OCTOBER TERM, 1994
Syllabus
CHANDRIS, INC., ET AL.
v. LATSIS
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND
CIRCUIT
No. 94-325. Argued February 21, 1995-Decided June 14, 1995
Respondent Latsis' duties as a superintendent engineer for
petitioner Chandris, Inc., required him to take voyages on
Chandris' ships. He lost substantial vision in one eye after a
condition that he developed while on one of those voyages went
untreated by a ship's doctor. Following his recuperation, he sailed
to Germany on the S. S.
Galileo and stayed with the ship
while it was in drydock for refurbishment. Subsequently, he sued
Chandris for damages for his eye injury under the Jones Act, which
provides a negligence cause of action for "any seaman" injured "in
the course of his employment." The District Court instructed the
jury that Latsis was a "seaman" if he was permanently assigned to,
or performed a substantial part of his work on, a vessel, but that
the time Latsis spent with the
Galileo while it was in
drydock could not be considered because the vessel was then out of
navigation. The jury returned a verdict for Chandris based solely
on Latsis' seaman status. The Court of Appeals vacated the
judgment, finding that the jury instruction improperly framed the
issue primarily in terms of Latsis' temporal relationship to the
vessel. It held that the "employmentrelated connection to a vessel
in navigation" required for seaman status under the Jones Act,
McDermott Int'l, Inc. v.
Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 355,
exists where an individual contributes to a vessel's function or
the accomplishment of its mission; the contribution is limited to a
particular vessel or identifiable group of vessels; the
contribution is substantial in terms of its duration or nature; and
the course of the individual's employment regularly exposes him to
the hazards of the sea. It also found that the District Court erred
in instructing the jury that the
Galileo's drydock time
could not count in the substantial connection equation.
Held:
1. The "employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation"
necessary for seaman status comprises two basic elements: The
worker's duties must contribute to the function of the vessel or to
the accomplishment of its mission, id., at 355, and the worker must
have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or an identifiable
group of vessels) that is substantial in both its duration and its
nature. Pp. 354-372.
(a) The Jones Act provides heightened legal protections to
seamen because of their exposure to the perils of the sea, but does
not define
348
Syllabus
the term "seaman." However, the Court's Jones Act cases
establish the basic principles that the term does not include
land-based workers, 498 U. S., at 348, and that seaman status
depends "not on the place where the injury is inflicted ... but on
the nature of the seaman's service, his status as a member of the
vessel, and his relationship ... to the vessel and its operation in
navigable waters,"
Swanson v.
Marra Brothers, Inc.,
328 U. S. 1, 4.
Thus, land-based maritime workers do not become seamen when they
happen to be working aboard a vessel, and seamen do not lose Jones
Act coverage when their service to a vessel takes them ashore.
Latsis' proposed "voyage test" -under which any maritime worker
assigned to a vessel for the duration of a voyage, whose duties
contribute to the vessel's mission, would be a seaman for injuries
incurred during that voyage-conflicts with this status-based
inquiry.
Desper v.
Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187, 190, and
Grimes v.
Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252, 255,
distinguished. Pp. 354-364.
(b) Beyond the basic themes outlined here, the Court's cases
have been silent as to the precise relationship a maritime worker
must bear to a vessel in order to come within the Jones Act's
ambit, leaving the lower federal courts the task of developing
appropriate criteria to distinguish "ship's company" from
land-based maritime workers. Those courts generally require at
least a significant connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an
identifiable fleet of vessels) for a maritime worker to qualify as
a seaman under the Jones Act. Pp. 364-368.
(c) The test for seaman status adopted here has two essential
requirements. The first is a broad threshold requirement that makes
all maritime employees who do the ship's work eligible for seaman
status.
Wilander, supra, at 355. The second requirement
determines which of these eligible maritime employees have the
required employmentrelated connection to a vessel in navigation to
make them in fact entitled to Jones Act benefits. This requirement
gives full effect to the remedial scheme created by Congress and
separates sea-based maritime employees entitled to Jones Act
protection from land-based workers whose employment does not
regularly expose them to the perils of the sea. Who is a "member of
a crew" is a mixed question of law and fact. A jury should be able
to consider all relevant circumstances bearing on the two
requirements. The duration of a worker's connection to a vessel and
the nature of the worker's activities, taken together, determine
whether he is a seaman, because the ultimate inquiry is whether the
worker is part of the vessel's crew or simply a land-based employee
who happens to be working on the vessel at a given time. Although
seaman status is not merely a temporal concept, it includes a
temporal element. A worker who spends only a small fraction of his
working time aboard a vessel is fundamentally land-based and
therefore not a crew member
349
regardless of his duties. An appropriate rule of thumb is that a
worker who spends less than about 30 percent of his time in the
service of a vessel in navigation should not qualify as a seaman.
This figure is only a guideline that allows a court to take the
question from the jury when a worker has a clearly inadequate
temporal connection to the vessel. On the other hand, the seaman
status inquiry should not be limited exclusively to an examination
of the overall course of a worker's service with a particular
employer, since his seaman status may change with his basic
assignment. Pp. 368-372.
2. The District Court's drydock instruction was erroneous.
Whether a vessel is in navigation is a fact-intensive question that
can be removed from the jury's consideration only where the facts
and the law will reasonably support one conclusion. Based upon the
record here, the trial court failed adequately to justify its
decision to remove that question from the jury. Moreover, the
court's charge to the jury swept too broadly in prohibiting the
jury from considering the time Latsis spent with the vessel while
in drydock for any purpose. Pp. 372-376.
20 F.3d
45, affirmed.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ.,
joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment,
in which THOMAS and BREYER, JJ., joined,
post, p. 377.
David W McCreadie argued the cause for petitioners.
With him on the briefs were David F. Pope and Christ
Stratakis.
Lewis Rosenberg argued the cause for respondent. With him
on the brief was
Barry 1.
Levy. *
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case
asks us to clarify what "employment-related connection to a vessel
in navigation,"
McDermott Int'Z, Inc. v.
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the City of New York by
Paul A. Crotty and
Leonard J.
Koerner; and for TECO Transport & Trade Corp. et al. by
Robert B. Acomb, Jr., and
Robert T. Lemon II.
Briefs of
amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by
Stevan C.
Dittman and
Larry S.
Stewart; and for the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America by
John
R. Hillsman.
350
Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 355
(1991), is necessary for a maritime worker to qualify as a seaman
under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a). In
Wi
lander, we addressed the
type of activities that a
seaman must perform and held that, under the Jones Act, a seaman's
job need not be limited to transportation-related functions that
directly aid in the vessel's navigation. We now determine what
relationship a worker must have to the vessel, regardless of
the specific tasks the worker undertakes, in order to obtain seaman
status.
I
In May 1989, respondent Antonios Latsis was employed by
petitioner Chandris, Inc., as a salaried superintendent engineer.
Latsis was responsible for maintaining and updating the electronic
and communications equipment on Chandris' fleet of vessels, which
consisted of six passenger cruise ships. Each ship in the Chandris
fleet carried between 12 and 14 engineers who were assigned
permanently to that vessel. Latsis, on the other hand, was one of
two supervising engineers based at Chandris' Miami office; his
duties ran to the entire fleet and included not only overseeing the
vessels' engineering departments, which required him to take a
number of voyages, but also planning and directing ship maintenance
from the shore. Latsis claimed at trial that he spent 72 percent of
his time at sea, App. 58; his immediate supervisor testified that
the appropriate figure was closer to 10 percent, id., at 180.
On May 14, 1989, Latsis sailed for Bermuda aboard the S. S.
Galileo to plan for an upcoming renovation of the ship,
which was one of the older vessels in the Chandris fleet. Latsis
developed a problem with his right eye on the day of departure, and
he saw the ship's doctor as the
Galileo left port. The
doctor diagnosed a suspected detached retina but failed to follow
standard medical procedure, which would have been to direct Latsis
to see an ophthalmologist on an emergency basis. Instead, the
ship's doctor recommended
351
that Latsis relax until he could see an eye specialist when the
Galileo arrived in Bermuda two days later. No attempt was
made to transport Latsis ashore for prompt medical care by means of
a pilot vessel or helicopter during the 11 hours it took the ship
to reach the open sea from Baltimore, and Latsis received no
further medical care until after the ship arrived in Bermuda. In
Bermuda, a doctor diagnosed a detached retina and recommended
immediate hospitalization and surgery. Although the operation was a
partial success, Latsis lost 75 percent of his vision in his right
eye.
Following his recuperation, which lasted approximately six
weeks, Latsis resumed his duties with Chandris. On September 30,
1989, he sailed with the
Galileo to Bremerhaven, Germany,
where the vessel was placed in drydock for a 6month refurbishment.
After the conversion, the company renamed the vessel the S. S.
Meridian. Latsis, who had been with the ship the entire time
it was in drydock in Bremerhaven, sailed back to the United States
on board the
Meridian and continued to work for Chandris
until November 1990, when his employment was terminated for reasons
that are not clear from the record.
