High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205 (1917), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the geographical extent of state workers` compensation laws. The Court held that the New York Workmen`s Compensation Act, as applied to laborers in the New York Harbor, intruded on federal admiralty jurisdiction, and that civil suits arising within this jurisdiction were subject to the common law of the sea. The compensation statute passed by the state interfered with federal power and was therefore unconstitutional.