In the instant case, however, Armistead was hired as a janitor and cautioned never to go on navigable waters. The employment was held to be maritime in Mangieri v. Stephens, 232 N.Y. 596, 134 N.E. 586, where the employee was a laborer for a wholesale coal dealer and he slipped and fell into the water while he was pulling a coal-boat to the dock. The same result was reached in Doey v. Clarence P. Howland Co., 224 N.Y. 30, 120 N.E. 53, when a carpenter was hurt while making repairs on a steamship; and in Keator v. Rock Plaster Mfg. Co., 224 N.Y. 540, 120 N.E. 56, certiorari denied, State Industrial Comm. v. Rock Plaster Mfg. Co., 248 U.S. 574, 39 S.Ct. 12, 63 L.Ed. 428, when an employee was injured while unloading rock from a vessel.
It was there held, as stated in the syllabus, that: "Where the libellant, a workman on a vessel lying at a dock, attempted to leave the ship by means of a ladder, by reason of the master's negligence not secured properly to the ship's rail, whereupon the ladder fell, and the libellant was thrown to the dock, and injured, it is inferable that the master's breach of duty took effect upon the libellant while he was upon the ship; and, although his physical injury was completed by his fall upon the dock, a court of admiralty has jurisdiction." In Mangieri v. Stephens, 232 N.Y. 596, cited by the appellants, a laborer employed by a wholesale coal dealer, while pulling on a line with which he was towing a coal boat to the dock, "slipped and fell into the water, which resulted in his death." The Court of Appeals of New York held that the employment was of a maritime nature and that the Workmen's Compensation Act of the state did not apply. That decision relied upon Keator v. Rock Plaster Mfg. Co., 224 N.Y. 540, and Newham v. Chile Exploration Co., 232 N.Y. 37, and those cases were decided upon the theory that a stevedore's contractual duty in the movement of cargoes to or from vessels has a maritime character which brings an injury sustained by him on the dock, in the course of the work, within the exclusive operation of the Federal law.
have been of such a local nature as not to affect the rules of the sea, and therefore not to have been exclusively within the Admiralty jurisdiction of the Federal Courts; plainly, however, that situation appears to have been a far cry from the one here reflected, considering the facts recited supra. Under them, that Buffalo Bayou at the place of the accident was a navigable water of the United States, and that the service in which Adolphus Brown lost his life was a maritime one, hence that the State Compensation Act did not apply, seems clear from these authorities: 1 Amer.Jur. 575; Perkins v. United States Fidelity Guaranty Co., Tex.Com.App., 299 S.W. 213; Wishart v. The Jos. Nixon, D.C., 43 F. 926; The Herdis, D.C., 22 F.2d 304; London Guarantee Accident Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 279 U.S. 109, 49 S.Ct. 296, 73 L.Ed. 632; Union Oil Co. v. Pillsbury, 9 Cir., 63 F.2d 925; McKinnon v. Kinsman Transit Co., 240 A.D. 359, 270 N.Y.S. 583, affirmed 265 N.Y. 560, 193 N.E. 320; Mangieri v. Stephens, Inc., 232 N.Y. 596, 134 N.E. 586; Northern Coal Dock Co. v. Strand, 278 U.S. 142, 49 S.Ct. 88, 73 L.Ed. 232; Employers' Liability Assur. Corp. v. Cook, 281 U.S. 233, 50 S.Ct. 308, 74 L.Ed. 823; Independence Ind. Co. v. Mansfield, Tex. Civ. App. 2 S.W.2d 547, writ of error refused; 1 Corpus Juris, 1262; The Canton, 5 Fed.Cas. p. 29, No. 2388; 2 Corpus Juris Secundum, Admiralty, pp. 65, 66, § 5; The City of Pittsburgh, D.C., 45 F. 699; St. John v. Thomson, 108 Vt. 66, 182 A. 196; Bell v. Southern Casualty Co., Tex. Civ. App. 267 S.W. 531, writ of error refused; Perry v. Haines, 191 U.S. 17, 24 S.Ct. 8, 48 L.Ed. 73; Economy Light Power Co. v. United States, 256 U.S. 113, 41 S.Ct. 409, 65 L.Ed. 847; United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U.S. 49, 46 S.Ct. 197, 70 L.Ed. 465; 27 R.C.L. 1313; Welder v. State, Tex. Civ. App. 196 S.W. 868, writ of error refused; Simmons v. The S. S. Jefferson, 215 U.S. 130, 30 S.Ct. 54, 54 L.Ed. 125, 17 Ann.Cas. 907. Indeed, on well-settled authority, this court may take judicial notice of
( Robinson v. The C. Vanderbilt, 86 Fed. Rep. 785. See, also, Matter of Newham v. Chile Exploration Co., 232 N.Y. 37.) Claimant was not serving the vessel in any capacity within the meaning of what was said in Norman v. Merritt Chapman Derrick Wrecking Co. ( 200 App. Div. 360). The case is also distinguishable from the laborer employed in the coal and wood business who slipped and fell overboard into the water while towing a canal boat with a line, whose service at the time had direct relation to the operation or unloading of the vessel. ( Matter of Mangieri v. Stephens, Inc., 232 N.Y. 596.) The work of the claimant here had nothing to do with the boat except in so far as the boat became the momentary stage for the production of a slight portion of the picture which the claimant was helping to produce.