Opinion ID: 25349
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Seaman Status under the Jones Act

Text: 13 The district court's grant of Cardinal's motion for summary judgment was grounded in the determination that Roberts was not a seaman, and thus not eligible to recover under the Jones Act. This conclusion was based on the court's finding that Roberts did not have the requisite substantial connection to a vessel or an identifiable fleet of vessels under Cardinal's common ownership or control. 14 The Jones Act provides that any seaman who sustains personal injury in the course of his employment may maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of a trial by jury. 18 The Act does not define seaman, and therefore leaves to the courts the determination of exactly which maritime workers are entitled to admiralty's special protection. 19 When Congress enacted the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA) 20 in 1927, it furnished some content to the term seaman, albeit indirectly. The LHWCA provides a remedy for land-based maritime workers who are injured during their employment, but the Act explicitly excludes from its coverage a master or member of a crew of any vessel. 21 In Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, the Supreme Court reiterated that the Jones Act and the LHWCA are mutually exclusive compensation regimes, and that the LHWCA's reference to a master or member of a crew is a refinement of the term 'seaman' in the Jones Act. 22 Thus, the inquiry into seaman status for Jones Act purposes requires a determination whether the injured plaintiff is a master or member of a crew of any vessel. 15 In Chandris, the Supreme Court clearly articulated the test to apply when making this determination: 16 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. 23 17 The purpose of the test stated by the court in Chandris and reaffirmed in Harbor Tug & Barge Company v. Papai 24 is to 18 separate the sea-based maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act protection from those land-based workers who have only a transitory or sporadic connection to a vessel in navigation, and therefore whose employment does not regularly expose them to the perils of the sea. 25 19 With respect to the inquiry into whether the injured worker's connection to a vessel is substantial in terms of both duration (the temporal prong) and nature (the functional prong), theChandris Court emphasized that the test is conjunctive, stating that we think it is important that a seaman's connection to a vessel in fact be substantial in both respects. 26 The ChandrisCourt further clarified the application of the temporal prong of the test when it offered the following guidance for determining whether a plaintiff's connection to a vessel is substantial in duration: Generally, the Fifth Circuit seems to have identified an appropriate rule of thumb for the ordinary case: 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 under the Jones Act. This figure of course serves as no more than a guideline established by years of experience, and departure from it will certainly be justified in appropriate cases.... Nevertheless, we believe that courts, employers, and maritime workers can all benefit from reference to these general principles. And where undisputed facts reveal that a maritime worker has a clearly inadequate temporal connection to vessels in navigation, the court may take the question from the jury by granting summary judgment or a directed verdict. 27 20 Synthesizing these refinements leads to the understanding that the plaintiff who fails to show that his connection to a vessel in navigation is substantial in duration will be precluded from recovering as a seaman under the Jones Act, and that, as a general rule, he must show this by demonstrating that 30 percent or more of his time is spent in service of that vessel. 21 The 30 percent floor does not change when an identifiable group of vessels in navigation is at issue, rather than just one vessel. In addressing the case before us in St. Romain v. Industrial Fabrication and Repair Service, Inc., 28 we summarized our ruling in Hufnagel v. Omega Service Industries, Inc. 29 observing, 22 We held that Hufnagel did not qualify as a seaman because he could not establish a substantial connection to either a single vessel or to an identifiable fleet of vessels....Our decisions after Bertrand have reaffirmed the essential principle that to qualify as a seaman an employee must establish an attachment to a vessel or to an identifiable fleet of vessels. 30 23 We have left no doubt that the 30 percent threshold for determining substantial temporal connection must be applied, regardless of whether one vessel or several are at issue. 24 Finally, the Court has constructed the framework for determining the presence of an identifiable group of vessels. InChandris, reviewing the development of the substantial connection requirement, the Court discussed our modification of the test for seaman status when more than a single vessel is involved: 25 Soon after Robison, the Fifth Circuit modified 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. 31 26 Subsequently, in Papai, the Court expounded further on this point: 27 We...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.... 28 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. 32 29 For purposes of the Plaintiffs' Jones Act claims against Cardinal, the issue of seaman status turns on whether Roberts satisfied the temporal prong of the substantial connection test. The Plaintiffs insist that the district court erred in its application of the 30 percent guideline when it counted only the time that Roberts spent on Cardinal's liftboats and disregarded the time that he spent on other Cardinal vessels and on vessels owned by third parties. According to a breakdown of Roberts's work time, he spent 21.45 percent of his time in a shop on land, 37.24 percent of his time performing p&a work on platforms with no vessel involvement, 13.54 percent of his time performing p&a work on platforms with third-party vessels alongside, 24.88 percent of his time performing p&a work on platforms with a Cardinal liftboat alongside, 1.99 percent of his time in transit on Cardinal vessels, and .9 percent of his time performing p&a work on the CARDINAL 1, a Cardinal-owned vessel. The district court stated that Roberts only spent 24.88% of his time assigned to Cardinal boats. 