality of a Delaware attachment law. And see Byrd v. Rector, 112 W. Va. 192, 163 S. E. 845.

I can only conclude that the Court is today overruling a number of its own decisions and abandoning the legal customs and practices in this country with reference to attachments and garnishments wholly on the ground that the garnishment laws of this kind are based on unwise policies of government which might some time in the future do injury to some individuals. In the first sentence of the argument in her brief, petitioner urges that this Wisconsin law “is contrary to public policy”; the Court apparently finds that a sufficient basis for holding it unconstitutional. This holding savors too much of the “Natural Law,” “Due Process,” “Shock-the-conscience” test of what is constitutional for me to agree to the decision. See my dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 68.

ADDENDUM.

The latest statement by my Brother Harlan on the power of this Court under the Due Process Clause to hold laws unconstitutional on the ground of the Justices’ view of “fundamental fairness” makes it necessary for me to add a few words in order that the differences between us be made absolutely clear. He now says that the Court’s idea of “fundamental fairness” is derived “not alone . . . from the specifics of the Constitution, but also . . . from concepts which are part of the Anglo-American legal heritage.” This view is consistent with that expressed by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Rochin v. California that due process was to be determined by “those canons of decency and fairness which express the notions of justice of English-speaking peoples. . . .” 342 U. S. 165, 169. In any event, my Brother Harlan’s “Anglo-American legal heritage” is no more definite than the “notions of justice of English-speaking peoples” or the shock-the-conscience test. All of these so-called tests represent nothing more or less than an implicit adoption of a Natural Law concept which under our system leaves to judges alone the power to decide what the Natural Law means. These so-called standards do not bind judges within any boundaries that can be precisely marked or defined by words for holding laws unconstitutional. On the contrary, these tests leave them wholly free to decide what they are convinced is right and fair. If the judges, in deciding whether laws are constitutional, are to be left only to the admonitions of their own consciences, why was it that the Founders gave us a written Constitution at all?

       Wis. Stat. § 267.18 (2) (a) provides:
      “When wages or salary are the subject of garnishment action, the garnishee shall pay over to the principal defendant on the date when such wages or salary would normally be payable a subsistence allowance, out of the wages or salary then owing, in the sum of $25 in the case of an individual without dependents or $40 in the case of an individual with dependents; but in no event in excess of 50 per cent of the wages or salary owing. Said subsistence allowance shall be applied to the first wages or salary earned in the period subject to said garnishment action.”

       Wis. Stat. §267.07 (1).

       Wis. Stat. §267.04 (1).

       82 Stat. 146, Act of May 29, 1968.

       114 Cong. Rec. 1832.

       Comment, Wage Garnishment in Washington — An Empirical Study, 43 Wash. L. Rev. 743, 753 (1968). And see Comment, Wage Garnishment as a Collection Device, 1967 Wis. L. Rev. 759.

       See n. 1, supra.

       Comment, Wage Garnishment as a Collection Device, 1967 Wis. L. Rev. 759, 767.

       “For a poor man — and whoever heard of the wage of the affluent being attached? — to lose part of his salary often means his family will go without the essentials. No man sits by while his family goes hungry or without heat. He either files for consumer bankruptcy and tries to begin again, or just quits his job and goes on relief. Where is the equity, the common sense, in such a process?” Congressman Gonzales, 114 Cong. Eec. 1833. For the impact of garnishment on personal bankruptcies see H. R. Rep. No. 1040, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 20-21.

      There are other decisions to the effect that one may be deprived of property by summary administrative action taken before hearing when such action is essential to protect a vital governmental interest. See, e. g., Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U. S. 594 (1950); Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U. S. 245 (1947); Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503 (1944); North Amer. Cold Storage Co. v. City of Chicago, 211 U. S. 306 (1908). However, no such justification has been advanced in behalf of Wisconsin’s garnishment law.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Mr. Justice White

license: Public Domain

text:
    RODRIGUE et al. v. AETNA CASUALTY & SURETY CO. et al.
    No. 436.
    Argued February 25, 1969.
    Decided June 9, 1969.

      Philip E. Henderson argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were A. Deutsche O’Neal and George Arceneaux, Jr.

