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"Vessel" under the Jones Act or not?

Before 2004, there was some confusion about what kind of waterborne contraptions were "vessels" under the Jones Act and federal law. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Stewart v. Dutra, finally answered the question.

The entire opinion of the Court is set forth below.

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2004

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

STEWART v. DUTRA CONSTRUCTION CO.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 03–814. Argued November 1, 2004—Decided February 22, 2005

As part of a project to extend the Massachusetts Turnpike, respondent
Dutra Construction Company dug a trench beneath Boston Harbor
using its dredge, the Super Scoop, a floating platform with a bucket
that removes silt from the ocean floor and dumps it onto adjacent
scows. The Super Scoop has limited means of self-propulsion, but can
navigate short distances by manipulating its anchors and cables.
When dredging the trench here, it typically moved once every couple
of hours. Petitioner, a marine engineer hired by Dutra to maintain
the Super Scoop’s mechanical systems, was seriously injured while
repairing a scow’s engine when the Super Scoop and the scow col-
lided. He sued Dutra under the Jones Act, alleging that he was a
seaman injured by Dutra’s negligence, and under §5(b) of the Long-
shore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U. S. C.
§905(b), which authorizes covered employees to sue a “vessel” owner
as a third party for an injury caused by the owner’s negligence. The
District Court granted Dutra summary judgment on the Jones Act
claim, and the First Circuit affirmed. On remand, the District Court
granted Dutra summary judgment on the LHWCA claim. In affirm-
ing, the First Circuit noted that Dutra had conceded that the Super
Scoop was a “vessel” under §905(b), but found that Dutra’s alleged
negligence had been committed in its capacity as an employer and
not as the vessel’s owner.

Held: A dredge is a “vessel” under the LHWCA. Pp. 4–15.
(a) Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to remove the bar to
negligence suits by seamen. Although that Act does not define “sea-
man,” the maritime law backdrop at the time it was passed shows
that “seaman” is a term of art with an established meaning under
general maritime law. The LHWCA, enacted in 1927 to provide
scheduled compensation to land-based maritime workers but not to
“a master or member of a crew of any vessel,” 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G),
works in tandem with the Jones Act: The Jones Act provides tort
remedies to sea-based maritime workers and the LHWCA provides
workers’ compensation to land-based maritime employees. In
McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, and Chandris, Inc.
v. Latsis, 515 U. S. 347, this Court addressed the relationship a
worker must have to a vessel in order to be a “master or member” of
its crew. Now the Court turns to the other half of the LHWCA’s
equation: determining whether a watercraft is a vessel. Pp. 4–6.

(b) The LHWCA did not define “vessel” when enacted, but §§1 and
3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 specified that, in any Act passed af-
ter February 25, 1871, “ ‘vessel’ includes every description of water-
craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as
a means of transportation on water.” The LHWCA is such an Act.
Section 3’s definition has remained virtually unchanged to the pre-
sent and continues to supply the default definition of “vessel”
throughout the U. S. Code. Section 3 merely codified the meaning
“vessel” had acquired in general maritime law. In fact, prior to the
passage of the Jones Act and the LHWCA, this Court and lower
courts had treated dredges as vessels. By the time those Acts became
law in the 1920’s, it was settled that §3 defined “vessel” for their pur-
poses, and that a structure’s status as a vessel under §3 depended on
whether the structure was an instrument of naval transportation.
See Ellis v. United States, 206 U. S. 246, 259. Then as now, dredges
served a waterborne transportation function: In performing their
work they carried machinery, equipment, and a crew over water.
This Court has continued to treat §3 as defining “vessel” in the
LHWCA and to construe §3 consistently with general maritime law.
Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565. Pp. 6–10.

(c) Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co., 119 U. S. 625, and Evansville &
Bowling Green Packet Co. v. Chero Cola Bottling Co., 271 U. S. 19,
did not adopt a definition of vesselhood narrower than §3. Rather,
they made a sensible distinction between watercraft temporarily sta-
tioned in a particular location and those permanently anchored to
shore or the ocean floor. A watercraft is not capable of being used for
maritime transport in any meaningful sense if it has been perma-
nently moored or otherwise rendered practically incapable of trans-
portation or movement. By including special-purpose vessels like
dredges, §3 sweeps broadly, but other prerequisites to qualifying for
seaman status under the Jones Act provide some limits. A worker
seeking such status must prove that his duties contributed to the
vessel’s function or mission and that his connection to the vessel was
substantial in nature and duration. Chandris, supra, at 376. Pp.
Cite as: 543 U. S. ____ (2005) 3
Syllabus
10–12.