In October 1991, Latsis filed suit in the United States District
Court for the Southern District of New York seeking compensatory
damages under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688, for the
negligence of the ship's doctor that resulted in the significant
loss of sight in Latsis' right eye. The Jones Act provides, in
pertinent part, that "[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal injury
in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an
action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury .... "
The District Court instructed the jury that it could conclude that
Latsis was a seaman within the meaning of the statute if it found
as follows:
"[T]he plaintiff was either permanently assigned to the vessel
or performed a substantial part of his work on the vessel. In
determining whether Mr. Latsis performed a
352
substantial part of his work on the vessel, you may not consider
the period of time the Galileo was in drydock in Germany, because
during that time period she was out of navigation. You may,
however, consider the time spent sailing to and from Germany for
the conversion. Also, on this first element of being a seaman,
seamen do not include land-based workers." App. 210.
The parties stipulated to the District Court's second
requirement for Jones Act coverage-that Latsis' duties contributed
to the accomplishment of the missions of the Chandris vessels.
Id., at 211. Latsis did not object to the seaman status jury
instructions in their entirety, but only contested that portion of
the charge which explicitly took from the jury's consideration the
period of time that the
Galileo was in drydock. The jury
returned a verdict in favor of Chandris solely on the issue of
Latsis' status as a seaman under the Jones Act.
Id., at
213.
Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit, which vacated the judgment and remanded the case for a new
trial.
20 F.3d
45 (1994). The court emphasized that its longstanding test for
seaman status under the Jones Act required "'a more or less
permanent connection with the ship,'"
Salgado v.
M.
J.
Rudolph Corp., 514 F.2d
750, 755 (CA2 1975), a connection that need not be limited to
time spent on the vessel but could also be established by the
nature of the work performed. The court thought that the alternate
formulation employed by the District Court (permanent assignment to
the vessel or performance of a substantial part of his work on the
vessel), which was derived from
Offshore Co. v.
Robison, 266 F.2d
769, 779 (CA5 1959), improperly framed the issue for the jury
primarily, if not solely, in terms of Latsis' temporal relationship
to the vessel. With that understanding of what the language of the
Robison test implied, the court concluded that the District
Court's seaman status jury instructions constituted plain error
under established Circuit precedent. The court then
353
took this case as an opportunity to clarify its seaman status
requirements, directing the District Court that the jury should be
instructed on remand as follows:
"[T]he test of seaman status under the Jones Act is an
employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation. The test
will be met where a jury finds that (1) the plaintiff contributed
to the function of, or helped accomplish the mission of, a vessel;
(2) the plaintiff's contribution was limited to a particular vessel
or identifiable group of vessels; (3) the plaintiff's contribution
was substantial in terms of its (a) duration or (b) nature; and (4)
the course of the plaintiff's employment regularly exposed the
plaintiff to the hazards of the sea." 20 F. 3d, at 57.
Elsewhere on the same page, however, the court phrased the third
prong as requiring a substantial connection in terms of both
duration and nature. Finally, the Court of Appeals held that the
District Court erred in instructing the jury that the time Latsis
spent with the ship while it was in drydock could not count in the
substantial connection equation.
Id., at 55-56. Judge Kearse
dissented, arguing that the drydock instruction was not erroneous
and that the remainder of the charge did not constitute plain
error.
Id., at 58.
We granted certiorari, 513 U. S. 945 (1994), to resolve the
continuing conflict among the Courts of Appeals regarding the
appropriate requirements for seaman status under the Jones
Act.*
*We granted certiorari on the following question, set forth in
the petition: "What employment-related connection to a vessel in
navigation is necessary for a maritime worker to qualify as a
seaman under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. § 688?" Pet. for Cert. i.
Petitioners argue for the first time in their opening brief on the
merits that, because respondent failed to raise a timely objection
under Rule 51 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we should
limit the scope of our review to the narrower issue of whether the
District Court's seaman status jury instructions constituted "plain
error." Brieffor Petitioners 12-14. Under this Court's Rule
14.1(a), "[o]nly the questions set forth in the petition [for
certiorari], or
354
II
The Jones Act provides a cause of action in negligence for "any
seaman" injured "in the course of his employment." 46 U. S. C. App.
§ 688(a). Under general maritime law prevailing prior to the
statute's enactment, seamen were entitled to "maintenance and cure"
from their employer for injuries incurred "in the service of the
ship" and to recover damages from the vessel's owner for "injuries
received by seamen in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the
ship," but they were "not allowed to recover an indemnity for the
negligence of the master, or any member of the crew."
The
Osceola, 189 U.
S. 158, 175 (1903); see also
Cortes v.
Baltimore
Insular Line, Inc., 287 U. S. 367, 370-371
(1932). Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to remove the bar to
suit for negligence articulated in
The Osceola, thereby
completing the trilogy of heightened legal protections (unavailable
to other maritime workers) that seamen receive because of their
exposure to the "perils of the sea." See G. Gilmore & C. Black,
Law of Admiralty § 6-21, pp. 328-329 (2d ed. 1975); Robertson, A
New Approach to Determining Seaman Status, 64 Texas L. Rev. 79
(1985) (hereinafter Robertson). Justice Story identified this
animating purpose behind the legal regime governing maritime
injuries when he observed that seamen "are emphatically the wards
of the admiralty" because they "are by the peculiarity of their
lives liable to sudden sickness from
fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court," see,
e. g.,
Berkemer v.
McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 443, n. 38
(1984), and our Rule 24.1(a) provides that a merits brief should
not "raise additional questions or change the substance of the
questions already presented" in the petition. See also
Izumi
Seimitsu Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha v.
U. S.
Philips
Corp., 510 U. S.
27, 31-32 (1993);
Taylor v.
Freeland &
Kronz, 503 U.
S. 638, 645-646 (1992). Because petitioners did not raise the
issue in the petition for certiorari, we will not consider any
argument they may have under Rule 51 concerning the effect of
respondent's failure to object to the seaman status jury
instructions in their entirety.
355
change of climate, exposure to perils, and exhausting labour."
Harden v.
Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 485, 483 (No.
6,047) (CC Me. 1823). Similarly, we stated in
Wilander that
"[t]raditional seamen's remedies ... have been 'universally
recognized as ... growing out of the status of the seaman and his
peculiar relationship to the vessel, and as a feature of the
maritime law compensating or offsetting the special hazards and
disadvantages to which they who go down to sea in ships are
subjected.'" 498 U. S., at 354 (quoting
Seas Shipping Co. v.
Sieracki, 328
U. S. 85, 104 (1946) (Stone, C. J., dissenting) ).
The Jones Act, however, does not define the term "seaman" and
therefore leaves to the courts the determination of exactly which
maritime workers are entitled to admiralty's special protection.
Early on, we concluded that Congress intended the term to have its
established meaning under the general maritime law at the time the
Jones Act was enacted. See
Warner v.
Goltra, 293 U. S. 155, 159
(1934). In
Warner, we stated that "a seaman is a mariner of
any degree, one who lives his life upon the sea."
Id., at
157. Similarly, in
Norton v.
Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565, 572
(1944), we suggested that" 'every one is entitled to the privilege
of a seaman who, like seamen, at all times contributes to the
labors about the operation and welfare of the ship when she is upon
a voyage'" (quoting
The Buena Ventura, 243
F.7d 7, 799 (SDNY 1916)).
Congress provided some content for the Jones Act requirement in
1927 when it enacted the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation
Act (LHWCA), which provides scheduled compensation (and the
exclusive remedy) for injury to a broad range of land-based
maritime workers but which also explicitly excludes from its
coverage "a master or member of a crew of any vessel." 44 Stat.
(part 2) 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 902(3)(G). As the Court
has stated on several occasions, the Jones Act and the LHWCA are
mu-
356
tually exclusive compensation regimes: "'master or member of a
crew' is a refinement of the term 'seaman' in the Jones Act; it
excludes from LHWCA coverage those properly covered under the Jones
Act."
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 347. Indeed, "it is odd but
true that the key requirement for Jones Act coverage now appears in
another statute."
Ibid. Injured workers who fall under
neither category may still recover under an applicable state
workers' compensation scheme or, in admiralty, under general
maritime tort principles (which are admittedly less generous than
the Jones Act's protections). See Cheavens, Terminal Workers'
Injury and Death Claims, 64 Tulane L. Rev. 361, 364-365 (1989).
Despite the LHWCA language, drawing the distinction between
those maritime workers who should qualify as seamen and those who
should not has proved to be a difficult task and the source of much
litigation-particularly because "the myriad circumstances in which
men go upon the water confront courts not with discrete classes of
maritime employees, but rather with a spectrum ranging from the
blue-water seaman to the land-based longshoreman."
Brown v.
ITT Rayonier, Inc., 497 F.2d
234, 236 (CA5 1974). The federal courts have struggled over the
years to articulate generally applicable criteria to distinguish
among the many varieties of maritime workers, often developing
detailed multipronged tests for seaman status. Since the 1950's,
this Court largely has left definition of the Jones Act's scope to
the lower courts. Unfortunately, as a result, "[t]he perils of the
sea, which mariners suffer and shipowners insure against, have met
their match in the perils of judicial review." Gilmore & Black,
supra, § 6-1, at 272. Or, as one court paraphrased Diderot
in reference to this body of law: "'We have made a labyrinth and
got lost in it. We must find our way out.'"
Johnson v.
