OCTOBER TERM, 1996
Syllabus
HARBOR TUG & BARGE CO.
v. PAPAl ET ux.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH
CIRCUIT
No.95-1621. Argued January 13, 1997-Decided May 12, 1997
Respondent Papai was injured while painting the housing
structure of the tug
Pt. Barrow. Petitioner Harbor Tug &
Barge Co., the tug's operator, had hired him to do the work, which
was expected to last one day and would not involve sailing with the
vessel. Papai had been employed by Harbor Tug on 12 previous
occasions in the 21/2 months before his injury, receiving those
jobs through the Inland Boatman's Union (lEU) hiring hall. He had
been getting short-term jobs with various vessels through the
hiring hall for about 2Y4 years. Most of those were deckhand work,
which Papai said involved manning the lines on- and off-board
vessels while they dock or undock. Papai sued Harbor Tug, claiming,
inter alia, negligence under the Jones Act, and his wife
joined as a plaintiff, claiming loss of consortium. The District
Court granted Harbor Tug summary judgment upon finding that Papai
did not enjoy seaman status under the Jones Act, and it later
confirmed that adjudication. The Ninth Circuit reversed and
remanded for a trial of, among other things, Papai's seaman status
and his corresponding Jones Act claim. Based on
Chandris,
Inc. v.
Latsis, 515 U. S. 347, the court
described the relevant inquiry as not whether Papai had a permanent
connection with the vessel but whether his relationship with a
vessel or an identifiable group of vessels was substantial in
duration and nature, and found that this required consideration of
his employment's total circumstances. The court determined that a
reasonable jury could conclude that Papai satisfied that test, for
if the type of work a maritime worker customarily performs would
entitle him to seaman status if performed for a single employer, he
should not be deprived of that status simply because the industry
operates under a daily assignment, rather than a permanent
employment, system.
Held:
1. Because the issue whether the record permits a reasonable
jury to conclude that Papai is a Jones Act seaman is here resolved
in the employer's favor, this Court does not reach the question
whether an administrative ruling for an employee on his claim of
Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act coverage bars his
claim of seaman status in a Jones Act suit. P. 550.
549
2. This record would not permit a reasonable jury to conclude
that Papai is a Jones Act seaman. Jones Act coverage is confined to
seamen, those workers who face regular exposure to the perils of
the sea. An important part of the test for determining who is a
seaman is whether the injured worker has a substantial connection
to a vessel or to a fleet of vessels, and the latter concept
requires a requisite degree of common ownership or control.
Chandris, 515 U. S., at 366. The requisite link is not
established by the mere use of the same hiring hall which draws
from the same pool of employees. The various vessels on which Papai
worked through the IBU hiring hall in the 2Y4 years before his
injury were not linked by any common ownership or control.
Considering prior employments with independent employers in making
the seaman status inquiry would undermine "the interests of
employers and maritime workers alike in being able to predict who
will be covered by the Jones Act ... before a particular work day
begins,"
id., at 363, and there would be no principled basis
for limiting which prior employments are considered for determining
seaman status. That the IBU Deckhands Agreement classified Papai as
a deckhand does not give him claim to seaman status. Seaman status
is based on his actual duties,
South Chicago Coal &
Dock Co. v.
Bassett, 309 U. S. 251, 260, and
Papai's duties during the employment in question included no
seagoing activity. Nor is it reasonable to infer from his testimony
that his 12 prior employments with Harbor Tug involved work of a
seagoing nature that could qualify him for seaman status. Pp.
553-560.
67 F.3d
203, reversed.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ.,
joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG
and BREYER, JJ., joined,
post, p. 560.
Eric Danoff argued the cause for petitioner. With him on
the briefs was
Richard K. Willard.
Thomas J. Boyle argued the cause and filed
a brief for respondents.
David C.
Frederick argued the cause for the United
States as
amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the
brief were
Acting Solicitor General Dellinger, Deputy
Solicitor
550
General Kneedler,
J. Davitt McAteer, Allen H. Feldman,
Nathaniel 1. Spiller, and Mark S. Flynn.