(d) The First Circuit held that the Super Scoop is not a “vessel” be-
cause its primary purpose is not navigation or commerce and because
it was not in actual transit at the time of Stewart’s injury. Neither
prong of that test is consistent with §3’s text or general maritime
law’s established meaning of “vessel.” Section 3 requires only that a
watercraft be “used, or capable of being used, as a means of transpor-
tation on water,” not that it be used primarily for that purpose. The
Super Scoop was not only “capable of being used” to transport equip-
ment and passengers over water—it was so used. Similarly, requir-
ing a watercraft to be in motion to qualify as a vessel under §3 is the
sort of “snapshot” test rejected in Chandris. That a vessel must be
“in navigation,” Chandris, supra, at 373–374, means not that a struc-
ture’s locomotion at any given moment matters, but that structures
may lose their character as vessels if withdrawn from the water for
an extended period. The “in navigation” requirement is thus relevant
to whether a craft is “used, or capable of being used,” for naval trans-
portation. The inquiry whether a craft is “used, or capable of being
used,” for maritime transportation may involve factual issues for a
jury, but here no relevant facts were in dispute. Dutra conceded that
the Super Scoop was only temporarily stationary while the scow was
being repaired; it had not been taken out of service, permanently an-
chored, or otherwise rendered practically incapable of maritime
transport. Finally, Dutra conceded that the Super Scoop is a “vessel”
under §905(b), which imposes LHWCA liability on vessel owners for
negligence to longshoremen. However, the LHWCA does not mean-
ingfully define the term “vessel” in either §902(3)(G) or §905(b), and 1
U. S. C. §3 defines the term “vessel” throughout the LHWCA.
Pp. 13–15.

343 F. 3d 10, reversed and remanded.

Full Opinion of the Court

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other
Members joined, except REHNQUIST, C. J., who took no part in the deci-
sion of the case.
_________________
_________________
Cite as: 543 U. S. ____ (2005) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 03–814
WILLARD STEWART, PETITIONER v. DUTRA
CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
[February 22, 2005]

JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether a dredge is a “ves-
sel” under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensa-
tion Act (LHWCA), 44 Stat. 1428, 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G).
We hold that it is.

I

As part of Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project, or
“Big Dig,” the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under-
took to extend the Massachusetts Turnpike through a
tunnel running beneath South Boston and Boston Harbor
to Logan Airport. The Commonwealth employed respon-
dent Dutra Construction Company to assist in that un-
dertaking. At the time, Dutra owned the world’s largest
dredge, the Super Scoop, which was capable of digging
the 50-foot-deep, 100-foot-wide, three-quarter-mile-long
trench beneath Boston Harbor that is now the Ted Wil-
liams Tunnel.
The Super Scoop is a massive floating platform from
which a clamshell bucket is suspended beneath the water.
The bucket removes silt from the ocean floor and dumps
the sediment onto one of two scows that float alongside the
dredge. The Super Scoop has certain characteristics com-
mon to seagoing vessels, such as a captain and crew,
navigational lights, ballast tanks, and a crew dining area.

But it lacks others. Most conspicuously, the Super Scoop
has only limited means of self-propulsion. It is moved long
distances by tugboat. (To work on the Big Dig, it was
towed from its home base in California through the Pa-
nama Canal and up the eastern seaboard to Boston Har-
bor.) It navigates short distances by manipulating its
anchors and cables. When dredging the Boston Harbor
trench, it typically moved in this way once every couple of
hours, covering a distance of 30-to-50 feet each time.
Dutra hired petitioner Willard Stewart, a marine engi-
neer, to maintain the mechanical systems on the Super
Scoop during its dredging of the harbor. At the time of
Stewart’s accident, the Super Scoop lay idle because one of
its scows, Scow No. 4, had suffered an engine malfunction
and the other was at sea. Stewart was on board Scow No.
4, feeding wires through an open hatch located about 10
feet above the engine area. While Stewart was perched
beside the hatch, the Super Scoop used its bucket to move
the scow. In the process, the scow collided with the Super
Scoop, causing a jolt that plunged Stewart headfirst
through the hatch to the deck below. He was seriously
injured.