John F. Beasley Constr. Co., 742 F.2d
1054, 1060 (CA7 1984), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1211 (1985); see
9 Oeuvres Completes de Diderot, 203 (J. Assezat ed. 1875).
357
A
In
Wilander, decided in 1991, the Court attempted for the
first time in 33 years to clarify the definition of a "seaman"
under the Jones Act. Jon Wilander was injured while assigned as a
foreman supervising the sandblasting and painting of various
fixtures and piping on oil drilling platforms in the Persian Gulf.
His employer claimed that he could not qualify as a seaman because
he did not aid in the navigation function of the vessels on which
he served. Emphasizing that the question presented was narrow, we
considered whether the term "seaman" is limited to only those
maritime workers who aid in a vessel's navigation.
After surveying the history of an "aid in navigation"
requirement under both the Jones Act and general maritime law, we
concluded that "all those with that 'peculiar relationship to the
vessel' are covered under the Jones Act, regardless of the
particular job they perform," 498 U. S., at 354, and that "the
better rule is to define 'master or member of a crew' under the
LHWCA, and therefore 'seaman' under the Jones Act, solely in terms
of the employee's connection to a vessel in navigation,"
ibid. Thus, we held that, although "[i]t is not necessary
that a seaman aid in navigation or contribute to the transportation
of the vessel, ... a seaman must be doing the ship's work."
Id., at 355. We explained that "[t]he key to seaman status
is employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation," and
that, although "[w]e are not called upon here to define this
connection in all details, ... we believe the requirement that an
employee's duties must 'contribut[e] to the function of the vessel
or to the accomplishment of its mission' captures well an important
requirement of seaman status."
Ibid.
Beyond dispensing with the "aid to navigation" requirement,
however,
Wilander did not consider the requisite connection
to a vessel in any detail and therefore failed to end the
prevailing confusion regarding seaman status.
358
B
Respondent urges us to find our way out of the Jones Act
"labyrinth" by focusing on the seemingly activity-based policy
underlying the statute (the protection of those who are exposed to
the perils of the sea), and to conclude that anyone working on
board a vessel for the duration of a "voyage" in furtherance of the
vessel's mission has the necessary employment-related connection to
qualify as a seaman. Brief for Respondent 12-17. Such an approach,
however, would run counter to our prior decisions and our
understanding of the remedial scheme Congress has established for
injured maritime workers. A brief survey of the Jones Act's
tortured history makes clear that we must reject the initial appeal
of such a "voyage" test and undertake the more difficult task of
developing a status-based standard that, although it determines
Jones Act coverage without regard to the precise activity in which
the worker is engaged at the time of the injury, nevertheless best
furthers the Jones Act's remedial goals.
Our Jones Act cases establish several basic principles regarding
the definition of a seaman. First, "[w]hether under the Jones Act
or general maritime law, seamen do not include land-based workers."
Wilander, supra, at 348; see also Allbritton, Seaman Status
in
Wilander's Wake, 68 Tulane L. Rev. 373, 387 (1994). Our
early Jones Act decisions had not recognized this fundamental
distinction. In
International Stevedoring Co. v.
Haverty, 272 U.
S. 50 (1926), we held that a longshoreman injured while stowing
cargo, and while aboard but not employed by a vessel at dock in
navigable waters, was a seaman covered by the Jones Act.
Recognizing that "for most purposes, as the word is commonly used,
stevedores are not 'seamen,'" the Court nevertheless concluded that
"[w]e cannot believe that Congress willingly would have allowed the
protection to men engaged upon the same maritime duties to vary
with the accident of their being employed by a stevedore rather
than by the ship."
Id., at
359
52. Because stevedores are engaged in "a maritime service
formerly rendered by the ship's crew,"
ibid. (citing
Atlantic Transport Co. of W Va. v.
Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, 62 (1914)),
we concluded, they should receive the Jones Act's protections. See
also
Uravic v.
F. Jarka Co., 282 U. S. 234, 238
(1931); Jamison v.
Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 639
(1930). In 1946, the Court belatedly recognized that Congress had
acted, in passing the LHWCA in 1927, to undercut the Court's
reasoning in the
Haverty line of cases and to emphasize that
land-based maritime workers should not be entitled to the seamen's
traditional remedies. Our decision in
Swanson v.
Marra
Brothers, Inc., 328
U. S. 1, 7 (1946), acknowledged that Congress had expressed its
intention to "confine the benefits of the Jones Act to the members
of the crew of a vessel plying in navigable waters and to
substitute for the right of recovery recognized by the
Haverty case only such rights to compensation as are given
by [the LHWCA]." See also
South Chicago Coal &
Dock
Co. v.
Bassett, 309 U. S. 251, 257
(1940). Through the LHWCA, therefore, Congress "explicitly den[ied]
a right of recovery under the Jones Act to maritime workers not
members of a crew who are injured on board a vessel."
Swanson,
supra, at 6. And this recognition process culminated in
Wilander with the Court's statement that, "[w]ith the
passage of the LHWCA, Congress established a clear distinction
between land-based and sea-based maritime workers. The latter, who
owe their allegiance to a vessel and not solely to a land-based
employer, are seamen." 498 U. S., at 347.
In addition to recognizing a fundamental distinction between
land-based and sea-based maritime employees, our cases also
emphasize that Jones Act coverage, like the jurisdiction of
admiralty over causes of action for maintenance and cure for
injuries received in the course of a seaman's employment, depends
"not on the place where the injury is inflicted ... but on the
nature of the seaman's service, his status as a member of the
vessel, and his relationship as
360
such to the vessel and its operation in navigable waters."
Swanson, supra, at 4. Thus, maritime workers who obtain
seaman status do not lose that protection automatically when on
shore and may recover under the Jones Act whenever they are injured
in the service of a vessel, regardless of whether the injury occurs
on or off the ship. In
O'Donnell v.
Great Lakes
Dredge &
Dock Co., 318 U. S. 36 (1943), the
Court held a shipowner liable for injuries caused to a seaman by a
fellow crew member while the former was on shore repairing a
conduit that was a part of the vessel and that was used for
discharging the ship's cargo. We explained:
"The right of recovery in the Jones Act is given to the seaman
as such, and, as in the case of maintenance and cure, the admiralty
jurisdiction over the suit depends not on the place where the
injury is inflicted but on the nature of the service and its
relationship to the operation of the vessel plying in navigable
waters."
Id., at 42-43. Similarly, the Court in
Swanson emphasized that the LHWCA "leaves unaffected the
rights of members of the crew of a vessel to recover under the
Jones Act when injured while pursuing their maritime employment
whether on board ... or on shore." 328 U. S., at 7-8. See also
Braen v.
Pfeifer Oil Transp. Co., 361 U. S. 129,
131-132 (1959).
Our LHWCA cases also recognize the converse: Landbased maritime
workers injured while on a vessel in navigation remain covered by
the LHWCA, which expressly provides compensation for injuries to
certain workers engaged in "maritime employment" that are incurred
"upon the navigable waters of the United States," 33 U. S. C. §
903(a). Thus, in
Director, Office of Workers' Compensation
Programs v.
Perini North River Associates, 459 U. S. 297 (1983), we
held that a worker injured while "working on a barge in actual
navigable waters" of the Hudson River, id., at 300, n. 4, could be
compensated under the LHWCA, id., at 324. See also
Parker v.
Motor Boat Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244, 244245
(1941) (upholding LHWCA coverage for a worker testing
361
outboard motors who "was drowned when a motor boat in which he
was riding capsized"). These decisions, which reflect our
longstanding view of the LHWCA's scope, indicate that a maritime
worker does not become a "member of a crew" as soon as a vessel
leaves the dock.
It is therefore well settled after decades of judicial
interpretation that the Jones Act inquiry is fundamentally status
based: Land-based maritime workers do not become seamen because
they happen to be working on board a vessel when they are injured,
and seamen do not lose Jones Act protection when the course of
their service to a vessel takes them ashore. In spite of this
background, respondent and JusTICE STEVENS suggest that any
maritime worker who is assigned to a vessel for the duration of a
voyage-and whose duties contribute to the vessel's mission-should
be classified as a seaman for purposes of injuries incurred during
that voyage. See Brief for Respondent 14;
post, at 377
(opinion concurring in judgment). Under such a "voyage test," which
relies principally upon this Court's statements that the Jones Act
was designed to protect maritime workers who are exposed to the
"special hazards" and "particular perils" characteristic of work on
vessels at sea, see,
e. g., Wi lander, supra, at 354, the
worker's activities at the time of the injury would be
controlling.
The difficulty with respondent's argument, as the foregoing
discussion makes clear, is that the LHWCA repudiated the
Haverty line of cases and established that a worker is no
longer considered to be a seaman simply because he is doing a
seaman's work at the time of the injury. Seaman status is not
coextensive with seamen's risks. See,
e. g., Easley v.
Southern Shipbuilding Corp., 965 F.2d
1, 4-5 (CA5 1992), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 1050 (1993);
Robertson 93 (following "the overwhelming weight of authority in
taking it as given that seaman status cannot be established by any
worker who fails to demonstrate that a significant portion of his
work was done aboard a vessel" and acknowledging that "[s]ome
362
workers who unmistakably confront the perils of the sea, often
in extreme form, are thereby left out of the seamen's protections"
(footnote omitted)). A "voyage test" would conflict with our prior
understanding of the Jones Act as fundamentally status based,
granting the negligence cause of action to those maritime workers
who form the ship's company.