*
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. Adjudication
to determine whether a maritime employee is a seaman under the
Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a), or a maritime employee
covered by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act
(LHWCA), 44 Stat. (pt. 2) 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 901
et
seq., continues to be of concern in our system. The distinction
between the two mutually exclusive categories can be difficult to
implement, and many cases turn on their specific facts.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in this case
that there was a jury question as to whether an injured worker was
a Jones Act seaman. Granting the employer's petition for a writ of
certiorari, we brought two questions before us. The first is
whether an administrative ruling in favor of the employee on his
claim of coverage under the LHWCA bars his claim of seaman status
in the Jones Act suit he wishes to pursue in district court. The
second is whether this record would permit a reasonable jury to
conclude the employee is a Jones Act seaman. We resolve the second
question in the employer's favor and, as it is dispositive of the
case, we do not reach the first.
On the question of seaman status, there is an issue of
significance beyond the facts of this case. Our statement in an
earlier case that a worker may establish seaman status based on the
substantiality of his connection to "an identifiable group of ...
vessels" in navigation, see
Chandris, Inc. v.
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
Industrial Indemnity Co. et al. by
Roger A. Levy and
J. Mark Foley; and for the Shipbuilders Council of
America et al. by
Charles T. Carroll, Jr., F.
Edwin
Froelich, Franklin W Losey, and
Lloyd A. Schwartz.
A brief of
amicus curiae urging affirmance was filed for
the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America by
John T. DeCarlo and
John R. Hillsman.
551
Latsis, 515
U. S. 347, 368 (1995), has been subject to differing
interpretations, and we seek to provide clarification.
I
Respondent John Papai was painting the housing structure of the
tug
Pt. Barrow when a ladder he was on moved, he alleges,
causing him to fall and injure his knee. App. 50. Petitioner Harbor
Tug & Barge Co., the tug's operator, had hired Papai to do the
painting work.
Id., at 44. A prime coat of paint had been
applied and it was Papai's task to apply the finish coat.
Id., at 45. There was no vessel captain on board and Papai
reported to the port captain, who had a dockside office.
Id., at 36-37. The employment was expected to begin and end
the same day,
id., at 35, 48, and Papai was not going to
sail with the vessel after he finished painting,
id., at 51.
Papai had been employed by Harbor Tug on 12 previous occasions in
the 2lf2 months before his injury.
Papai received his jobs with Harbor Tug through the Inland
Boatman's Union (IBU) hiring hall. He had been getting jobs with
various vessels through the hiring hall for about 21;4 years. All
the jobs were short term. The longest lasted about 40 days and most
were for 3 days or under.
Id., at 29, 34. In a deposition,
Papai described the work as coming under three headings:
maintenance, longshoring, and deckhand.
Id., at 30-32. Papai
said maintenance work involved chipping rust and painting aboard
docked vessels.
Id., at 30,34-35. Longshoring work required
helping to discharge vessels.
Id., at 31. Deckhand work
involved manning the lines on- and off-board vessels while they
docked or undocked.
Id., at 30. As for the assignments he
obtained through the hiring hall over 21;4 years, most of them,
says Papai, involved deckhand work.
Id., at 34.
After his alleged injury aboard the
Pt. Barrow, Papai
sued Harbor Tug in the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California, claiming negligence under
552
the Jones Act and unseaworthiness under general maritime law, in
addition to other causes of action. His wife joined as a plaintiff,
claiming loss of consortium. Harbor Tug sought summary judgment on
Papai's Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims, contending he was not
a seaman and so could not prevail on either claim. The District
Court granted Harbor Tug's motion and later denied Papai's motion
for reconsideration. After our decisions in
McDermott Int'l,
Inc. v.
Wi lander, 498 U. S. 337 (1991), and
Southwest Marine, Inc. v.
Gizoni, 502 U. S. 81 (1991), the
District Court granted a motion by Harbor Tug "to confirm" the
earlier summary adjudication of Papai's nonseaman status. The
District Court reasoned, under a test since superseded, see
Chandris, supra, that Papai was not a seaman within the
meaning of the Jones Act or the general maritime law, because "he
did not have a 'more or less permanent connection' with the vessel
on which he was injured nor did he perform substantial work on the
vessel sufficient for seaman status." App. to Pet. for Cert.
27a.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded
for a trial of Papai's seaman status and his corresponding Jones
Act and unseaworthiness claims. Based on our decision in
Chandris, the court described the relevant inquiry as "not
whether plaintiff had a permanent connection with the vessel [but]
whether plaintiff's relationship with a vessel (or a group of
vessels) was substantial in terms of duration and nature, which
requires consideration of the total circumstances of his
employment."
67 F.3d
203, 206 (1995). A majority of the panel believed it would be
reasonable for a jury to conclude the employee satisfied that test.
