Opinion ID: 404144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Enter Robison.

Text: 14 As McDermott has insisted throughout these proceedings, this Court's landmark decision in Offshore Co. v. Robison culminated in what might be described as a recasting of the tripartite McKie test for seaman's status. Judge Wisdom's opinion began by observing the courts had expanded the coverage of the Jones Act to include almost any workman sustaining almost any injury while employed on almost any structure that once floated or is capable of floating on navigable waters. 266 F.2d at 771. It further pointed out that the courts had extended this extremely liberal interpretation to the terms 'seaman' and 'member of a crew of any vessel' without provoking any congressional amendments restricting the coverage of the Act. Id. at 774. After a comprehensive review of Supreme Court and federal circuit opinions considering and expanding the meaning of the terms seaman and crew member under both the Jones Act and the Longshoremen's Act, the court devised the following as a restatement of this circuit's position: 15 (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 (including special purpose structures not usually employed as a means of transport by water but designed to float on water) 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. 16 Id. at 799 (footnote omitted). 17 Although we have never abandoned the McKie test and have continued to quote it, e.g. Garcia v. Queen, Ltd., 487 F.2d 625, 628 n.6 (5th Cir. 1973), Robison must be regarded as an essential commentary upon that standard in this Circuit. The two-part Robison version was introduced as a threshold test by which a plaintiff could avoid a summary judgment denying him seaman's status under the Jones Act. However, our subsequent decisions make clear that the Robison test, with its broad concept of seaman's status, is to be used not only in deciding whether a case goes to the jury in a Jones Act dispute, but also in delimiting the power of the factfinder to deny or confer such status. Thus, in Producers Drilling Co. v. Gray, 361 F.2d 432, 437 (5th Cir. 1966), we relied on Robison in affirming a district judge's finding, as a matter of law, that a roustabout working on board a submersible drilling barge was a Jones Act seaman. Obviously, the second prong of Robison represents a necessary gloss upon the third prong of McKie, and no factfinder-whether jury or judge-can overlook the implications of Robison in determining a worker's status. Effectively, Offshore Co. v. Robison ... established in the Fifth Circuit the test for seaman status under the Jones Act. Abshire v. Seacoast Products, Inc., 668 F.2d 832, 835 (5th Cir. 1982). 6 18 Moreover, Robison is fully applicable as a measure of crew member's status under the Longshoremen's Act. In Boatel, Inc. v. Delamore, 379 F.2d 850 (5th Cir. 1967), we relied on Robison in holding that a diesel motorman aboard a drilling tender was a member of the crew, and therefore not entitled to Longshoremen's Act benefits, because he was primarily engaged in performing duties aboard the vessel in fulfilling the function for which the vessel was designed. Id. at 858. Pointing out that Robison itself had used the terms seaman and member of the crew interchangeably, we concluded that (t) he decisions of this Court and the Supreme Courts (sic), in suits under the Jones Act which have decided whether or not a claimant is under the coverage of that Act, are directly applicable here in determining the meaning of the term 'member of the crew' for purposes of exclusion under the Longshoremen's Act. Id. at 859. 19 Considering Robison's longstanding and vital importance to this Court's interpretation of the Longshoremen's Act, we are at a loss to understand the total disregard of Robison and its progeny in the proceedings below. The ALJ's assumption that a pipeline welder working on board a pipelaying barge is not employed primarily in aid of navigation is clearly out of keeping with the language of Robison and our subsequent interpretations of that decision. Building on the tenet that seaman's status is not restricted to those who hand, reef, and steer, Norton v. Warner, 321 U.S. 565, 572, 64 S.Ct. 747, 751, 88 L.Ed. 931 (1944), this court has relied on Robison in approving the extension of seamen's or crew member's status to a number of occupations whose members perform no such traditional navigational chores but nevertheless contribute to the function, mission, or maintenance of a vessel in navigation. See, e.g., Landry v. Amoco Production Co., 595 F.2d 1070 (5th Cir. 1979) (offshore roustabout who operated boat in connection with work); Davis v. Hill Engineering, Inc., 549 F.2d 314 (5th Cir. 1977) (welder's helper on offshore gas gathering station); Neill v. Diamond M. Drilling Co., 426 F.2d 487 (5th Cir. 1970) (motorman on drilling barge); Noble Drilling Corp. v. Smith, 412 F.2d 952 (5th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 906, 90 S.Ct. 221, 24 L.Ed.2d 182 (1969) (mud pumper on drilling tender). In Jenkins v. Aquatic Contractors & Engineers, 446 F.2d 520, 521 (5th Cir. 1971), we affirmed a district court's holding that the plaintiff, a welder on a pipelaying barge, was a Robison seaman as a matter of law.... See also Welch v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 336 F.Supp. 383 (W.D.La.1972) (welding inspector on pipelaying barge a seaman). 20 Similarly inexplicable is the Board's assumption that Boudreaux' temporary assignment to repair duties aboard the moored barge dissociated him from the barge fleet's crew. If Boudreaux was normally a crew member of these barges during their missions at sea, as he surely was, there is no reason to presume that he suddenly metamorphosed into a harbor worker or shiprepairman just because his employer temporarily used him to prepare a damaged vessel for its next voyage. As the Supreme Court explained in Senko v. La Crosse Dredging Corp., 352 U.S. 370, 373, 77 S.Ct. 415, 417, 1 L.Ed.2d 404 (1957): 21 Even a transoceanic liner may be confined to berth for lengthy periods, and while there the ship is kept in repair by its crew. There 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. In short, the duties of a man during a vessel's travel are relevant in determining whether he is a member of a crew while the vessel is anchored. 