Swanson, supra, at 4-5;
O'Donnell, supra, at 42-43.
Desper v.
Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187, 190
(1952), is not to the contrary. Although some language in that case
does suggest that whether an individual is a seaman depends upon
"the activity in which he was engaged at the time of injury," the
context of that discussion reveals that "activity" referred to the
worker's employment as a laborer on a vessel undergoing seasonal
repairs while out of navigation, and not to his precise task at the
time of injury. Similarly, despite Justice Harlan's suggestion in
dissent that the Court's decision in
Grimes v.
Raymond
Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252 (1958),
necessarily construed the word seaman "to mean nothing more than a
person injured while working at sea,"
id., at 255, our short
per curiam opinion in that case does not indicate that we
adopted so expansive a reading of the statutory term. Citing our
prior cases which emphasized that the question of seaman status is
normally for the factfinder to decide, see,
e. g., Senko v.
LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370, 371-372
(1957);
Bassett, 309 U. S., at 257-258, we reversed the
judgment of the Court of Appeals and held simply that the jury
could have inferred from the facts presented that the petitioner
was a member of a crew in light of his overall service to the
company (as the District Court had concluded in ruling on a motion
for a directed verdict at the close of petitioner's case).
Grimes, supra, at 253. That neither
Desper nor
Grimes altered our established course in favor of a voyage
test is confirmed by reference to our later decision in
Braen,
supra, at 131, in which we repeated that "[t]he injured party
must of course have 'status as a member of the vessel' for it is
seamen, not others who may work on
363
the vessel
(Swanson v.
Marra Bros., 328 U. S. 1, 4), to whom
Congress extended the protection of the Jones Act."
We believe it is important to avoid" 'engrafting upon the
statutory classification of a "seaman" a judicial gloss so protean,
elusive, or arbitrary as to permit a worker to walk into and out of
coverage in the course of his regular duties.'''
Barrett v.
Chevron, U. S.
A., Inc., 781 F.2d
1067, 1075 (CA5 1986) (en bane) (quoting
Longmire v.
Sea Drilling Corp., 610 F.2d
1342, 1347, n. 6 (CA5 1980)). In evaluating the
employment-related connection of a maritime worker to a vessel in
navigation, courts should not employ "a 'snapshot' test for seaman
status, inspecting only the situation as it exists at the instant
of injury; a more enduring relationship is contemplated in the
jurisprudence."
Easley, supra, at 5. Thus, a worker may not
oscillate back and forth between Jones Act coverage and other
remedies depending on the activity in which the worker was engaged
while injured.
Reeves v.
Mobile Dredging &
Pumping Co., 26 F.3d
1247, 1256 (CA3 1994). Unlike JUSTICE STEVENS, see
post,
at 383, we do not believe that any maritime worker on a ship at sea
as part of his employment is automatically a member of the crew of
the vessel within the meaning of the statutory terms. Our rejection
of the voyage test is also consistent with the interests of
employers and maritime workers alike in being able to predict who
will be covered by the Jones Act (and, perhaps more importantly for
purposes of the employers' workers' compensation obligations, who
will be covered by the LHWCA) before a particular workday
begins.
To say that our cases have recognized a distinction between
land-based and sea-based maritime workers that precludes
application of a voyage test for seaman status, however, is not to
say that a maritime employee must work
only on board a
vessel to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act. In
Southwest
Marine, Inc. v.
Gizoni, 502 U. S. 81 (1991),
decided only a few months after
Wi lander, we concluded that
a worker's status as a ship repairman, one of the enumerated
364
occupations encompassed within the term "employee" under the
LHWCA, 33 U. s. C. § 902(3), did not necessarily restrict the
worker to a remedy under that statute. We explained that, "[w]hile
in some cases a ship repairman may lack the requisite connection to
a vessel in navigation to qualify for seaman status, ... not all
ship repairmen lack the requisite connection as a matter of law.
This is so because '[i]t is not the employee's particular job that
is determinative, but the employee's connection to a vessel.'"
Gizoni, supra, at 89 (quoting
Wi lander, 498 U. S.,
at 354) (footnote omitted). Thus, we concluded, the Jones Act
remedy may be available to maritime workers who are employed by a
shipyard and who spend a portion of their time working on shore but
spend the rest of their time at sea.
Beyond these basic themes, which are sufficient to foreclose
respondent's principal argument, our cases are largely silent as to
the precise relationship a maritime worker must bear to a vessel in
order to come within the Jones Act's ambit. We have, until now,
left to the lower federal courts the task of developing appropriate
criteria to distinguish the "ship's company" from those members of
the maritime community whose employment is essentially land
based.
C
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit was apparently the
first to develop a generally applicable test for seaman status. In
Carumbo v.
Cape Cod S. S.
Co., 123 F.2d 991
(1941), the court retained the
pre-Swanson view that "the
word 'seaman' under the Jones Act [did] not mean the same thing as
'member of a crew' under the [LHWCA]," 123 F. 2d, at 994. It
concluded that "one who does any sort of work aboard a ship in
navigation is a 'seaman' within the meaning of the Jones Act."
Id., at 995. To the phrase "member of a crew," on the other
hand, the court gave a more restrictive meaning. The court adopted
three elements to define the phrase that had been used at various
times in prior cases,
365
holding that "[t]he requirements that the ship be in navigation;
that there be a more or less permanent connection with the ship;
and that the worker be aboard primarily to aid in navigation appear
to us to be the essential and decisive elements of the definition
of a 'member of a crew.'"
Ibid. Cf.
Senko, supra, at
375 (Harlan, J., dissenting) ("According to past decisions, to be a
'member of a crew' an individual must have some connection, more or
less permanent, with a ship and a ship's company"). Once it became
clear that the phrase "master or member of a crew" from the LHWCA
is coextensive with the term "seaman" in the Jones Act, courts
accepted the
Carumbo formulation of master or member of a
crew in the Jones Act context. See
Boyd v.
Ford Motor
Co., 948 F.2d
283 (CA6 1991);
Estate of Wenzel v.
Seaward Marine
Services, Inc., 709 F.2d
1326, 1327 (CA91983);
Whittington v.
Sewer Constr.
Co., 541 F.2d
427, 436 (CA4 1976);
Griffith v.
Wheeling Pittsburgh
Steel Corp., 521 F.2d
31, 36 (CA3 1975), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 1054 (1976);
McKie v.
Diamond Marine Co., 204
F.2d 132, 136 (CA5 1953). The Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit initially was among the jurisdictions to adopt the
Carumbo formulation as the basis of its seaman status
inquiry, see
Salgado v.
M. J.
Rudolph Corp.,
514 F. 2d, at 755, but that court took the instant case as an
opportunity to modify the traditional test somewhat (replacing the
"more or less permanent connection" prong with a requirement that
the connection be "substantial in terms of its (a) duration and (b)
nature"), 20 F. 3d, at 57.
The second major body of seaman status law developed in the
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has a substantial
Jones Act caseload, in the wake of
Offshore Co. v.
Robison, 266 F.2d
769 (CA5 1959). At the time of his injury, Robison was an oil
worker permanently assigned to a drilling rig mounted on a barge in
the Gulf of Mexico. In sustaining the jury's award of damages to
Robison under the Jones Act, the court abandoned the aid in
navigation requirement of the traditional test and held as
follows:
366
"[T]here is an evidentiary basis for a Jones Act case to go to
the jury: (1) if there is evidence that the injured workman was
assigned permanently to a vessel ... or performed a substantial
part of his work on the vessel; and (2) if the capacity in which he
was employed or the duties which he performed contributed to the
function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission, or
to the operation or welfare of the vessel in terms of its
maintenance during its movement or during anchorage for its future
trips." Id., at 779 (footnote omitted).
Soon after
Robison, the Fifth Circuit modified the test
to allow seaman status for those workers who had the requisite
connection with an "identifiable fleet" of vessels, a finite group
of vessels under common ownership or control.
Braniff v.
Jackson Avenue-Gretna Ferry, Inc., 280
F.2d 523, 528 (1960). See also
Barrett, 781 F. 2d, at
1074;
Bertrand v.
International Mooring &
Marine, Inc., 700 F.2d
240 (CA5 1983), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 1069 (1984). The
modified
Robison formulation, which replaced the
Carumbo version as the definitive test for seaman status in
the Fifth Circuit, has been highly influential in other courts as
well. See Robertson 95;
Miller v.
Patton-Tully Transp.
Co., 851 F.2d
202, 204 (CA8 1988);
Caruso v.
Sterling Yacht
&
Shipbuilders, Inc., 828 F.2d
14, 15 (CAll 1987);
Bennett v.
Perini Corp.,
510
While the
Carumbo and
Robison approaches may not
seem all that different at first glance, subsequent developments in
the Fifth Circuit's Jones Act jurisprudence added a strictly
temporal gloss to the Jones Act inquiry. Under
Barrett v.
Chevron, U. S.
A., Inc., supra, if an employee's
regular duties require him to divide his time between vessel and
land, his status as a crew member is determined "in the context of
his entire employment" with his current employer.
