Cite as: 505 U. S. 469 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
pretation championed by Cowart would be nonsensical. Another difficulty would be presented for the provision preceding § 33(g), § 33(f). It mandates that an employer's liability be reduced by the net amount a person entitled to compensation recovers from a third party. Under Cowart's reading, the reduction would not be available to employers who had not yet begun payment at the time of the third-party recovery. That result makes no sense under the LHWCA structure. Indeed, when a litigant before the BRB made this argument, the Board rejected it, acknowledging in so doing that it had adopted differing interpretations of the identical language in §§ 33(f) and 33(g). Force v. Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp., 23 BRBS 1, 4-5 (1989). This result is contrary to the basic canon of statutory construction that identical terms within an Act bear the same meaning. Sullivan v. Stroop, 496 U. S. 478, 484 (1990); Sorenson v. Secretary of Treasury, 475 U. S. 851, 860 (1986). The Board's willingness to adopt such a forced and unconventional approach does not convince us we should do the same. And we owe no deference to the BRB, see supra, at 476.
Yet another reason why we are not convinced by the Board's position is that the Board's interpretation of "person entitled to compensation" has not been altogether consistent; and Cowart's interpretation may not be the same as the Board's in precise respects. At times the Board has said this language refers to an employee whose "employer is actually paying compensation either pursuant to an award or voluntarily when claimant enters into a third party settlement." Dorsey, 18 BRBS, at 28; 23 BRBS, at 44 (case below). At other times, sometimes within the same opinion, the Board has spoken in terms of the employer either making payments or acknowledging liability. O'Leary, 7 BRBS, at 147-149; Dorsey, supra, at 29; see also In re Wilson, 17 BRBS 471, 480 (ALJ 1985). Cowart, on the other hand, would include within the phrase both employees receiving compensation benefits and employees who have a judicial award of compen-
479
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