      James E. Diaz argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were W. Ford Reese, Richard C. Baldwin, and James E. Blazek.

   Mr. Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case involves two men, Dore and Rodrigue, who met their deaths on artificial island drilling rigs located on the outer Continental Shelf off the Louisiana coast. Each man’s family brought suit for wrongful death in the federal courts both under the Death on the High Seas Act, 41 Stat. 537, 46 U. S. C. § 761 et seq. (hereinafter “Seas Act”), and under Louisiana law assertedly made applicable by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 67 Stat. 462, 43 U. S. C. § 1331 et seq. (hereinafter “Lands Act”). Each family’s suit was separately heard and decided in the District Courts and in the Court of Appeals below. In both cases the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, affirming the District Courts, held that the Seas Act was the exclusive remedy for these deaths. Petitioners sought certiorari, claiming that they are entitled to an additional remedy under the state law adopted by the Lands Act.

In the Dore case, the decedent was working on a crane mounted on the artificial island and being used to unload a barge. As the crane lifted a load from the barge to place it on the artificial island, the crane collapsed and toppled over onto the barge, killing the worker. His widow and her three children brought a single action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, alleging their own and the decedent’s residency in Louisiana and the negligence of the firms which manufactured, installed, and serviced the crane. The suit was brought under the “General Maritime Laws, the Death on the High Seas Act, . . . Article 2315 of the [Louisiana Code] and under the other laws of the United States and the State of Louisiana.” It claimed $670,000 in damages to the family plaintiffs for loss of their husband and father, including pecuniary and psychic losses. On motion for summary judgment as to all claims but that under the Seas Act, the District Judge determined that the latter was plaintiffs’ only remedy, removed the case to the admiralty side of the court, and thus limited the plaintiffs’ recovery to pecuniary loss. The state statute would have allowed recovery for additional elements of damage. The District Judge certified the question pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54 (b), and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 391 F. 2d 671.

In the Rodrigue case, the decedent was performing a test on a drill pipe. He was high on the derrick rising above the artificial island, and fell from it to his death on the floor of the structure. His widow and two children brought three actions in the District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. One was an admiralty action under the Seas Act; the other two were civil actions respectively against the owner and insurer of the drill rig, and the owner of the stationary platform. The civil actions were brought under the Lands Act and Article 2315 of the Louisiana Revised Civil Code. The trial court consolidated the two civil actions and dismissed the insurer, who had been made a party to one of the civil actions pursuant to the Louisiana direct-action statute, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 22:655. No reason was assigned for the dismissal, but the ground urged in the motion was that the accident did not occur within the State of Louisiana, so that Louisiana law did not apply. Consistently with this, the District Judge dismissed the consolidated civil action before trial, on the ground that the Seas Act provided a remedy and that under such circumstances the Lands Act would not make the inconsistent state remedy applicable. The admiralty action proceeded to trial and judgment of $75,000, 266 F. Supp. 1, which is not now before us. On appeal of the dismissal of the civil actions, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court per curiam, citing its decision in the Dore case almost two months before. 395 F. 2d 216.

Certiorari was granted in both cases, 393 U. S. 932 (1968), and they were argued together here. In light of the principles of traditional admiralty law, the Seas Act, and the Lands Act, we hold that petitioners’ remedy is under the Lands Act and Louisiana law. The Lands Act makes it clear that federal law, supplemented by state law of the adjacent State, is to be applied to these artificial islands as though they were federal enclaves in an upland State. This approach was deliberately taken in lieu of treating the structures as vessels, to which admiralty law supplemented by the law of the jurisdiction of the vessel’s owner would apply. The Hamilton, 207 U. S. 398 (1907). This was done in part because men working on these islands are closely tied to the adjacent State, to which they often commute and on which their families live, unlike transitory seamen to whom a more generalized admiralty law is appropriate. Since the Seas Act does not apply of its own force under admiralty principles, and since the Lands Act deliberately eschewed the application of admiralty principles to these novel structures, Louisiana law is not ousted by the Seas Act, and under the Lands Act it is made applicable.

I.