Id., at
1075. See also Allbritton, 68 Tulane L. Rev., at 386;
Longmire, 610 F. 2d, at 1347 (explaining that a worker's
seaman status "should be addressed with reference to the na-
367
ture and location of his occupation taken as a whole"). In
Barrett, the court noted that the worker "performed seventy
to eighty percent of his work on platforms and no more than twenty
to thirty percent of his work on vessels" and then concluded that,
"[b]ecause he did not perform a substantial portion of his work
aboard a vessel or fleet of vessels, he failed to establish that he
was a member of the crew of a vessel." 781 F. 2d, at 1076. Since
Barrett, the Fifth Circuit consistently has analyzed the
problem in terms of the percentage of work performed on vessels for
the employer in question-and has declined to find seaman status
where the employee spent less than 30 percent of his time aboard
ship. See,
e. g., Palmer v.
Fayard Moving &
Transp. Corp., 930 F. 2d 437, 439 (1991);
Lormand v.
Superior Oil Co., 845 F. 2d 536, 541 (1987), cert. denied,
484 U. S. 1031 (1988); cf.
Leonard v.
Dixie Well
Service &
Supply, Inc., 828 F.2d
291, 295 (1987);
Pickle v.
International Oilfield
Divers, Inc., 791 F.2d
1237, 1240 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1059 (1987).
Although some Courts of Appeals have varied the applicable tests
to some degree, see,
e. g., Johnson v.
John F. Beasley
Constr. Co., 742 F. 2d, at 1062-1063, the traditional
Carumbo seaman status formulation and the subsequent
Robison modification are universally recognized, and one or
the other is applied in every Federal Circuit to have considered
the issue. See Bull, Seaman Status Revisited: A Practical Guide To
Status Determination, 6 U. S. F. Mar. L. J. 547, 562-572 (1994)
(collecting cases). The federal courts generally require
at
least a significant connection to a vessel in navigation (or to
an identifiable fleet of vessels) for a maritime worker to qualify
as a seaman under the Jones Act. Although the traditional test
requires a "more or less permanent connection" and the
Robison formulation calls for "substantial" work aboard a
vessel, "this general requirement varies little, if at all, from
one jurisdiction to another,"
Bull, supra, at 587, and
"[t]he courts have repeatedly held
368
that the relationship creating seaman status must be substantial
in point of time and work, and not merely sporadic," id., at
587-588.
D
From this background emerge the essential contours of the
"employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation,"
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 355, required for an employee to
qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act. We have said that, in
giving effect to the term "seaman," our concern must be "to define
the meaning for the purpose of a particular statute" and that its
use in the Jones Act "must be read in the light of the mischief to
be corrected and the end to be attained."
Warner, 293 U. S.,
at 158. Giving effect to those guiding principles, we think that
the essential requirements for seaman status are twofold. First, as
we emphasized in
Wilander, "an employee's duties must
'contribut[e] to the function of the vessel or to the
accomplishment of its mission.'" 498 U. S., at 355 (quoting
Robison, 266 F. 2d, at 779). The Jones Act's protections,
like the other admiralty protections for seamen, only extend to
those maritime employees who do the ship's work. But this threshold
requirement is very broad: "All who work at sea in the service of a
ship" are
eligible for seaman status. 498 U. S., at 354.
Second, and most important for our purposes here, a seaman must
have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable
group of such vessels) that is substantial in terms of both its
duration and its nature. The fundamental purpose of this
substantial connection requirement is to give full effect to the
remedial scheme created by Congress and to separate the sea-based
maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act protection from
those land-based workers who have only a transitory or sporadic
connection to a vessel in navigation, and therefore whose
employment does not regularly expose them to the perils of the sea.
See 1B A. Jenner, Benedict on Admiralty § 11a, pp. 2-10.1 to 2-11
(7th ed. 1994) ("If it can be shown that the employee performed
a
369
significant part of his work on board the vessel on which he was
injured, with at least some degree of regularity and continuity,
the test for seaman status will be satisfied" (footnote omitted)).
This requirement therefore determines which maritime employees in
Wilander's broad category of persons eligible for seaman
status because they are "doing the ship's work," 498 U. S., at 355,
are in fact entitled to the benefits conferred upon seamen by the
Jones Act because they have the requisite employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation.
It is important to recall that the question of who is a "member
of a crew," and therefore who is a "seaman," is a mixed question of
law and fact. Because statutory terms are at issue, their
interpretation is a question of law and it is the court's duty to
define the appropriate standard.
Wilander, 498 U. S., at
356. On the other hand, "[i]f reasonable persons, applying the
proper legal standard, could differ as to whether the employee was
a 'member of a crew,' it is a question for the jury."
Ibid.
See also
Senko, 352 U. S., at 374 (explaining that "the
determination of whether an injured person was a 'member of a crew'
is to be left to the finder of fact" and that "a jury's decision is
final if it has a reasonable basis"). The jury should be permitted,
when determining whether a maritime employee has the requisite
employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation to qualify
as a member of the vessel's crew, to consider all relevant
circumstances bearing on the two elements outlined above.
In defining the prerequisites for Jones Act coverage, we think
it preferable to focus upon the essence of what it means to be a
seaman and to eschew the temptation to create detailed tests to
effectuate the congressional purpose, tests that tend to become
ends in and of themselves. The principal formulations employed by
the Courts of Appeals-"more or less permanent assignment" or
"connection to a vessel that is substantial in terms of its
duration and nature" -are
370
simply different ways of getting at the same basic point: The
Jones Act remedy is reserved for sea-based maritime employees whose
work regularly exposes them to "the special hazards and
disadvantages to which they who go down to sea in ships are
subjected."
Sieracki, 328 U. S., at 104 (Stone, C. J.,
dissenting). Indeed, it is difficult to discern major substantive
differences in the language of the two phrases. In our view, "the
total circumstances of an individual's employment must be weighed
to determine whether he had a sufficient relation to the navigation
of vessels and the perils attendant thereon."
Wallace v.
Oceaneering Int'Z, 727 F.2d
427, 432 (CA5 1984). The duration of a worker's connection to a
vessel and the nature of the worker's activities, taken together,
determine whether a maritime employee is a seaman because the
ultimate inquiry is whether the worker in question is a member of
the vessel's crew or simply a land-based employee who happens to be
working on the vessel at a given time.
Although we adopt the centerpiece of the formulation used by the
Court of Appeals in this case-that a seaman must have a connection
with a vessel in navigation that is substantial in both duration
and nature-we should point out how our understanding of the import
of that language may be different in some respects from that of the
court below. The Court of Appeals suggested that its test for
seaman status "does not unequivocally require a Jones Act seaman to
be substantially connected to a vessel" in terms of time if the
worker performs important work on board on a steady, although not
necessarily on a temporally significant, basis. 20 F. 3d, at 53.
Perhaps giving effect to this intuition, or perhaps reacting to the
temporal gloss placed on the
Robison language by later Fifth
Circuit decisions, the court phrased its standard at one point as
requiring a jury to find that a Jones Act plaintiff's contribution
to the function of the vessel was substantial in terms of its
duration
or nature. 20 F. 3d, at 57. It is not clear which
version ("duration or nature"
371
as opposed to "duration and nature") the Court of Appeals
intended to adopt for the substantial connection requirement-or
indeed whether the court saw a significant difference between the
two. Nevertheless, we think it is important that a seaman's
connection to a vessel in fact be substantial in both respects.
We agree with the Court of Appeals that seaman status is not
merely a temporal concept, but we also believe that it
necessarily includes a temporal element. A maritime worker who
spends only a small fraction of his working time on board a vessel
is fundamentally land based and therefore not a member of the
vessel's crew, regardless of what his duties are. Naturally,
substantiality in this context is determined by reference to the
period covered by the Jones Act plaintiff's maritime employment,
rather than by some absolute measure. Generally, the Fifth Circuit
seems to have identified an appropriate rule of thumb for the
ordinary case:
A worker who spends less than about 30 percent of his time in
the service of a vessel in navigation should not qualify as a
seaman under the Jones Act. This figure of course serves as no more
than a guideline established by years of experience, and departure
from it will certainly be justified in appropriate cases. As we
have said, "[t]he inquiry into seaman status is of necessity fact
specific; it will depend on the nature of the vessel and the
employee's precise relation to it."
Wi lander, 498 U. S., at
356. Nevertheless, we believe that courts, employers, and maritime
workers can all benefit from reference to these general principles.
And where undisputed facts reveal that a maritime worker has a
clearly inadequate temporal connection to vessels in navigation,
the court may take the question from the jury by granting summary
judgment or a directed verdict. See,
e. g.,
Palmer,
930 F. 2d, at 439.
On the other hand, we see no reason to limit the seaman status
inquiry, as petitioners contend, exclusively to an examination of
the overall course of a worker's service with a
372
particular employer. Brief for Petitioners 14-15. When a
maritime worker's basic assignment changes, his seaman status may
change as well. See
Barrett, 781 F. 2d, at 1077 (Rubin, J.,
dissenting) ("An assignment to work as a crew member, like the
voyage of a vessel, may be brief, and the
Robison test is
applicable in deciding the worker's status during any such
employment");
Longmire, 610 F. 2d, at 1347, n. 6. For
example, we can imagine situations in which someone who had worked
for years in an employer's shoreside headquarters is then
reassigned to a ship in a classic seaman's job that involves a
regular and continuous, rather than intermittent, commitment of the
worker's labor to the function of a vessel. Such a person should
not be denied seaman status if injured shortly after the
reassignment, just as someone actually transferred to a desk job in
the company's office and injured in the hallway should not be
entitled to claim seaman status on the basis of prior service at
sea. If a maritime employee receives a new work assignment in which
his essential duties are changed, he is entitled to have the
assessment of the substantiality of his vessel-related work made on
the basis of his activities in his new position. See Cheavens, 64
Tulane L. Rev., at 389-390. Thus, nothing in our opinion forecloses
Jones Act coverage, in appropriate cases, for JUSTICE STEVENS'
paradigmatic maritime worker injured while reassigned to "a lengthy
voyage on the high seas,"
post, at 386. While our approach
maintains the status-based inquiry this Court's earlier cases
contemplate, we recognize that seaman status also should not be
some immutable characteristic that maritime workers who spend only
a portion of their time at sea can never attain.