Stewart sued Dutra in the United States District Court
for the District of Massachusetts under the Jones Act, 38
Stat. 1185, 46 U. S. C. App. §688(a), alleging that he was a
seaman injured by Dutra’s negligence. He also filed an
alternative claim under §5(b) of the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C.
§905(b), which authorizes covered employees to sue a
“vessel” owner as a third party for an injury caused by the
owner’s negligence.

Dutra moved for summary judgment on the Jones Act
claim, arguing that Stewart was not a seaman. The com-
pany acknowledged that Stewart was “a member of the
Cite as: 543 U. S. ____ (2005) 3

[Super Scoop’s] crew,” 230 F. 3d 461, 466 (CA1 2000); that
he spent “[n]inety-nine percent of his time while on the
job” aboard the Super Scoop, App. 20 (Defendant’s Memo-
randum in Support of Summary Judgment); and that his
“duties contributed to the function” of the Super Scoop, id.,
at 32. Dutra argued only that the Super Scoop was not a
vessel for purposes of the Jones Act. Dutra pointed to the
Court of Appeals’ en banc decision in DiGiovanni v.
Traylor Brothers, Inc., 959 F. 2d 1119 (CA1 1992), which
held that “if a barge . . . or other float’s purpose or primary
business is not navigation or commerce, then workers
assigned thereto for its shore enterprise are to be consid-
ered seamen only when it is in actual navigation or tran-
sit” at the time of the plaintiff’s injury. Id., at 1123 (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted). The District Court granted
summary judgment to Dutra, because the Super Scoop’s
primary purpose was dredging rather than transportation
and because it was stationary at the time of Stewart’s
injury.

On interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed,
concluding that it too was bound by DiGiovanni. 230
F. 3d, at 467–468. The court reasoned that the Super
Scoop’s primary function was construction and that “[a]ny
navigation or transportation that may be required is
incidental to this primary function.” Id., at 468. The court
also concluded that the scow’s movement at the time of the
accident did not help Stewart, because his status as a
seaman depended on the movement of the Super Scoop
(which was stationary) rather than the scow. Id., at 469.
On remand, the District Court granted summary judg-
ment in favor of Dutra on Stewart’s alternative claim that
Dutra was liable for negligence as an owner of a “vessel”
under the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. §905(b). The Court of
Appeals again affirmed. It noted that Dutra had conceded
that the Super Scoop was a “vessel” for purposes of
§905(b), explaining that “the LHWCA’s definition of ‘ves-
sel’ is ‘significantly more inclusive than that used for
evaluating seaman status under the Jones Act.’ ” 343 F.
3d 10, 13 (CA1 2003) (quoting Morehead v. Atkinson-
Kiewit, 97 F. 3d 603, 607 (CA1 1996) (en banc)). The
Court of Appeals nonetheless agreed with the District
Court’s conclusion that Dutra’s alleged negligence was
committed in its capacity as an employer rather than as
owner of the vessel under §905(b).
We granted certiorari to resolve confusion over how to
determine whether a watercraft is a “vessel” for purposes
of the LHWCA. 540 U. S. 1177 (2004).

II

Prior to the passage of the Jones Act, general maritime
law usually entitled a seaman who fell sick or was injured
both to maintenance and cure (or the right to be cared for
and paid wages during the voyage, see, e.g., Harden v.
Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 482–483 (No. 6,047) (CC Me.
1823) (Story, J.)), and to damages for any “injuries re-
ceived . . . in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the
ship,” The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 175 (1903). Suits against
shipowners for negligence, however, were barred. Courts
presumed that the seaman, in signing articles of employ-
ment for the voyage, had assumed the risks of his occupa-
tion; thus a seaman was “not allowed to recover an indem-
nity for the negligence of the master, or any member of the
crew.” Ibid.

Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to remove this
bar to negligence suits by seamen. See Chandris, Inc. v.
Latsis, 515 U. S. 347, 354 (1995). Specifically, the Jones
Act provides: “Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the
course of his employment may, at his election, main-
tain an action for damages at law, with the right of
trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the
United States modifying or extending the common-
Cite as: 543 U. S. ____ (2005) 5
Opinion of the Court
law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to
railway employees shall apply.” 46 U. S. C. App.
§688(a).

Although the statute is silent on who is a “seaman,” both
the maritime law backdrop against which Congress en-
acted the Jones Act and Congress’ subsequent enactments
provide some guidance.

First, “seaman” is a term of art that had an established
meaning under general maritime law. We have thus
presumed that when the Jones Act made available negli-
gence remedies to “[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal
injury in the course of his employment,” Congress took the
term “seaman” as the general maritime law found it.
Chandris, supra, at 355 (citing Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S.
155, 159 (1934)); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty
§6–21, pp. 328–329 (2d ed. 1975).