In the majority's view, "[i]f the type of work a maritime worker
customarily performs would entitle him to seaman status if
performed for a single employer, the worker should not be deprived
of that status simply because the industry operates under a daily
assignment rather than a permanent employment system."
Ibid.
The majority also said the
553
"circumstance" that Papai had worked for Harbor Tug on 12
occasions during the 2% months before his injury "may in itself
provide a sufficient connection" to Harbor Tug's vessels to
establish seaman status.
Ibid.
Judge Poole dissented from the majority's holding that there was
a triable issue as to Papai's seaman status. He recognized that
Chandris held out the possibility of being a seaman without
a substantial connection to a particular vessel in navigation,
provided one nevertheless had the required connection to "'an
identifiable group of such vessels.'" 67 F. 3d, at 209 (quoting 515
U. S., at 368). Judge Poole said, however, it would be a mistake to
view
Chandris as holding that, for seaman-status purposes, a
"group may be identified simply as those vessels on which a sailor
sails, not just those of a particular employer or controlling
entity .... Th[e majority's holding] renders the 'identifiable
group' or 'fleet' requirement a nullity." 67 F. 3d, at 209
(citation omitted). Judge Poole also noted that the majority's
position conflicted with that of the Fifth Circuit (en bane) and of
a Third Circuit panel.
Ibid. (citing
Barrett v.
Chevron, U. S.
A., Inc., 781 F. 2d 1067 (CA5 1986)
(en bane);
Reeves v.
Mobile Dredging &
Pumping
Co., 26 F.3d
1247 (CA3 1994)); see also
Johnson v.
Continental
Grain Co., 58 F.3d
1232 (CA8 1995); but see
Fisher v.
Nichols,
81 F.3d
319, 323 (CA2 1996) (rejecting common ownership or control
requirement).
We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1055 (1996), and now
reverse.
II
The LHWCA, a maritime workers' compensation scheme, excludes
from its coverage "a master or member of a crew of any vessel," 33
U. S. C. § 902(3)(G). These masters and crewmembers are the seamen
entitled to sue for damages under the Jones Act.
Chandris,
515 U. S., at 355-358. In other words, the LHWCA and the Jones Act
are "mutually exclusive."
Id., at 355-356.
554
Our recent cases explain the proper inquiry to determine seaman
status. We need not restate that doctrinal development, see
id., at 355-368;
Wi lander, supra, at 341-354, to
resolve Papai's claim. It suffices to cite
Chandris, which
held, in pertinent part:
"[T]he essential requirements for seaman status are twofold.
First, ... an employee's duties must contribut[e] to the function
of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission ....
"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." 515 U. S., at 368 (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted).
The seaman inquiry is a mixed question of law and fact, and it
often will be inappropriate to take the question from the jury.
Nevertheless, "summary judgment or a directed verdict is mandated
where the facts and the law will reasonably support only one
conclusion."
Wi lander, supra, at 356; see also
Chandris, 515 U. S., at 368-369.
Harbor Tug does not dispute that it would be reasonable for a
jury to conclude Papai's duties aboard the
Pt. Barrow (or
any other vessel he worked on through the lBU hiring hall)
contributed to the function of the vessel or the accomplishment of
its mission, satisfying
Chandris' first standard. Nor does
Harbor Tug dispute that a reasonable jury could conclude that the
Pt. Barrow or other vessels Papai worked on were in
navigation. The result, as will often be the case, is that seaman
status turns on the part of
Chandris' second standard which
requires the employee to show "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."
Id., at 368. We explained the rule as follows:
555
"The fundamental purpose of thee] substantial connection
requirement is to give full effect to the remedial scheme created
by Congress and to separate the seabased maritime employees who are
entitled to Jones Act protection from those land-based workers who
have only a transitory or sporadic connection with a vessel in
navigation, and therefore whose employment does not regularly
expose them to the perils of the sea." Ibid.
For the substantial connection requirement to serve its purpose,
the inquiry into the nature of the employee's connection to the
vessel must concentrate on whether the employee's duties take him
to sea. This will give substance to the inquiry both as to the
duration and nature of the employee's connection to the vessel and
be helpful in distinguishing land-based from sea-based
employees.