III
One final issue remains for our determination: whether the
District Court erred in instructing the jurors that, "[i]n
determining whether Mr. Latsis performed a substantial part of his
work on the vessel, [they could] not consider the period
373
of time the
Galileo was in drydock in Germany, because
during that time period she was out of navigation." We agree with
the Court of Appeals that it did.
The foregoing discussion establishes that, to qualify as a
seaman under the Jones Act, a maritime employee must have a
substantial employment-related connection to a vessel
in
navigation. See
Wi lander, supra, at 354-355. Of course, any
time Latsis spent with the
Galileo while the ship was out of
navigation could not count as time spent at sea for purposes of
that inquiry, and it would have been appropriate for the District
Court to make this clear to the jury. Yet the underlying inquiry
whether a vessel is or is not "in navigation" for Jones Act
purposes is a fact-intensive question that is normally for the jury
and not the court to decide. See
Butler v.
Whiteman,
356 U. S. 271
(1958)
(per curiam); 2 M. Norris, Law of Seamen § 30.13, p.
363 (4th ed. 1985) ("Whether the vessel is in navigation presents a
question of fact to be determined by the trier of the facts. When
the case is tried to a jury the fact question should be left to
their consideration if sufficient evidence has been presented to
provide the basis for jury consideration"). Removing the issue from
the jury's consideration is only appropriate where the facts and
the law will reasonably support only one conclusion,
Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 250251
(1986), and the colloquy between the court and counsel does not
indicate that the District Court made any such findings before
overruling respondent's objection to the drydock instruction. See
Tr. 432. Based upon the record before us, we think the court failed
adequately to justify its decision to remove the question whether
the
Galileo was "in navigation" while in Bremerhaven from
the jury.
Under our precedent and the law prevailing in the Circuits, it
is generally accepted that "a vessel does not cease to be a vessel
when she is not voyaging, but is at anchor, berthed, or at
dockside,"
DiGiovanni v.
Traylor Bros., Inc.,
959 F.2d
1119, 1121 (CA1) (en bane), cert. denied, 506 U. S.
374
827 (1992), even when the vessel is undergoing repairs. See
Butler, supra, at 271;
Senko, 352 U. S., at 373;
Norris,
supra, at 364 ("[A] vessel is in navigation ... when
it returns from a voyage and is taken to a drydock or shipyard to
undergo repairs in preparation to making another trip, and likewise
a vessel is in navigation, although moored to a dock, if it remains
in readiness for another voyage" (footnotes omitted)). At some
point, however, repairs become sufficiently significant that the
vessel can no longer be considered in navigation. In
West v.
United States, 361 U. S. 118 (1959), we
held that a shoreside worker was not entitled to recover for
unseaworthiness because the vessel on which he was injured was
undergoing an overhaul for the purpose of making her seaworthy and
therefore had been withdrawn from navigation. We explained that, in
such cases, "the focus should be upon the status of the ship, the
pattern of the repairs, and the extensive nature of the work
contracted to be done."
Id., at 122. See also
United
N.
Y. and N. J.
Sandy Hook Pilots Assn. v.
Halecki, 358
U. S. 613 (1959);
Desper, 342 U. S., at 191. The general
rule among the Courts of Appeals is that vessels undergoing repairs
or spending a relatively short period of time in drydock are still
considered to be "in navigation" whereas ships being transformed
through "major" overhauls or renovations are not. See Bull, 6 U.
S.
Obviously, while the distinction at issue here is one of degree,
the prevailing view is that "major renovations can take a ship out
of navigation, even though its use before and after the work will
be the same."
McKinley v.
All Alaskan Seafoods, Inc.,
980 F.2d
567, 570 (CA9 1992). Our review of the record in this case
uncovered relatively little evidence bearing on the
Galileo's status during the repairs, and even less
discussion of the question by the District Court. On the one hand,
the work on the Chandris vessel took only about six months, which
seems to be a relatively short period of time for important repairs
on oceangoing vessels. Cf. id., at 571
375
(17 -month-long project involving major structural changes took
the vessel out of navigation);
Wixom v.
Boland Marine
&
Manufacturing Co., 614 F.2d
956 (CA5 1980) (similar 3-year project); see also
Senko,
supra, at 373 (noting that "[e]ven a transoceanic liner may be
confined to berth for lengthy periods, and while there the ship is
kept in repair by its 'crew' "-and that "[t]here can be no doubt
that a member of its crew would be covered by the Jones Act during
this period, even though the ship was never in transit during his
employment"). On the other hand, Latsis' own description of the
work performed suggests that the modifications to the vessel were
actually quite significant, including the removal of the ship's
bottom plates and propellers, the addition of bow thrusters,
overhaul of the main engines, reconstruction of the boilers, and
renovations of the cabins and other passenger areas of the ship.
See App. 93-94. On these facts, which are similar to those in
McKinley, it is possible that Chandris could be entitled to
partial summary judgment or a directed verdict concerning whether
the
Galileo remained in navigation while in drydock; the
record, however, contains no stipulations or findings by the
District Court to justify its conclusion that the modifications to
the
Galileo were sufficiently extensive to remove the vessel
from navigation as a matter of law. On that basis, we agree with
the Court of Appeals that the District Court's drydock instruction
was erroneous.
Even if the District Court had been justified in directing a
verdict on the question whether the
Galileo remained in
navigation while in Bremerhaven, we think that the court's charge
to the jury swept too broadly. Instead of simply noting the
appropriate legal conclusion and instructing the jury not to
consider the time Latsis spent with the vessel in drydock
as
time spent with a vessel in navigation, the District Court
appears to have prohibited the jury from considering Latsis' stay
in Bremerhaven
for any purpose. In our view, Latsis'
activities while the vessel was in drydock are at least
376
marginally relevant to the underlying inquiry (whether Latsis
was a seaman and not a land-based maritime employee). Naturally,
the jury would be free to draw several inferences from Latsis' work
during the conversion, not all of which would be in his favor. But
the choice among such permissible inferences should have been left
to the jury, and we think the District Court's broadly worded
instruction improperly deprived the jury of that opportunity by
forbidding the consideration of Latsis' time in Bremerhaven at
all.
IV
Under the Jones Act, "[i]freasonable persons, applying the
proper legal standard, could differ as to whether the employee was
a 'member of a crew,' it is a question for the jury."
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 356. On the facts of this case,
given that essential points are in dispute, reasonable factfinders
could disagree as to whether Latsis was a seaman. Because the
question whether the
Galileo remained "in navigation" while
in drydock should have been submitted to the jury, and because the
decision on that issue might affect the outcome of the ultimate
seaman status inquiry, we affirm the judgment of the Court of
Appeals remanding the case to the District Court for a new
trial.
On remand, the District Court should charge the jury in a manner
consistent with our holding that the "employmentrelated connection
to a vessel in navigation" necessary to qualify as a seaman under
the Jones Act, id., at 355, comprises two basic elements: The
worker's duties must contribute to the function of the vessel or to
the accomplishment of its mission, and the worker must have a
connection to a vessel in navigation (or an identifiable group of
vessels) that is substantial in terms of both its duration and its
nature. As to the latter point, the court should emphasize that the
Jones Act was intended to protect sea-based maritime workers, who
owe their allegiance to a vessel, and not land-based employees, who
do not. By instructing juries in Jones Act
377
cases accordingly, courts can give proper effect to the remedial
scheme Congress has created for injured maritime workers.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE BREYER
join, concurring in the judgment.
The majority has reached the odd conclusion that a maritime
engineer, injured aboard ship on the high seas while performing his
duties as an employee of the ship, might not be a "seaman" within
the meaning of the Jones Act. This decision is unprecedented. It
ignores the critical distinction between work performed aboard ship
during a voyagewhen the members of the crew encounter "the perils
of the sea"-and maritime work performed on a vessel moored to a
dock in a safe harbor. In my judgment, an employee of the ship who
is injured at sea in the course of his employment is always a
"seaman." I would leave more ambiguous, shorebound cases for
another day. Accordingly, though I concur in the Court's
disposition of this case, returning it to the District Court for a
new trial, I disagree with the standard this Court directs the
trial court to apply on remand.
I
The Jones Act,1 46 U. S. C. App. § 688, provides, in part,
"[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his
employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at
law." In this case, it is undisputed that respondent, Antonios
Latsis, was injured in the course of his employment. When the
injury occurred, he was on board the steamship
Galileo, a
vessel in navigation in the Atlantic Ocean. He was therefore
exposed to the perils of the sea; indeed, as the Court of Appeals
correctly noted, "his injury
1 The "Jones Act" is actually § 33 of the Merchant Marine Act,
1920, 41 Stat. 1007.
