302
Stevens, J., dissenting
preted the term 'change in conditions' in Section 22 of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U. S. C. § 922 (1982), to refer exclusively to a change in the physical condition of the employee receiving compensation. This also was 'the meaning generally attributed to similar phraseology in state workman's compensation acts' in existence before or shortly after the enactment of the LHWCA in 1927. See Atlantic Coast Shipping Co. v. Golubiewski, 9 F. Supp. 315, 317 (D. Md. 1934). "The majority's nice effort to distinguish this prior
case law serves only to highlight the numerous and varied factual situations in which the federal courts have withstood temptation and have strictly adhered to this interpretation. In McCormick Steamship Co. v. United States Employees' Compensation Commission, 64 F. 2d 84 (9th Cir. 1933), for example, the Court refused to allow the modification of a compensation order under Section 22 where the employee's earnings were diminished as a result of deteriorating economic conditions. Id., at 85. Conversely, the fact that an employee received higher wages because of better economic conditions in the 1940's was held not to constitute a 'change in conditions' so as to allow a reduction in the employee's compensation award. Burley Welding Works v. Lawson, 141 F. 2d 964, 966 (5th Cir. 1944). The courts have refused to find a 'change in conditions' where the employee was imprisoned in a penitentiary for life, Atlantic Coast Shipping Co. v. Golubiewski, 9 F. Supp. at 316-19, or where the employee was committed to an insane asylum. Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Lowe, 14 F. Supp. 280, 280-82 (S. D. N. Y. 1936).
"In every one of these cases, decided soon after the effective date of the Act, the respective courts explicitly stated and held that the term 'change in conditions' in Section 22 refers to the physical condition of the em-
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