Papai argues, and the Court of Appeals majority held, that Papai
meets
Chandris' second test based on his employments with
the various vessels he worked on through the IBU hiring hall in the
2% years before his injury, vessels owned, it appears, by three
different employers not linked by any common ownership or control,
App. 38. He also did longshoring work through the hiring hall,
id., at 31, and it appears this was for still other
employers,
id., at 38. As noted above, Papai testified at
his deposition that the majority of his work during this period was
deckhand work. According to Papai, this satisfies
Chandris
because the group of vessels Papai worked on through the IBU hiring
hall constitutes "an identifiable group of ... vessels" to which he
has a "substantial connection." 515 U. S., at 368.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the first to hold
that a worker could qualify as a seaman based on his connection to
a group of vessels rather than a particular one. In
Braniff
v.
Jackson Ave.-Gretna Ferry, Inc., 280
F.2d 523 (1960), the court held the employer was not entitled
to summary judgment on the seaman-status question where an
556
employee's job was to perform maintenance work on the employer's
fleet of ferry boats, often while the boats were running: "The
usual thing, of course, is for a person to have a Jones Act seaman
status in relation to a particular vessel. But there is nothing
about this ... concept to limit it mechanically to a single ship."
Id., at 528. There is "no insurmountable difficulty," the
court explained, in finding seaman status based on the employee's
relationship to "several specific vessels"-"an identifiable
fleet"-as opposed to a single one.
Ibid.
We, in turn, adverted to the group of vessels concept in
Chandris. We described it as a rule "allow[ing] 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." 515 U. S., at 366. The majority in
the Court of Appeals did not discuss our description of the group
of vessels concept as requiring common ownership or control, nor
did it discuss other Courts of Appeals cases applying the concept,
see,
e. g., Reeves v.
Mobile Dredging &
Pumping Co., 26 F. 3d, at 1258. The court pointed to this
statement from
Chandris: "[W]e see no reason to limit the
seaman status inquiry ... exclusively to an examination of the
overall course of a worker's service with a particular employer."
515 U. S., at 371-372. It interpreted this to mean "it may be
necessary to examine the work performed by the employee while
employed by different employers during the relevant time period."
67 F. 3d, at 206. The court did not define what it meant by "the
relevant time period." In any event, the context of our statement
in
Chandris makes clear our meaning, which is that the
employee's prior work history with a particular employer may not
affect the seaman inquiry if the employee was injured on a new
assignment with the same employer, an assignment with different
"essential duties" from his previous ones. 515 U. S., at 371. In
Chandris, the words "particular employer" give emphasis to
the point that the inquiry into the nature
557
of the employee's duties for seaman-status purposes may
concentrate on a narrower, not broader, period than the employee's
entire course of employment with his current employer. There was no
suggestion of a need to examine the nature of an employee's duties
with prior employers. See also
id., at 367 ("Since
Barrett [v.
Chevron, U. S.
A., Inc., 781 F. 2d
1067 (CA5 1986) (en bane)], the Fifth Circuit consistently has
analyzed the problem [of determining seaman status] in terms of the
percentage of work performed on vessels for the employer in
question"). The Court of Appeals majority interpreted the words
"particular employer" outside the limited discussion in which we
used them and, as a result, gave the phrase a meaning opposite from
what the context requires.
The Court of Appeals stressed that various of Papai's employers
had "join[ed] together to obtain a common labor pool on which they
draw by means of a union hiring hall." 67 F. 3d, at 206; see also
id., at 206, n. 3 (suggesting that this case involves a
"group of vessels [that] have collectively agreed to obtain
employees" from a hiring hall). There is no evidence in the record
that the contract Harbor Tug had with the IBU about employing
deckhands (IBU Deckhands Agreement) was negotiated by a
multiemployer bargaining group, and, even if it had been, that
would not affect the result here. There was no showing that the
group of vessels the court sought to identify were subject to
unitary ownership or control in any aspect of their business or
operation. So far as the record shows, each employer was free to
hire, assign, and direct workers for whatever tasks and time period
they each determined, limited, at most, by the IBU Deckhands
Agreement. In deciding whether there is an identifiable group of
vessels of relevance for a Jones Act seaman-status determination,
the question is whether the vessels are subject to common ownership
or control. The requisite link is not established by the mere use
of the same hiring hall which draws from the same pool of
employees.
558
Considering prior employments with independent employers in
making the seaman-status inquiry would undermine "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 work day begins."
Chandris, supra, at 363. There would be no principled basis
for limiting which prior employments are considered for determining
seaman status. The Court of Appeals spoke of a "relevant time
period" but, as noted above, it did not define this term. Since the
substantial connection standard is often, as here, the
determinative element of the seaman inquiry, it must be given
workable and practical confines. When the inquiry further turns on
whether the employee has a substantial connection to an
identifiable group of vessels, common ownership or control is
essential for this purpose.