22 Following this reasoning in Doucet v. Wheless Drilling Co., 467 F.2d 336 (5th Cir. 1972), we affirmed a summary judgment (confirming seaman's status) for a member of the drilling crew on a semisubmersible barge. The employee had been injured while assisting with repairs to the barge, which had suffered damages in a hurricane and was moored temporarily to the bank. We agreed with the district court that (p)laintiff's status as a seaman, by reason of being an offshore oil worker on a semisubmersible drilling barge, was not lost because he was on temporary assignment in his employer's service to do repair work with the intent of returning to an offshore seaman's work. 467 F.2d at 338-39. 23 We conclude, therefore, that Boudreaux, like Doucet, was a member of the barge crew as a matter of law. The evidence showed that Boudreaux had worked for McDermott as an offshore pipeline welder for nine years. Emory Belton, Boudreaux' supervisor, testified that pipeline welders ordinarily spend over ninety percent of their time offshore and work in the repair yard only when maintenance work is necessary to keep the equipment up so it's functioning properly when (the crew gets) offshore. Although the ALJ reasonably found that Boudreaux himself had spent no more than three and one-half months of the year prior to his death working offshore, the undisputed evidence also showed that Boudreaux had spent most of his actual working time (not including the winter layoff) that year employed on board a McDermott barge, either at sea or beside the bank. At the time of his death, he was temporarily engaged in repair work aboard Lay Barge 23, readying it for future service offshore. According to the ALJ's own findings, Lay Barge 23 remained in navigation throughout this repair period and Boudreaux maintained a permanent association with it. His job classification as a pipeline welder never changed. In fact, only two days before his fatal heart attack he re-qualified to return to sea aboard Lay Barge 21. Given these uncontroverted facts, one cannot escape the conclusion that Boudreaux was (1) a member of the crew of Lay Barge 23, or at least of the fleet of which Lay Barge 23 was a unit, in that his duties contributed to the operation or welfare of the vessel in terms of its maintenance during its movement or during anchorage for its future trips, Robison, 266 F.2d at 779, and (2) a member of the crew of the barge fleet in general, in that his duties as a pipeline welder contributed to the function of the vessel(s) or to the accomplishment of (their) mission.... Id. As such, he is barred from coverage under the Longshoremen's Act. 24 In excluding Boudreaux from coverage, we wish to emphasize our recognition that the Longshoremen's Act, like the Jones Act, requires a liberal interpretation in favor of claimants to effect its purposes. See, e.g., Voris v. Eikel, 346 U.S. 328, 333, 74 S.Ct. 88, 91, 98 L.Ed. 5 (1953). We do not lightly exclude workers from coverage as a matter of law under either statute. Thus, despite our continued insistence that a Jones Act seaman and a crew member excluded from the Longshoremen's Act are one and the same (in other words, that the statutes are mutually exclusive) we realize that, in a practical sense, a zone of uncertainty inevitably connects the two Acts. Confronted by conflicting evidence concerning a worker's duties or undisputed evidence concerning an occupation that exhibits the characteristics of both traditional land and sea duties, a factfinder might be able to draw reasonable inferences to justify coverage under either statute. 7 Were this possibility present here, we would remand this case for further factual development at the administrative level and reconsideration in light of our emphasis upon Robison, Jenkins, Doucet, and other precedent in this Circuit. 25 This is not, however, what we recently described in Abshire v. Seacoast Products, Inc., 668 F.2d 832, 835 (5th Cir. 1982), as a close case. Abshire offers a classic instance of the case that could have gone either way. Plaintiff produced evidence that he was a marine welder and mechanic permanently assigned to a fleet of fishing vessels and spent most of his time performing repairs aboard the employer's boats; defendant produced evidence that plaintiff was a shore-based maintenance employee who never went to sea and whose only contact with vessels under way was in testing them in connection with repairs and maintenance. Id. at 836. The district court properly submitted the issue to a jury, which found that the welder/mechanic was entitled to damages as a Jones Act seaman. Although we affirmed the judgment, we just as easily could have approved a jury's finding that Abshire was restricted to compensation under the Longshoremen's Act. Incidentally, the judgment for Abshire under the Jones Act also ordered repayment of two insurers that already had compensated him under the Longshoremen's Act. 26 The case before us presents no such factual or legal uncertainties, particularly when reviewed against past decisions of this court resolving similar disputes over the classification of comparable duties. The proper legal standard coupled with undisputed facts showing plaintiff's substantial work relating to vessels in navigation makes clear that reasonable persons could not conclude that (plaintiff) was not a seaman. Landry v. Amoco Production Co., 595 F.2d 1070, 1074 (5th Cir. 1979). We hold, therefore, that Boudreaux is excluded from coverage under the Longshoremen's Act as a matter of law, and we SET ASIDE the Board's order. See, e.g., Dravo Corp. v. Banks, 567 F.2d 593, 596 (3d Cir. 1977). 27