Second, Congress provided further guidance in 1927
when it enacted the LHWCA, which provides scheduled
compensation to land-based maritime workers but which
also excepts from its coverage “a master or member of a
crew of any vessel.” 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G). This exception
is simply “a refinement of the term ‘seaman’ in the Jones
Act.” McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 347
(1991). Thus the Jones Act and the LHWCA are comple-
mentary regimes that work in tandem: The Jones Act
provides tort remedies to sea-based maritime workers,
while the LHWCA provides workers’ compensation to
land-based maritime employees. Ibid.; Swanson v. Marra
Brothers, Inc., 328 U. S. 1, 6–7 (1946).

Still, discerning the contours of “seaman” status, even
with the general maritime law and the LHWCA’s lan-
guage as aids to interpretation, has not been easy. See
Chandris, supra, at 356. We began clarifying the defini-
tion of “seaman” in a pair of cases, McDermott Int’l, Inc. v.
Wilander, supra, and Chandris, supra, that addressed the
relationship a worker must have to a vessel in order to be
a “master or member” of its crew. We now turn to the
other half of the LHWCA’s equation: how to determine
whether a watercraft is a “vessel.”

A

Just as Congress did not define the term “seaman” in
the Jones Act,1 it did not define the term “vessel” in the
LHWCA itself.2 However, Congress provided a definition
elsewhere. At the time of the LHWCA’s enactment, §§1
and 3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 specified:
“In determining the meaning of the revised statutes,
or of any act or resolution of Congress passed subse-
quent to February twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and
seventy-one, . . . [t]he word ‘vessel’ includes every de-
——————
1

The Shipping Act of 1916 defines the term “vessel” for purposes of
the Jones Act. See 46 U. S. C. App. §801. However, the provision of the
Jones Act at issue here, §688(a), speaks not of “vessels,” but of “sea-
men.” In any event, because we have identified a Jones Act “seaman”
with reference to the LHWCA’s exclusion, see 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G) (“a
master or member of a crew of any vessel”), it is the LHWCA’s use of
the term “vessel” that matters. And, as we explain, the context sur-
rounding Congress’ enactment of the LHWCA suggests that Rev. Stat.
§3, now 1 U. S. C. §3, provides the controlling definition of the term
“vessel” in the LHWCA.

As part of its 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, Congress amended
the Act with what appears at first blush to be a definition of the term
“vessel”: “Unless the context requires otherwise, the term ‘vessel’
means any vessel upon which or in connection with which any person
entitled to benefits under this chapter suffers injury or death arising
out of or in the course of his employment, and said vessel’s owner,
owner pro hac vice, agent, operator, charter or bare boat charterer,
master, officer, or crew member.” 33 U. S. C. §902(21). However,
Congress enacted this definition in conjunction with the third-party
vessel owner provision of §905(b). Rather than specifying the charac-
teristics of a vessel, §902(21) instead lists the parties liable for the
negligent operation of a vessel. See McCarthy v. The Bark Peking, 716
F. 2d 130, 133 (CA2 1983) (§902(21) is “circular” and “does not provide
precise guidance as to what is included within the term ‘vessel’ ”).

Sections 1 and 3 show that, because the LHWCA is an Act
of Congress passed after February 25, 1871, the LHWCA’s
use of the term “vessel” “includes every description of
water-craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable
of being used, as a means of transportation on water.”
Ibid.