378
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
was the result of such a peril." 2 Respondent was not a mere
passenger; he was performing duties for his employer that
contributed to the ship's mission. In common parlance, then, he was
a member of the crew of the
Galileo. I think these facts are
sufficient to establish that respondent was, as a matter of law, a
"seaman" within the meaning of the Jones Act at the time of his
injury. Although the character of Latsis' responsibilities before
the voyage began and after it ended would be relevant in
determining his status if he had been injured while the ship was in
port, they have no bearing on his status as a member of the
Galileo's crew during the voyage.
This conclusion follows, first, from the language of the Jones
Act and of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act
(LHWCA), 33 U. S. C. § 901
et seq. The latter, a federal
workers' compensation scheme for shore-based maritime workers,
exempts any "master or member of a crew of any vessel," 33 U. S. C.
§ 902(3)(G)-a formulation that, we have held, is coextensive with
the term "seaman" in the Jones Act.
McDermott Int'l, Inc. v.
Wilander, 498
U. S. 337,347 (1991). In ordinary parlance, an employee of a
ship at sea who is on that ship as part of his employment and who
contributes to the ship's mission is both a "seaman" and a "member
of [the] crew of [the] vessel." Indeed, I am not sure how these
words can reasonably be read to exclude such an employee. Surely
none of the statutory language suggests that the individual must be
a member of the ship's crew for longer than a single voyage.
My conclusion also comports with the clear purpose of the Jones
Act and of the other maritime law remedies tradition-
2 "Latsis's employment did expose him to the perils of the
sea-in fact, his injury was the result of such a peril in the sense
that while on board a seaman is very much reliant upon and in the
care of the ship's physician. If that physician is unqualified or
engages in medical malpractice, it is just as much a peril to the
mariner on board as the killer wave, the gale or hurricane, or
other dangers of the calling."
20 F.3d
45, 55 (CA2 1994).
379
ally afforded to seamen: 3 to protect maritime workers from
exposure to the perils of the sea. In
Wi lander, 498 U. S.,
at 354, we endorsed Chief Justice Stone's explanation of the
admiralty law's favored treatment of seamen. Chief Justice Stone
wrote:
"The liability of the vessel or owner for maintenance and cure,
regardless of their negligence, was established long before our
modern conception of contract. But it, like the liability to
indemnify the seaman for injuries resulting from unseaworthiness,
has been universally recognized as an obligation growing out of the
status of the seaman and his peculiar relationship to the vessel,
and as a feature of the maritime law compensating or offsetting the
special hazards and disadvantages to which they who go down to sea
in ships are subjected. They are exposed to the perils of the sea
and all the risks of unseaworthiness, with little opportunity to
avoid those dangers or to discover and protect themselves from them
or to prove who is responsible for the unseaworthiness causing the
injury.
"For these reasons the seaman has been given a special status in
the maritime law as the ward of the admiralty, entitled to special
protection of the law not extended to land employees. Justice Story
said in Reed v. Canfield, Fed. Cas. No. 11,641, 1
Sumn. 195, 199: 'Seamen are in some sort co-adventurers upon the
voyage; and lose their wages upon casualties, which do not affect
artisans at home. They share the fate of the ship in cases of
shipwreck and capture. They are liable to different rules of
discipline and sufferings from landsmen. The policy of the maritime
law, for great, and wise, and benevolent purposes, has built up
peculiar rights, privi-
3 These remedies are maintenance and cure and recovery for
unseaworthiness. See G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty,
ch. VI (2d ed. 1975).
380
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
leges, duties, and liabilities in the sea-service, which do not
belong to home pursuits.'" Seas Shipping Co. v.
Sieracki, 328
U. S. 85, 104-105 (1946) (dissenting opinion) (citations
omitted).
This exposure to the perils of the sea is what separates seamen
from longshoremen, who are subject to entirely different, and
usually less advantageous, remedies for injuries suffered in the
course of their employment. Chief Justice Stone continued:
"It is for these reasons that throughout the long history of the
maritime law the right to maintenance and cure, and later the right
to indemnity for injuries attributable to unseaworthiness, have
been confined to seamen. Longshoremen and harbor workers are in a
class very different from seamen, and one not calling for the
creation of extraordinary obligations of the vessel or its owner in
their favor, more than other classes of essentially land workers.
Unlike members of the crew of a vessel they do not go to sea; they
are not subject to the rigid discipline of the sea; they are not
prevented by law or ship's discipline from leaving the vessel on
which they may be employed; they have the same recourse as land
workers to avoid the hazards to which they are exposed, to
ascertain the cause of their injury and to prove it in court."
Id., at 105.
In some cases, workers who labor on ships close to shore may
face sufficient exposure to the perils of the sea to merit seaman
status. The determination of seaman status will depend on the
particular facts of the case. See,
e. g., Desper v.
Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187 (1952); 4
Senko v.
4 In
Desper, we held that a worlrman on a moored barge
was not a "seaman" at the time of his death even though "he was a
probable navigator in the near future." 342 U. S., at 191. We noted
that "[t]he many cases turning upon the question whether an
individual was a 'seaman' demon-
381
LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370 (1957);
Grimes v.
Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252 (1958);
Butler v.
Whiteman, 356 U. S. 271 (1958).
When the extent and consequence of the employee's exposure to the
seaman's hazards is facially unclear, a test like the majority's
may be appropriate. But no ambiguity exists when an employee is
injured on the high seas. Unquestionably, that employee faces the
perils associated with the voyage. Incontrovertibly, that employee
is a "master or member of a crew of any vessel," within the meaning
of the LHWCA, and hence a "seaman" under the Jones Act. Whatever
treatment Congress intended for employees working in proximity to
the shoreline, certainly it intended to extend Jones Act protection
to the captain and crew of a ship on the high seas.
This conclusion is consistent with every Jones Act case that
this Court has decided. Justice Cardozo's opinion for the Court in
Warner v.
Goltra, 293 U. S. 155 (1934), set
a course that we have consistently followed. Explaining our holding
that the master of a tugboat is a "seaman," he explained that "[i]t
is enough that what he does affects 'the operation and welfare of
the ship when she is upon a voyage.'''
Id., at 157.5 Indeed,
apart from the argument that a seaman must assist in performing the
transportation function of the vessel-an argument finally put to
rest in
M cDermott Int'l, Inc. v.
Wi lander, 498 U. S. 337 (1991)-1 am
not aware of a single Jones Act case decided by this Court,
other
strate that the matter depends largely on the facts of the
particular case and the activity in which he was engaged at the
time of injury .... [T]here was no vessel engaged in navigation at
the time of the decedent's death."
Id., at 190-191.
5 The quotation is from a pre-Jones Act case,
The Buena
Ventura, 243 F. 797, 799 (SDNY 1916). Earlier in his opinion,
Justice Cardozo had noted: "In the enforcement of the statute a
policy of liberal construction announced at the beginning has been
steadily maintained."
Warner, 293 U. S., at 156.
382
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
than
Warner,6 in which anyone even
argued that an
employee who was aboard the ship contributing to the ship's mission
while the vessel was in navigation on the high seas was not a
seaman. In light of the purposes of the Jones Act, that position is
simply too farfetched. As a leading admiralty treatise has
recognized, "[i]t seems never to have been questioned that any
member of a ship's company who actually goes to sea, no matter what
his (or her) duties may be, is a seaman." G. Gilmore & C.
Black, Law of Admiralty § 6-21,
Surely nothing in
Wilander contradicts this basic
proposition. In that opinion, we made several references to the
importance of work performed on a voyage. Thus, we quoted from
leading 19th-century treatises on admiralty: " 'The term mariner
includes all persons employed on board ships and vessels during the
voyage to assist in their navigation and preservation, or to
promote the purposes of the voyage .... [A]t all times and in all
countries, all the persons who have been necessarily or properly
employed in a vessel as colaborers to the great purpose of the
voyage, have, by the law, been clothed with the legal rights of
mariners.''' 498 U. S., at 344-345 (emphasis deleted), quoting E.
Benedict, American Admiralty §§278, 241, pp. 158, 133-134 (1850).
"An 1883 treatise declared: 'All persons employed on a vessel to
assist in the main purpose of the voyage are mariners, and included
under the name of seamen.' M. Cohen, Admiralty 239." 498 U. S., at
346. Summarizing our conclusion, we wrote:
"We believe the better rule is to define 'master or member of a
crew' under the LHWCA, and therefore 'seaman' under the Jones Act,
solely in terms of the em-
6 Even in
Warner, no one contested the basic proposition
that an employee of a ship at sea is a "seaman." Instead, the issue
in that case was whether the term "seaman" extended to the
captain of such a ship, or whether it referred only to lower
level employees. The Court, applying the "liberal construction"
that Congress intended, held that the master was a "seaman."
383
ployee's connection to a vessel in navigation. This rule best
explains our case law and is consistent with the pre-Jones Act
interpretation of 'seaman' and Congress' land-based/sea-based
distinction. All who work at sea in the service of a ship face
those particular perils to which the protection of maritime law,
statutory as well as decisional, is directed." Id., at
354.