30 Roberts contends that his time in transit and his time on the CARDINAL 1 should be included, and, more significantly, that the time he spent on platforms with an adjacent third-party vessel should be included as well. If only Roberts's transit time and CARDINAL 1 time were to be added, he would still fall short of the 30 percent threshold, aggregating a total of but 27.77 percent; only if his third-party vessel time were counted would his total time on board vessels of common ownership or control rise above 30 percent, to 41.31 percent. 33 31 The Plaintiffs contend that the work time involving third-party vessels should be counted. They declare that the temporal connection establishing a 30 percent rule of thumb is meant to determine whether an employee is sea-based versus land-based. It is not meant to be applied to the fleet requirement. It is generally true, as we noted above, that the fundamental purpose of the seaman-status inquiry is to separate the sea-based maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act protection from the land-based employees who must find a remedy under the LHWCA. The Plaintiffs are flatly wrong, however, when they assert that the 30 percent guideline is not meant to be applied to the fleet requirement. Indeed, application of the 30 percent test is the very means by which a substantial temporal connection is determined, regardless whether a single vessel or a group of vessels is at issue. And, when a group of vessels is at issue, a worker who aspires to seaman status must show that at least 30 percent of his time was spent on vessels, every one of which was under his defendant-employer's common ownership or control. As recently as Hufnagel, we reaffirmed our commitment to this application of the 30 percent test, and we do so yet again today. 34 32 We acknowledge Chandris's insistence that [the 30 percent threshold] serves as no more than a guideline established by years of experience, and departure from it will certainly be justified in appropriate cases. 35 We recognize as well that if all of Roberts's time aboard Cardinal-owned vessels were to be counted, he would come quite close (27.7 percent) to meeting the 30 percent requirement. Nevertheless, we do not perceive the instant case to be one that justifies an exceptional departure from the 30 percent test. In Wisner v. Professional Divers of New Orleans, 36 the Louisiana Supreme Court relied on our language in Bertrand v. International Mooring & Marine, Inc. 37 and Wallace v. Oceaneering International 38 to reverse a grant of summary judgment against a commercial diver. The Wisner court classified the diver as a seaman, despite the fact that he did not have a substantial connection to a fleet under common ownership or control, because the diver faced regular exposure to the perils of the sea. 39 Specifically, the Wisner court concluded, 33 In sum, the formulations or tests employed by the various courts are simply different ways to arrive at the same basic point: the Jones Act remedy is reserved for sea-based maritime employees whose work regularly exposes them to the special hazards and disadvantages to which they who go to sea in ships are subjected. 40 34 We consider the subsequent treatment by a Louisiana Court of Appeal, curtailing the Wisner opinion, to be apt. In the post-Wisner case of Little v. Amoco Production Company, 41 the state appellate court noted first that the United States Supreme Court's interpretations are controlling in matters of federal law, clearly indicating that, in any disagreement between the application inWisner and the test adopted in Chandris and Papai, the test enunciated in the latter controls. 42 More substantively, the court of appeal posited that Wisner could be classified as falling within a well-established exception to the general 30 percent substantial connection requirement. 43 The exception, as defined by language in our pre-Chandris decision in Bertrand, would be that Jones Act coverage should not be withheld because the vessels are not under the employer's common ownership or control, when claimants are continuously subjected to the perils of the sea and engaged in classical seaman's work. 44 The court of appeal inLittle, still highlighting the Wisner court's reliance on our language, noted that [a] diver's work necessarily involves exposure to numerous marine perils, and is inherently maritime because it cannot be done on land. It is not, like so many offshore field occupations, an art developed in land work and transposed to a maritime setting. 45 35 In St. Romain v. Industrial Fabrication and Repair Service, Inc., we refused to classify a p&a worker like Roberts as a seaman when he failed to establish that he had a substantial connection to an identifiable fleet of vessels. 46 This holding alone is conclusive; but if any doubt remained because Roberts's time aboard Cardinal vessels comes close to the 30 percent threshold, theLittle court's reconciliation of Wisner with United States Supreme Court precedent extinguished that doubt as well. 36 Even though a professional diver is peculiarly ---- and totally ---- subject to the perils of the sea and thus may, under special circumstances, qualify as a seaman without showing the requisite degree of temporal connection, a p&a crewman, who practices an art developed in land work and transposed to a maritime setting, cannot. The Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the presence of all elements of the conjunctive test for Roberts's seaman status, and their attempt to bring him within a possible exception to the rule fails. Accordingly, we see no reason to depart from our well-established rule, as reaffirmed in Hufnagel and St. Romain, that a worker who fails to show that at least 30 percent of his time is spent on vessels under the common ownership or control of his employer is precluded from recovering as a seaman under the Jones Act. We therefore affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Cardinal. 37