Section 3’s definition, repealed and recodified in 1947 as
part of the Rules of Construction Act, 1 U. S. C. §3, has
remained virtually unchanged from 1873 to the present.4
Even now, §3 continues to supply the default definition of
“vessel” throughout the U. S. Code, “unless the context
indicates otherwise.” 1 U. S. C. §1. The context surround-
ing the LHWCA’s enactment indicates that §3 defines the
term “vessel” for purposes of the LHWCA.
Section 3 merely codified the meaning that the term
“vessel” had acquired in general maritime law. See 1 S.
Friedell, Benedict on Admiralty §165 (rev. 7th ed. 2004).
In the decades following its enactment, §3 was regularly
used to define the term “vessel” in maritime jurispru-
dence. Taking only the issue presented here—whether a
dredge is a vessel—prior to passage of the Jones Act and
the LHWCA, courts often used §3’s definition to conclude
that dredges were vessels.5
——————
3
Congress had used substantially the same definition before, first in
an 1866 antismuggling statute, see §1, 14 Stat. 178, and then in an
1870 statute “provid[ing] for the Relief of sick and disabled Seamen,”
§7, 16 Stat. 170.
4
During the 1947 codification, the hyphen was removed from the
word “watercraft.” §3, 61 Stat. 633.
5
See, e.g., The Alabama, 19 F. 544, 546 (SD Ala. 1884) (dredge was a
vessel and subject to maritime liens); Huismann v. The Pioneer, 30 F.
206, 207 (EDNY 1886) (dredge was a vessel under §3); Saylor v. Taylor,
77 F. 476, 477 (CA4 1896) (dredge was a vessel under §3, and its
8 STEWART v. DUTRA CONSTR. CO.
Opinion of the Court
From the very beginning, these courts understood the
differences between dredges and more traditional seagoing
vessels. Though smaller, the dredges at issue in the earli-
est cases were essentially the same as the Super Scoop
here. For instance, the court could have been speaking
equally of the Super Scoop as of The Alabama when it
declared:
“The dredge and scows have no means of propulsion of
their own except that the dredge, by use of anchors,
windlass, and rope, is moved for short distances, as
required in carrying on the business of dredging.
Both the dredge and the scows are moved from place
to place where they may be employed by being towed,
and some of the tows have been for long distances and
upon the high seas. The dredge and scows are not
made for or adapted to the carriage of freight or pas-
sengers, and the evidence does not show that, in point
of fact, this dredge and scows had ever been so used
and employed.” The Alabama, 19 F. 544, 545 (SD Ala.
1884).
See also Huismann v. The Pioneer, 30 F. 206 (EDNY
1886). None of this prevented the court from recognizing
that dredges are vessels because they are watercraft with
“the capacity to be navigated in and upon the waters.”
The Alabama, supra, at 546; see also The Pioneer, supra,
at 207; The International, 89 F. 484, 485 (CA3 1898).
This Court also treated dredges as vessels prior to the
passage of the Jones Act and the LHWCA. It did so in a
pair of cases, first implicitly in The “Virginia Ehrman” and
——————
workers were seamen); The International, 89 F. 484, 484–485 (CA3
1898) (dredge was a vessel under §3); Eastern S. S. Corp. v. Great Lakes
Dredge & Dock Co., 256 F. 497, 500–501 (CA1 1919) (type of dredge
called a “drillboat” was a vessel under §3); Los Angeles v. United
Dredging Co., 14 F. 2d 364, 365–366 (CA9 1926) (dredge was a vessel
under §3 and its engineers were seamen).
Cite as: 543 U. S. ____ (2005) 9
Opinion of the Court
the “Agnese,” 97 U. S. 309 (1878), and then explicitly in
Ellis v. United States, 206 U. S. 246 (1907). In Ellis, this
Court considered, inter alia, whether workers aboard
various dredges and scows were covered by a federal labor
law. Just as in the present case, one of the Ellis appel-
lants argued that the dredges at issue were “vessels”
within the meaning of Rev. Stat. §3, now 1 U. S. C. §3.
206 U. S., at 249. The United States responded that
dredges were only vessels, if at all, when in actual naviga-
tion as they were “towed from port to port.” Id., at 253.
Citing §3, Justice Holmes rejected the Government’s
argument, stating that “[t]he scows and floating dredges
were vessels” that “were within the admiralty jurisdiction
of the United States.” Id., at 259.
These early cases show that at the time Congress en-
acted the Jones Act and the LHWCA in the 1920’s, it was
settled that §3 defined the term “vessel” for purposes of
those statutes. It was also settled that a structure’s status
as a vessel under §3 depended on whether the structure
was a means of maritime transportation. See R. Hughes,
Handbook of Admiralty Law §5, p. 14 (2d ed. 1920). For
then, as now, dredges served a waterborne transportation
function, since in performing their work they carried
machinery, equipment, and crew over water. See, e.g.,
Butler v. Ellis, 45 F. 2d 951, 955 (CA4 1930) (finding the
vessel status of dredges “sustained by the overwhelming
weight of authority”); The Hurricane, 2 F. 2d 70, 72 (ED
Pa. 1924) (expressing “no doubt” that dredges are vessels),
aff’d, 9 F. 2d 396 (CA3 1925).
This Court’s cases have continued to treat §3 as defining
the term “vessel” in the LHWCA, and they have continued
to construe §3’s definition in light of the term’s estab