Papai contends his various employers through the hiring hall
would have been able to predict his status as a seaman under the
Jones Act based on the seagoing nature of some of the duties he
could have been hired to perform consistent with his classification
as a "qualified deckhand" under the IBU Deckhands Agreement. By the
terms of the agreement, Papai was qualified as a "satisfactory
helmsman and lookout," for example, and he could have been hired to
serve a vessel while it was underway, in which case his duties
would have included "conduct[ing] a check of the engine room status
a minimum of two (2) times each watch ... for vessel safety
reasons." App.77. In
South Chicago Coal & Dock
Co. v.
Bassett, 309 U. S. 251 (1940), we
rejected a claim to seaman status grounded on the employee's job
title, which also happened to be "deckhand." "The question," we
said, "concerns his actual duties."
Id., at 260. See also
Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v.
Caputo, 432 U. S. 249, 268, n. 30
(1977) (reasoning that employee's membership in longshoremen's
union was, in itself, irrelevant to whether employee
559
was covered by the LHWCA, as fact of union membership was
unrelated to the purposes of the LHWCA's coverage provisions). The
question is what connection the employee had in actual fact to
vessel operations, not what a union agreement says. Papai was
qualified under the IBU Deckhands Agreement to perform non seagoing
work in addition to the seagoing duties described above. His actual
duty on the
Pt. Barrow throughout the employment in question
did not include any seagoing activity; he was hired for one day to
paint the vessel at dockside and he was not going to sail with the
vessel after he finished painting it. App. 44, 48, 51. This is not
a case where the employee was hired to perform seagoing work during
the employment in question, however brief, and we need not consider
here the consequences of such an employment. The IBU Deckhands
Agreement gives no reason to assume that any particular percentage
of Papai's work would be of a seagoing nature, subjecting him to
the perils of the sea. In these circumstances, the union agreement
does not advance the accuracy of the seamanstatus inquiry.
Papai argues he qualifies as a seaman if we consider his 12
prior employments with Harbor Tug over the 2lh months before his
injury. Papai testified at his deposition that he worked aboard the
Pt. Barrow on three or four occasions before the day he was
injured, the most recent of which was more than a week earlier.
Id., at 35, 44. Each of these engagements involved only
maintenance work while the tug was docked.
Id., at 34-35.
The nature of Papai's connection to the
Pt. Barrow was no
more substantial for seamanstatus purposes by virtue of these
engagements than the one during which he was injured. Papai does
not identify with specificity what he did for Harbor Tug the other
eight or nine times he worked for the company in the 2lh months
before his injury. The closest he comes is his deposition testimony
that 70 percent of his work over the 21;4 years before his injury
was deckhand work.
Id., at 34. Coupled with
560
the fact that none of Papai's work aboard the
Pt. Barrow
was of a seagoing nature, it would not be reasonable to infer from
Papai's testimony that his recent engagements with Harbor Tug
involved work of a seagoing nature. In any event, these discrete
engagements were separate from the one in question, which was the
sort of "transitory or sporadic" connection to a vessel or group of
vessels that, as we explained in
Chandris, does not qualify
one for seaman status. 515 U. S., at 368.
Jones Act coverage is confined to seamen, those workers who face
regular exposure to the perils of the sea. An important part of the
test for determining who is a seaman is whether the injured worker
seeking coverage has a substantial connection to a vessel or a
fleet of vessels, and the latter concept requires a requisite
degree of common ownership or control. The substantial connection
test is important in distinguishing between sea- and land-based
employment, for land-based employment is inconsistent with Jones
Act coverage. This was the holding in
Chandris, and we
adhere to it here. The only connection a reasonable jury could
identify among the vessels Papai worked aboard is that each hired
some of its employees from the same union hiring hall from which
Papai was hired. That is not sufficient to establish seaman status
under the group of vessels concept. Papai had the burden at summary
judgment to "set forth specific facts showing that there is a
genuine issue for trial." Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e). He failed to
meet it. The Court of Appeals erred in holding otherwise. Its
judgment is reversed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG and JUSTICE BREYER
join, dissenting.
During the 2-year period immediately before his injury,
respondent Papai worked as a maintenance man and a deckhand for
various employers who hired out of the Inland Boat-
561
man's Union hiring hall. He testified that about 70 percent of
his work was as a deckhand, and that "most of that work [was] done
while the boats were moving on the water." App. 34. If all of that
deckhand work had been performed for petitioner, there would be no
doubt about Papai's status as a seaman.
