Opinion ID: 3010666
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Duties Of The Employee

Text: Under the first portion of the Chandris seaman status test, an employee must demonstrate that his or her duties  `contribute to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission.'  515 U.S. at 368, 115 S.Ct. at 2190 (citation omitted). In satisfying this requirement, the seaman does not have to aid the vessel in navigation, _________________________________________________________________ 2. Great Lakes also raised a number of other issues in its appeal, such as the failure to hold a charge conference, the alleged inadequacy of the district court's jury charge, and the lack of a set-off against the judgment for the amounts Shade received under the LHWCA; however, we will not reach these issues on this appeal as their resolution could not affect our result. 8 see Wilander, 498 U.S. at 353, 111 S.Ct. at 816; rather, the employee must merely perform the work of the vessel. Id. at 355, 111 S.Ct. at 817.3 While this part of the Chandris test does not contain any express time component, such an element is implied, because a court must determine how broad a time period to consider when evaluating an employee's duties. Great Lakes argues for a narrow time limitation, stating that a court is to determine the seaman status of an employee solely based on the activity in which he was engaged at the time of injury. Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U.S. 187, 190, 72 S.Ct. 216, 218 (1952); see also Heise v. Fishing Co., 79 F.3d 903, 906-07 (9th Cir. 1996) (The fact that if Heise performed well he might be hired to work on the ship when it left Seward if there were jobs available does not change his land-based status at the time the injury occurred. (emphasis added)). Applying this standard to the facts in this case, Great Lakes contends that it is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, because Shade was ashore assisting in the refueling of a welding machine when he was injured. The question of seaman status is often fact specific, and [i]f reasonable persons, applying the proper legal standard, could differ as to whether the employee was a `member of a crew,' it is a question for the jury. Wilander, 498 U.S. at 356, 111 S.Ct. at 818. However, a directed verdict is mandated where the facts and the law will reasonably support only one conclusion. Id. This court utilizes a plenary standard to review a grant or denial of a judgment as a matter of law. See Salas v. Wang, 846 F.2d 897, 902 (3d Cir. 1988). A court should grant such a motion only if, _________________________________________________________________ 3. The Court in Wilander definitively resolved the inconsistent use of an aid in navigation requirement that arose between 1927 and 1946, during which [time] the Court did not recognize the mutual exclusivity of the [LHWCA] and the Jones Act. Id. at 348, 111 S.Ct. at 814. The Court explained that the better rule was to define seaman status solely in terms of the employee's connection to a vessel in navigation. Id. at 354, 111 S.Ct. at 817. This rule would ensure that the Jones Act would fulfill the purpose of protecting [a]ll who work at sea in the service of a ship [and who] face those particular perils to which the protection of maritime law, statutory as well as decisional, is directed. Id. 9 viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant and giving it the advantage of every fair and reasonable inference, there is insufficient evidence from which a jury reasonably could find liability. Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F.3d 1153, 1166 (3d Cir. 1993). Although the contours of the seaman status test remain difficult to apply, the Supreme Court has provided a number of relevant principles to guide our determination of this issue. First, the Court has emphasized that its statusbased approach to the definition of the term seaman determines Jones Act coverage without regard to the precise activity in which the worker is engaged at the time of the injury. Chandris, 515 U.S. at 358, 115 S.Ct. at 2185; see also id. at 363, 115 S.Ct. at 2187 ([C]ourts should not employ `a `snapshot' test for seaman status, inspecting only the situation as it exists at the instant of injury; a more enduring relationship is contemplated in the jurisprudence.'  (quoting Easley v. Southern Shipbuilding Corp., 965 F.2d 1, 5 (5th Cir. 1992))). By not focusing exclusively on the activity of the employee at the time of injury, courts prevent a worker from oscillatingbetween Jones Act coverage and other remedies depending on the activity in which the worker was engaged while injured. Id. at 363, 115 S.Ct. at 2187. For instance, in Thibodeaux v. Torch, Inc., 858 F.2d 1048, 1049 (5th Cir. 1988), the plaintiff sued under the Jones Act for injuries he sustained while working ashore. The employer argued that it was entitled to summary judgment, because the plaintiff 's specific activities at the moment of his accident were not the work of a seaman, but rather were traditional duties of a longshoreman. Id. at 1050. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the employer's position and held that the specific activity at the time of injury was only one factor in the analysis of the employee's Jones Act seaman status. Id. at 1051; see also Smith v. Odom Offshore Surveys, Inc., 791 F.2d 411, 415 (5th Cir. 1986); Savoie v. Otto Candies, Inc. , 692 F.2d 363, 365 (5th Cir. 1982); Guidry v. South La. Contractors, Inc., 614 F.2d 447, 453 (1980); Higginbotham v. Mobil Oil Corp., 545 F.2d 422 (5th Cir. 1977), rev'd on other grounds, 436 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 2010 (1978). Thus, contrary to Great 10 Lakes' position, the employee's specific activity at the time of his or her injury is not dispositive of the issue of seaman status. Second, although an examination based solely on the specific activity at the time of injury is too narrow, the Supreme Court also has cautioned against too broad of a perspective in examining an employee's duties. In evaluating the duties of an employee under the seaman status test, courts should not consider an employee's entire work history, but must consider only the nature of the employee's basic job assignment as it existed at the time of injury. After all, as the Court has stated, [w]hen a maritime worker's basic assignment changes, his seaman status may change as well. Chandris, 515 U.S. at 372, 115 S.Ct. at 2191. To illustrate this holding, the Court explained: For example, we can imagine situations in which someone who had worked for years in an employer's shoreside headquarters is then reassigned to a ship in a classic seaman's job that involves a regular and continuous, rather than intermittent, commitment of the worker's labor to the function of a vessel. Such a person should not be denied seaman status if injured shortly after the reassignment, just as someone actually transferred to a desk job in the company's office and injured in the hallway should not be entitled to claim seaman status on the basis of prior service at sea. Id. at 372, 115 S.Ct. at 2191. Thus, while a court must not concentrate exclusively on the employee's specific activity at the time of injury, a court should limit its examination of the employee's duties to the employee's basic job assignment as it existed at the time of injury. Applying these principles to the present appeal, we cannot say that Great Lakes is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Although Shade was on shore assisting in the refueling of a welding machine when he was injured, this activity cannot be the sole determining factor to resolve whether Shade was a seaman. Instead, we must view Shade's status in the larger context of his employment11 related duties. In deciding which duties to consider, a reasonable juror could conclude that Shade's entire performance at the Cape May job consisted of a single assignment, because his duties remained fairly constant during the pendency of that dredging operation. Under this broader analysis, Shade presented sufficient evidence such that a reasonable jury could determine that his duties during the Cape May job contributed to the function of a vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission. While working at Cape May, Shade spent a considerable amount of his time at the beginning of his employment working on the water with the anchor barge 110 to repair the submersible line. See app. at 473-75, 690-92. Beyond this initial placement, Shade presented evidence at trial that he spent significant time on the water as a deckhand on a vessel in navigation performing his job responsibilities. See id. at 311-14, 316-17, 473-84. Additionally, even Shade's duties on the beach were not unrelated to the work of a vessel in navigation; instead, they contributed to the purpose of the dredging operation. Viewing this evidence in a light most favorable to Shade, a reasonable juror could find that Shade's job responsibilities at Cape May consisted of a single job assignment and contributed to the function of a vessel in navigation, thereby satisfying thefirst requirement of the Chandris test. Thus, because Shade presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable juror to find in his favor, the district court correctly denied Great Lakes' motion for a judgment as a matter of law.4