The purpose of the Lands Act was to define a body of law applicable to the seabed, the subsoil, and the fixed structures such as those in question here on the outer Continental Shelf. That this law was to be federal law of the United States, applying state law only as federal law and then only when not inconsistent with applicable federal law, is made clear by the language of the Act. Section 3 makes it the “policy of the United States” that the affected areas “appertain to the United States and are subject to its jurisdiction, control, and power of disposition.” Section 4 makes the “Constitution and laws and civil and political jurisdiction of the United States” apply “to the same extent as if the outer Continental Shelf were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State.” Since federal law, because of its limited function in a federal system, might be inadequate to cope with the full range of potential legal problems, the Act supplemented gaps in the federal law with state law through the “adoption of State law as the law of the United States.” Under § 4, the adjacent State’s laws were made “the law of the United States for [the relevant subsoil and seabed] and artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon,” but only to “the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with . . . other Federal laws.”

It is evident from this that federal law is “exclusive” in its regulation of this area, and that state law is adopted only as surrogate federal law. The Senate Report on the bill referred to the “precise unequivocal language” of “the provision for the adoption of State laws as Federal law,” and referred to the applicable body of law as consisting of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the regulations of the Secretary of the Interior, and finally the laws of the adjacent States “adopted as Federal law and made applicable to supplement existing Federal law and regulations.” S. Rep. No. 411 of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1953).

It was the Senate Committee which first introduced the present provision adopting state law, and in its report explaining the introduction it asserted: “Paragraph (2) adopts State law as Federal law, to be used when Federal statutes or regulations of the Secretary of the Interior are inapplicable.” Id., at 23. This language makes it clear that state law could be used to fill federal voids. And in the conference report, the House managers of the bill noted that laws of adjacent States which are not inconsistent with federal law “are adopted as the laws of the United States for those particular areas.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 1031, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 12 (1953).

The principles that federal law should prevail, and that state law should be applied only as federal law and then only when no inconsistent federal law applied, were adopted by a Congress in which full debate had underscored the issue. Senator Cordon, in presenting the Lands Act to the Senate, noted that the problem addressed by the committee had been raised by “the fact that the full development of the estimated values in the shelf area will require the efforts and the physical presence of thousands of workers on fixed structures in the shelf area. Industrial accidents, accidental death, peace, and order” present problems requiring a body of law for their solution. Since “as every Member of the Senate knows, the Federal Code was never designed to be a complete body of law in and of itself,” the committee decided that state law would have to be referred to in some instances. 99 Cong. Rec. 6962-6963. As Senator Anderson, a member of the conference committee, put it: “The real point is . . . that the language in section 4 provides that Federal laws and regulations shall be applicable in the area, but that where there is a void, the State law may be applicable . . . .” 99 Cong. Rec. 7164. Senator Cordon noted that this view was “entirely correct” and added that: “These laws, by the terms of the act, are enacted as Federal law.”

The opponents of the Act realized full well that state law was being used only to supplement federal law, and Senator Long introduced an amendment to the Act which would have made “the laws of such State applicable to the newly acquired area, and . . . the officials of such State [the agents empowered] to enforce the laws of the State in the newly acquired area.” In arguing for his amendment, Senator Long asserted that “ [i] t is even more important that State law should apply on the artificial islands than on natural islands . . . .” But the amendment was rejected. See 99 Cong. Rec. 7232-7236. This legislative history buttresses the Court of Appeals’ finding that in view of the inconsistencies between the state law and the Seas Act, the Seas Act remedy would be exclusive if it applied.

II.

However, for federal law to oust adopted state law federal law must first apply. The court below assumed that the Seas Act did apply, since the island was located more than a marine league off the Louisiana coast. But that is not enough to make the Seas Act applicable. The Act redresses only those deaths stemming from wrongful actions or omissions “occurring on the high seas,” and these cases involve a series of events on artificial islands. Moreover, the islands were not erected primarily as navigational aids, and the accidents here bore no relation to any such function. Admiralty jurisdiction has not been construed to extend to accidents on piers, jetties, bridges, or even ramps or railways running into the sea. To the extent that it has been applied to fixed structures completely surrounded by water, this has usually involved collision with a ship and has been explained by the use of the structure solely or principally as a navigational aid. But when the damage is caused by a vessel admittedly in admiralty jurisdiction, the Admiralty Extension Act would now make available the admiralty remedy in any event.