Our opinion in
Wilander is thus entirely consistent with
my view that while a vessel is at sea every member of its crew is a
seaman within the meaning of the Jones Act.
II
Despite the language, history, and purpose of the Jones Act, the
Court today holds that seaman status may require more than a single
ocean voyage. The Court's opinion thus obscures, if it does not
ignore, the distinction between the perils of the sea and the risks
faced by maritime workers when a ship is moored to a dock. The test
that the Court formulates may be appropriate for the resolution of
cases in the latter category. The Court fails, however, to explain
why the member of the crew of a vessel at sea is not always a
seaman.
Respondent's argument, that "any worker who is assigned to a
vessel for the duration of a voyage and whose duties contribute to
the vessel's mission must be classified as a seaman respecting
injuries incurred on that voyage," Brief for Respondent 14, is not
inconsistent with the Court's view,
ante, at 359-361, that
an employee must occupy a certain status in order to qualify as a
seaman. It merely recognizes that all members of a ship's crew have
that status while the vessel is at sea. In contrast, when the ship
is in a harbor, further inquiry may be necessary to separate
land-based from sea-based maritime employees. The Court is
therefore simply wrong when it states that a "'voyage test' would
conflict with our prior understanding of the Jones Act as
fundamentally status based, granting the negligence cause
384
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
of action to those maritime workers who form the ship's
company,"
ante, at 362. The "ship's company" is readily
identifiable when the ship is at sea; the fact that it may be less
so when the ship is in port is not an acceptable reason for
refusing to rely on the voyage test in a case like this one.
The Court is also quite wrong to suggest that our prior cases
"indicate that a maritime worker does not become a 'member of a
crew' as soon as a vessel leaves the dock,"
ante, at 361. In
neither of the two cases on which it relies to support this
conclusion did the injured workman even claim the status of a
seaman. In
Director, Office of Workers' Compensation
Programs v.
Perini North River Associates, 459 U. S. 297 (1983), we
held that an employee of a firm that was building the foundation of
a sewage treatment plant, which extended over the Hudson River
adjacent to Manhattan, was covered by the LHWCA because he was
injured while working on a barge in navigable waters. The Court of
Appeals had denied coverage on the ground that this worker was not
engaged in maritime employment. Thus,
Perini had nothing to
do with any possible overlap between the Jones Act and the LHWCA;
this Court's reversal merely found a sufficient maritime connection
to support LHWCA coverage of an admittedly shore-based worker.
The other case that the Court cites,
Parker v.
Motor
Boat Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244 (1941),
involved a janitor who had drowned while riding in a motorboat on
the James River near Richmond. The Court of Appeals had held that
his widow was not entitled to compensation under the LHWCA on the
alternative grounds (1) that the janitor was not acting in the
course of his employment when the boat capsized, and (2) that the
LHWCA did not apply because Virginia law could provide
compensation. See
id., at 245. As in
Perini, our
opinion reversing that decision did not discuss the Jones Act,
because no one had even mentioned the possibility that the janitor
might be a "seaman." Because
Parker was decided during the
19-year period "during which the Court did
385
not recognize the mutual exclusivity of the LHWCA and the Jones
Act,"
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 348,7 it is not at all clear
that the Court, if asked to do so, would not have found that the
janitor was a Jones Act seaman as well as an LHWCAcovered employee.
Accordingly, the cases cited by the majority lend no support to its
holding that the member of a crew of a ship at sea is not always a
seaman.
The Court's only other justification for refusing to apply a
voyage test is its purported concern about a worker who might "walk
into and out of coverage in the course of his regular duties."
Ante, at 363 (internal quotation marks omitted). Because the
only way that a seaman could walk out of Jones Act coverage during
a voyage would be to quit his job and become a passenger (or
possibly jump overboard), I take the majority's argument to mean
that a single voyage is not a long enough time to establish seaman
status.8 I simply do not understand this argument. Surely a voyage
is sufficient time to establish an employment-related, status-based
connection to a vessel in navigation that exposes the employee to
the perils of the sea. The majority cannot explain why an employee
who signs on for a single journey is any less a "seaman" or "member
of a crew" if he intends to become an insurance agent after the
voyage than if he intends to remain with the ship. What is
important is the employee's status at the time of the injury, not
his status a day, a month, or a year beforehand or afterward.
Apparently, the majority's real concern about walking in and out
of coverage is that an employer will be unable to predict which of
his employees will be covered by the Jones Act, and which by the
LHWCA, on any given day. I think
7 During this period, the Court incorrectly treated stevedores
working on moored vessels as seamen covered by the Jones Act under
the preLHWCA ruling in
International Stevedoring Co. v.
Haverty, 272 U.
S. 50 (1926). See
Wi lander, 498 U. S., at 348-349.
8 Or at least, it is not necessarily a long enough time. It
depends on the facts. See
ante, at 371-372.
386
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
it is a novel construction of the Jones Act to read it as a
scheme to protect employers.9 But even if Congress had shared the
Court's concern, this case does not implicate it in the least. We
are talking here about a lengthy voyage on the high seas. The
employer controls who goes on that voyage; he knows, more or less,
when that voyage will begin and when it will end. And, but for the
majority's decision today, he would know that while the ship is at
sea, all his employees thereon would be covered by the Jones Act
and not by the LHWCA. Thus, no one is walking out of Jones Act
coverage and into LHWCA coverage (or vice versa) without the
employer's knowledge and control. Once again, the majority's
concern-and its method of determining seaman status-is properly
directed at injuries occurring while the ship is at port.
As a matter of history, this concern with oscillating back and
forth between different types of compensation systems recalls a
very different and far more serious problem: the difficulty of
defining who is a "maritime employee" (a class of workers that
includes both seamen and longshoremen) and who is not. Over the
powerful dissent of Justice Holmes, in
Southern Pacific Co.
v.
Jensen, 244
U. S. 205 (1917), the Court held that the constitutional grant
of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction to the federal courts
prevented the State of New York from applying its workmen's
compensation statute to a longshoreman who was injured on a gang
plank about 10 feet seaward of Pier 49 in New York City. Jensen was
a shore-based worker who had walked out of the coverage of the
state law into an unprotected federal area-the area seaward of the
shoreline. In enacting the
9The Jones Act was passed to overturn the harsh rule of
The
Osceola, 189 U.
S. 158 (1903), which disallowed any recovery by a seaman for
negligence of the master or any member of the crew of his ship
under general maritime law.
McDermott Int'l, Inc. v.
Wilander, 498
U. S. 337, 342 (1991). The aim of the statute, then, was to
expand the remedies available to employees, not to aid their
employers.
387
LHWCA, Congress in 1927 responded to
Jensen and its
progeny by extending federal protection to shore-based workers
injured while temporarily on navigable waters. The statute excluded
Jones Act seamen, on the one hand, and shore-based workers while
they were on the landward side of the
Jensen line, on the
other. As we have explained on more than one occasion, then, the
LHWCA was originally a "gap-filling" measure intended to create
coverage for those workers for whom, after
Jensen, States
could not provide compensation. See,
e. g., Norton v.
Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565, 570
(1944);
Davis v.
Department of Labor and Industries of
Wash., 317 U. S.
249, 252-253 (1942); see also S. Rep. No. 973, 69th Cong., 1st
Sess., 16 (1926).10
Thus, the majority's concern about employees "walking in and out
of coverage" evokes images of a real problem engendered by
Jensen-the problem of employees changing their legal status,
sometimes many times a day, merely by walking from one place to
another in the course of their employment. That problem is not
implicated in this case. At the time of his injury Latsis was
employed, with the full knowledge of his employer, on a ship at
sea. He could not walk out of coverage until the voyage was over.
At the end of the voyage, if Latsis had taken on other duties,
wholly or partly on land, and had been injured while so engaged,
then the major-
10 Whereas the LHWCA as enacted in 1927 responded to the problem
of employees who walked out of state coverage every time they
boarded a ship, the 1972 amendment to that Act responded to the
opposite concernlongshoremen who walked out of federal coverage
every time they left the ship. Because state compensation schemes
were sometimes less generous than the LHWCA, Congress expanded the
federal coverage to encompass injuries occurring on piers and
adjacent land used for loading and unloading ships. See H. R. Rep.
No. 92-1441, pp. 10-11 (1972). Because the class of workers
protected by the LHWCA continued to be composed entirely of
shore-based workers, the 1972 amendment appropriately preserved the
exclusion of Jones Act seamen. It did not alter the original 1927
Act's constructive definition of "seaman" as "master or member of a
crew of any vessel."
388
STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment
ity's concern might have substance. But in this case, the
majority's concern-and its test for seaman status-is completely
misplaced.
III
In my opinion every member of the crew of a vessel is entitled
to the protection of the Jones Act during a voyage on the high
seas, even if he was not a part of the crew before the ship left
port, and even if he abandoned the ship the moment it arrived at
its destination. This view is consistent with every Jones Act case
this Court has ever decided, and it is faithful to the statutory
purpose to provide special protection to those who must encounter
the perils of the sea while earning their livelihood. Whether a
sailor voluntarily signs on for a single voyage, as Jim Hawkins
did,l1 or, like Billy Budd, is impressed into duty against his
will,12 he is surely a seaman when his ship sails, whatever fate
might await him at the end of the voyage.
11 R. Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883). 12 H. Melville, Billy
Budd (1924).
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