Opinion ID: 791344
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantial connection to a vessel

Text: 27 Although petitioner does not dispute that, for a period of three or four consecutive weeks, the decedent worked exclusively as an oiler aboard a dredge that was (1) located in the middle of the water and (2) moved across the channel, Hr'g Tr. of Apr. 15, 1996, at 37-38, she nonetheless challenges ALJ Kaplan's determination that the decedent had a substantial connection to the dredge. Petitioner concedes that under certain circumstances, four weeks of work could be a substantial connection to a vessel, Pet'r's Br. at 13, but contends that ALJ Kaplan erred principally by failing to consider the decedent's work history — which included predominantly land-based work over the course of thirty-five years — prior to his work on the dredge. 28 As a preliminary matter, we conclude that ALJ Kaplan need not have considered the decedent's prior work history. The Supreme Court has unequivocally stated that [t]here [is] no . . . need to examine the nature of an employee's duties with prior employers, Harbor Tug & Barge Co. v. Papai, 520 U.S. 548, 557, 117 S.Ct. 1535, 137 L.Ed.2d 800 (1997), because this would undermine the interests of employers and maritime workers alike in being able to predict who will be covered by the Jones Act . . . before a particular work day begins, id. at 558 (internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, if an employee receives a new work assignment in which his essential duties are changed, he is entitled to have the assessment of the substantiality of his vessel-related work made on the basis of his activities in his new position.  Chandris, 515 U.S. at 372, 115 S.Ct. 2172 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court specifically contemplated situations in which someone who had worked for years in an employer's shoreside headquarters is then reassigned to a ship in a . . . seaman's job that involves a regular and continuous, rather than intermittent, commitment of the worker's labor to the function of the vessel. Id. In such circumstances — which strongly resemble those of the decedent's employment aboard the dredge in the instant case — the Court concluded that [s]uch a person should not be denied seaman status if injured shortly after the reassignment. Id. 29 Based on the record before us, we hold that, during the time period that the decedent worked aboard the dredge, he established a connection to the vessel that was substantial in terms of both its duration and its nature rather than merely transitory or sporadic. Chandris, 515 U.S. at 368, 115 S.Ct. 2172. Bearing in mind that [t]he inquiry into the nature of the employee's connection to the vessel must concentrate on whether the employee's duties take him to sea, Papai, 520 U.S. at 555, 117 S.Ct. 1535, we particularly note that the decedent worked aboard an active vessel, maintaining the ship's engines so that it could perform the task of transporting equipment and personnel across a navigable waterway. Cf. id. at 559, 117 S.Ct. 1535 (finding no substantial connection where employee was hired for one day to paint [a] vessel at dockside and he was not going to sail with the vessel after he finished painting it); O'Hara v. Weeks Marine, Inc., 294 F.3d 55, 64 (2d Cir.2002) (finding no substantial connection where employee performed tasks aboard a barge that was at all times secured to [a] pier). 30 With respect to petitioner's final argument — that we should disregard the decedent's employment aboard the dredge because this employment was temporary, rather than of indefinite or permanent duration, see Pet'r's Letter Br. of Mar. 21, 2005, at 5 — even if we were to perceive a distinction between temporary or fill-in work and more permanent kinds of employment, the coverage of the LHWCA does not depend on any such distinction, nor does petitioner point to any authority suggesting that it does. 31 We therefore find no error in the legal reasoning of either ALJ Kaplan or the Board, and we affirm their findings that the decedent had a substantial connection to a vessel at the time of his injury. In our view, both the ALJ and the Board properly determined, in light of the considerable evidence in the record, that the decedent had a connection to the dredge that was substantial in both its duration and its nature.