The accidents in question here involved no collision with a vessel, and the structures were not navigational aids. They were islands, albeit artificial ones, and the accidents had no more connection with the ordinary stuff of admiralty than do accidents on piers. Indeed, the Court has specifically held that drilling platforms are not within admiralty jurisdiction. Phoenix Construction Co. v. The Steamer Poughkeepsie, 212 U. S. 558, affirming 162 F. 494 (1908). There a ship damaged a structure “composed of various lengths of wrought iron pipe surrounded by a platform on the surface.” Citing the same cases on which the lower court had relied, this Court affirmed its conclusion that jurisdiction was lacking since the “project which the libellant was engaged in is not even suggestive of maritime affairs. It was supplying water to a city and the mere fact of the means being carried under the bed of a river, with extensions through the river to the surface, did not create any maritime right, nor was it in any sense an aid to navigation, which was the distinguishing feature of The Blackheath.” 162 F., at 496. In these circumstances, the Seas Act — which provides an action in admiralty— clearly would not apply under conventional admiralty principles and, since the Lands Act provides an alternative federal remedy through adopted state law, there is no reason to assume that Congress intended to extend those principles to create an admiralty remedy here. And if the Congress had made the 1920 Seas Act applicable, ousting inconsistent state law, the artificial island worker would be entitled to far less comprehensive remedies in many cases than he is now.

Even if the admiralty law would have applied to the deaths occurring in these cases under traditional principles, the legislative history shows that Congress did not intend that result. First, Congress assumed that the admiralty law would not apply unless Congress made it apply, and then Congress decided not to make it apply. The legislative history of the Lands Act makes it clear that these structures were to be treated as islands or as federal enclaves within a landlocked State, not as vessels.

In introducing the bill to the Senate, Senator Cordon explained its inception as follows:

“The committee first attempted to provide housekeeping law for the outer shelf by applying to the structures necessary for the removal of the minerals in the area under the maritime law of the United States. This was first attempted by incorporating by reference the admiralty statutes. This solution at first seemed to be a reasonably complete answer . . . inasmuch as the drilling platforms would have been treated as vessels. Maritime law, which applies to American vessels, would have applied under that theory to the structures themselves.
“However, further consideration clearly showed that this approach was not an adequate and complete answer to the problem. The so-called social laws necessary for protection of the workers and their families would not apply. I refer to such things as unemployment laws, industrial-accident laws, fair-labor-standard laws, and so forth. . . .
“[Ultimately, instead,] the whole body of Federal law [was made applicable] to the area [as well as state law where necessary]. Thus, the legal situation is comparable to that in the areas owned by the Federal Government under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Government and lying within the boundaries of a State in the uplands.” 99 Cong. Rec. 6963.

Similarly, Senator Ellender asserted that in the first draft it “was sought to treat the platforms or artificial islands created in the water as ships” but now the “islands are made subject to our domestic law” instead so as to be “treated just as though they were islands created by nature, insofar as the application of our domestic laws is concerned.” 99 Cong. Rec. 7235.

The House bill, H. R. 5134, had made federal law applicable, but also provided that the not “inconsistent . . . laws of each coastal State which so provides shall be applicable,” at least if adopted by the Secretary of the Interior. H. R. Rep. No. 413, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 4, 8-9 (1953). The Senate bill, as it read before committee amendments, provided instead that acts “on any structure (other than a vessel)” located on the Continental Shelf for exploring or exploiting its resources “shall be deemed to have occurred or been committed aboard a vessel of the United States on the high seas and shall be adjudicated . . . according to the laws relating to such acts ... on vessels of the United States on the high seas.” When the Senate bill was reported from committee, this section had been replaced by the present language, omitting entirely any reference to treating the islands as though they were vessels.

Careful scrutiny of the hearings which were the basis for eliminating from the Lands Act the treatment of artificial islands as vessels convinces us that the motivation for this change, together with the adoption of state law as surrogate federal law, was the view that maritime law was inapposite to these fixed structures. See generally Hearings before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., on S. 1901 (1953) (hereafter Hearings). One theme running throughout the hearings was the close relationship between the workers on the islands and the adjoining States. Objections were repeatedly voiced to application of maritime law and with it the admiralty principle that the law of the State of the owner of the artificial island “vessel” is used for supplementation. On the other hand, federal enforcement of the law in this area was insisted upon by the Department of Justice, and there was substantial doubt whether state law and jurisdiction could or should be extended to the structures. A federal solution was thought necessary.