Petitioner, however, did not maintain a permanent crew on any of
its vessels.
67 F.3d
203, 204 (CA9 1995). Instead, like other tugboat operators in
the San Francisco Bay area, it obtained its deckhands on a
job-by-job basis through the union hiring hall. Under these
circumstances, I believe the Court of Appeals correctly concluded
that Papai's status as a seaman should be tested by the character
of his work for the group of vessel owners that used the same union
agent to make selections from the same pool of employees.
In
Chandris, Inc. v.
Latsis, 515 U. S. 347 (1995), the
Court rejected a "voyage test" of seaman status, concluding that an
employee who was injured while performing his duties on a vessel on
the high seas was not necessarily a Jones Act seaman.
Id.,
at 358-364. The Court instead adopted a status-based inquiry that
looked at the nature and duration of the employee's relationship to
a vessel-or an identifiable group of vessels-in navigation to
determine whether that employee received Jones Act coverage.
Id., at 370-371. Today, the majority apparently concludes
that an employee is not necessarily protected by the Jones Act even
if he was injured aboard a vessel in navigation
and his work
over the preceding two years was primarily seaman's work. I believe
this conclusion is unsupported by either the reasoning or the
language in the
Chandris opinion.
Chandris' status-based test requires a maritime worker to
have a relationship that is substantial in duration and nature with
a vessel, or an identifiable group of vessels, in navigation. See
id., at 376. Nothing in the Court's holding there intimated
that the "identifiable group of vessels" need all be
562
owned by the same person.1 Particularly in a labor market
designed to allow employers to rely on temporary workers for a
range of jobs, there is "no reason to limit the seaman status
inquiry ... exclusively to an examination of the overall course of
a worker's service with a particular employer."
Id., at
371-372. As the Court of Appeals observed in this case: "If the
type of work a maritime worker customarily performs would entitle
him to seaman status if performed for a single employer, the worker
should not be deprived of that status simply because the industry
operates under a daily assignment rather than a permanent
employment system." 67 F. 3d, at 206.
The unfairness created by the Court's rule is evident.
Let us assume that none of the tugboat operators in the bay area
have permanent crews and that all of them obtain their deckhands on
a more or less random basis through the same hiring hall. Further,
assume that about 70 percent of the work performed by the employees
thus obtained is seaman's work, while the remainder is shore-based
maintenance work. A typical employee working for a typical employer
in that pool would have the status of a seaman, and both the
employees and the employers would be aware of this reality about
their work environment. But under the Court's reasoning, even if
over 70 percent of his randomly selected assignments during a
2-year period were seaman assignments, an injured worker would not
be a seaman for Jones Act purposes if he happened to receive only a
few assignments with the owner of the particular boat on which he
was injured and those assignments were not seaman's work.
1 The majority puts great weight on
Chandris' description
of the Fifth Circuit's case law developing the fleet doctrine as
"modif[ying] 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."
Chandris, 515 U. S., at 366. See
ante, at
556. But that description of the lower court's case law did not
form part of the
Chandris holding, and it should not control
the outcome here.
563
The majority tries to justify this conclusion with the argument
that a rule acknowledging an employee's status as a seaman based on
the work he does for a number of employers who hire out of the same
hiring hall would create uncertainties for employers.
Ante,
at 558. The Court's concern is that an employer might not realize
that an employee he had selected to chip paint on a docked boat had
spent most of the past year as a deckhand on a neighboring vessel.
This fear is exaggerated, since an employer who hires its workers
out of a union hiring hall should be presumed to be familiar with
the general character of their work. Moreover, surely the
unfairness created by the majority's rule outweighs this
concern.
Of course, in order to hold a particular employer liable, an
employment relationship must have existed between the worker and
the particular vessel owner at the time of the injury.
Chandris teaches us, however, that the specific activity
being performed at the time of the injury is not sufficient to
establish the employee's status under the Jones Act. Rather, we
must determine whether an employee has seaman status by looking at
his work history. The character of that history in the market from
which a vessel owner obtains all of its crews seems to me just as
relevant as the assignments to the particular operator for whom
work was being performed when the injury occurred.
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of
Appeals.2
2 On the question the Court does not reach, I think the Court of
Appeals correctly interpreted our opinion in
Southwest Marine,
Inc. v.
Gizoni, 502 U. S. 81 (1991). See also G. Gilmore
& C. Black, Law of Admiralty 435 (2d ed. 1975).
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