Court Opinion

ID: 9486558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:52:39.671668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:47.896005
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Though I agree that the four criteria articulated by the majority ante at 57 should govern the determination of whether an employee is a “seaman” within the meaning of the Jones Act, even under that formulation I am unpersuaded that the non-dry-dock part of the district court’s instructions, to which Latsis made no objection, constituted “plain” error. Further, I am unpersuaded that the district judge erred in instructing the jury that, in determining whether plaintiff Latsis was a seaman, it should disregard the period during which the Galileo was in dry dock. The Jones Act concept of “ ‘seaman’ ” contains a “land-based/sea-based distinction.” McDermott International, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 354, 111 S.Ct. 807, 817, 112 L.Ed.2d 866 (1991). The 65, million-dollar dry-dock conversion and reconstruction of the Galileo was unquestionably a land-based activity. In my view, this part of the instructions — the only part to which Latsis objected — was correct.
Accordingly, since in my view the only portion of the instructions to which Latsis objected was not erroneous, and since the remainder- of the instructions did not constitute plain error, I would affirm.