The committee was aware that it had the power to treat activity on these artificial islands as though it occurred aboard ship. Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202 (1890); Hearings 511-512; Extension of Admiralty Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 496, 46 U. S. C. § 740; see United States v. Matson Nav. Co., 201 F. 2d 610 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1953); cf. Gutierrez v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 373 U. S. 206, 209 (1963). And the very decision to do so in the initial bill recognized that if it were not adopted explicitly, maritime law simply would not apply to these stationary structures not erected as navigational aids. Moreover, the committee was acutely aware of the inaptness of admiralty law. The bill applied the same law to the seabed and subsoil as well as to the artificial islands, and admiralty law was obviously unsuited to that task.

Although the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, persisted to the end in his claim that admiralty law should apply, and that with it should be incorporated the law of the State of the island’s owner, this view obviously did not prevail. Instead, a compromise emerged. The administration’s opposition to committing these areas solely to the jurisdiction of state courts, state substantive law, and state law enforcement was recognized in that the applicable law was made federal law enforceable by federal officials in federal courts. But the special relationship between the men working on these artificial islands and the adjacent shore to which they commute to visit their families was also recognized by dropping the treatment of these structures as “vessels” and instead, over the objections of the administration that these islands were not really located within a State, the bill was amended to treat them “as if [they] were [in] an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State.” State law became federal law federally enforced.

In view of all this, and the disclosure by Senator Cordon to the Senate upon introduction of the bill that the admiralty or maritime approach of the original bill had been abandoned, it is apparent that the Congress decided that these artificial islands, though surrounded by the high seas, were not themselves to be considered within maritime jurisdiction. Thus the admiralty action under the Seas Act no more applies to these accidents actually occurring on the islands than it would to accidents occurring in an upland federal enclave or on a natural island to which admiralty jurisdiction had not been specifically extended. At a minimum, the legislative history shows that accidents on these structures, which under maritime principles would be no more under maritime jurisdiction than accidents on a wharf located above navigable waters, were not changed in character by the Lands Act.

Since the inapplicability of the Seas Act removes any obstacle to the application of state law by incorporation as federal law through the Lands Act, the decisions below are reversed and the causes remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       The District Court dismissed one of the civil causes of action on the ground that unlike the other it did not specifically name the Lands Act, but rested instead directly on Louisiana law. This formal omission was inconsequential because of the District Judge’s view that there would be no cause of action even under the Lands Act and Louisiana law together. On remand, it may be that both claims can be construed to assert actions under the Lands Act and Louisiana Law, or that any deficiency in this regard can be cured by amendment of the pleadings. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15.

       67 Stat. 462, as set forth in 43 U. S. C. § 1332:
      “(a) It is declared to be the policy of the United States that the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf appertain to the United States and are subject to its jurisdiction, control, and power of disposition as provided in this subchapter.”

       67 Stat. 462, as set forth in 43 U. S. C. § 1333:
      “§ 1333. Laws and regulations governing lands.
      “(a) Constitution and United States laws; laws of adjacent States; publication of projected State lines; restriction on State taxation and jurisdiction.
      “(1) The Constitution and laws and civil and political jurisdiction of the United States are extended to the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf and to all artificial islands and fixed structures which may be erected thereon for the purpose of exploring for, developing, removing, and transporting resources therefrom, to the same extent as if the outer Continental Shelf were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located within a State: Provided, however, That mineral leases on the outer Continental Shelf shall be maintained or issued only under the provisions of this subchapter.
      “(2) To the extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with this subchapter or with other Federal laws and regulations of the Secretary now in effect or hereafter adopted, the civil and criminal laws of each adjacent State as of the effective date of this subchapter are declared to be the law of the United States for that portion of the subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental Shelf, and artificial islands and fixed structures erected thereon, which would be within the area of the State if its boundaries were extended seaward to the outer margin of the outer Continental Shelf, and the President shall determine and publish in the Federal Register such projected lines extending seaward and defining each such area. All of such applicable laws shall be administered and enforced by the appropriate officers and courts of the United States. State taxation laws shall not apply to the outer Continental Shelf.
      “(3) The provisions of this section for adoption of State law as the law of the United States shall never be interpreted as a basis for claiming any interest in or jurisdiction on behalf of any State for any purpose over the seabed and subsoil of the outer Continental Shelf, or the property and natural resources thereof or the revenues therefrom.”

