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Jones Act Seaman Status Explained

CHANDRIS, INC.
v.
LATSIS,

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

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 "employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation" required for seaman status under the Jones Act, McDermott International, 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. 6-25.

(a) The Jones Act provides heightened legal protections to seamen because of their exposure to the perils of the sea, but does not define the term "seaman." However, the Court's Jones Act cases establish the basic principles that the term does not include land-based workers, id., 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. 6-16.

(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. 16-20.

(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 employment-related 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 Page III 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 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. 20-25.

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. 25-29.

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.

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 International, Inc. v. 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 Wilander, 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

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 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 6-month 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 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.

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 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.

We granted certiorari, 513 U.S. ___ (1994), to resolve the continuing conflict among the Courts of Appeals regarding the appropriate requirements for seaman status under the Jones Act.*

II

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. 797, 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 mutually 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 multi-pronged tests for seaman status. Since the 1950s, 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 Diderot, Oeuvres Completes 203 (J. Assezat ed. 1875).

A

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.

B

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 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 seamen'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 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. Pfeiffer Transportation Co., 361 U.S. 129, 131 -132 (1959).

Our LHWCA cases also recognize the converse: land-based 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, OWCP 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 Rive

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