Alaska Industrial Board v. Alaska Packers Ass'n

Peterson and the Alaska Industrial Board, hereafter called the Board, appeal from a judgment of the District Court for the Territory of Alaska holding that the Board is without jurisdiction to award Peterson disability compensation under the Alaska Workmen’s Compensation Act. The claim is for injuries sustained by Peterson when employed as a sailor deckhand on a motor towboat on navigable waters in or near the Territory of Alaska.

The Board had awarded compensation to Peterson and the Alaska Packers Association, hereafter called Packers, appealed to the district court which, on an excellently reasoned opinion, rendered judgment setting aside the award and enjoining the Board from attempting to enforce it.

Peterson’s injuries were from a purely maritime cause, the result of a straining of. his back in carrying a sack of coal from the ship’s bow to the ship’s galley. The towboat had been and was to be used by the Packers in towing fishing boats and their fishermen from the Packers’ stationary receiving station at Naknek on Kvichak, an inlet of Bristol Bay, Alaska, some twenty miles or more out to the fishing grounds in Bristol Bay and later, at the end of the fishing day,…