       41 Stat. 537, 46 U. S. C. §§761-768. 46 U. S. C. §761 reads:
      “Whenever the death of a person shall be caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default occurring on the high seas beyond a marine league from the shore of any State, or the District of Columbia, or the Territories or dependencies of the United States, the personal representative of the decedent may maintain a suit for damages in the district courts of the United States, in admiralty, for the exclusive benefit of the decedent’s wife, husband, parent, child, or dependent relative against the vessel, person, or corporation which would have been liable if death had not ensued.”

       Since this topic received scant attention in argument in this Court, additional briefs were requested.

        The Plymouth, 3 Wall. 20 (1866); The Troy, 208 U. S. 321 (1908); T. Smith & Son, Inc. v. Taylor, 276 U. S. 179 (1928); Hastings v. Mann, 340 F. 2d 910 (C. A. 4th Cir.), cert. denied, 380 U. S. 963 (1965).

        The Blackheath, 195 U. S. 361 (1904); The Raithmoor, 241 U. S. 166 (1916); Doullut & Williams Co. v. United States, 268 U. S. 33 (1925).

       “The admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States shall extend to and include all cases of damage or injury, to person or property, caused by a vessel on navigable water, notwithstanding that such damage or injury be done or consummated on land.” 62 Stat. 496, 46 U. S. C. § 740.

       For example, Senator Daniel asserted that “the fixed platforms out there do not even touch the waters except for the supporting pipes or ‘legs’ which go through the water down into the ground. I think you can treat those platforms as connected with the soil and development of the soil rather than treating them as vessels.” Hearings 22. Similarly, Acting Secretary of the Treasury Rose opined in a letter to the Committee that these islands might not even be considered to be “upon navigable waters” for the purpose of applying laws requiring safety lights. Hearings 53. A specific provision was added to the statute to permit safety regulation. §4(e), 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (e). Obviously these islands were not constructed principally as aids to navigation as respondents contend, cf. Pure Oil Co. v. Snipes, 293 F. 2d 60 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1961), but were instead hazards to navigation requiring warning facilities. Governor Kennon of Louisiana voiced strong opposition, Hearings 449-485, as did Senator Long of that State, e. g., Hearings 275-278. See also Hearings 513-518, 545, 612. And at Hearings 644^645, the inappropriateness of applying the law of the owner of the artificial island or subsoil lease, rather than the law of the adjacent State, was given special emphasis.

       See letter to Senator Cordon from Assistant Attorney General Rankin, Hearings 700; testimony of Mr. Rankin, Hearings 644-645, 664-665, 652-653.

       In the opening discussion of the original draft of the bill, treating these islands as vessels, Senator Cordon remarked: “It is the view of the chairman that when these individuals leave their vessels and board this structure, they are subject to the law that operates on the structure, which in this instance is the same law that operates on board a ship, but becomes that only because of this act.” Hearings 9. (Emphasis added.) And at the end of the hearings, when the Senators were questioning an admiralty lawyer on the treatment these structures would receive absent any statutory provision, he informed them that even a lighthouse would be treated as land, except insofar as it was subject to admiralty jurisdiction as an aid to navigation. Hearings 669-670.

       An admiralty expert questioned by the committee took the position that application of maritime law would be unwise. “Maritime law in the strict sense has never had to deal with the resources in the ground beneath the sea, and its whole tenor is ill adapted for that purpose.” Hearings 668. Since the Act treats seabed, subsoil, and artificial islands the same, dropping any reference to special treatment for presumptive vessels, the most sensible interpretation of Congress’ reaction to this testimony is that admiralty treatment was eschewed altogether, except to the extent that the Extension of Admiralty Act might make it applicable.