Court Opinion

ID: 9474456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:57:31.545136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:05.473863
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge,
with whom E. GRADY JOLLY, ROBERT MADDEN HILL, and EDITH HOLLAN JONES, Circuit Judges join, specially concurring:
I concur in the judgment of the Court. In addition, and in order that there can be a rule on the question in our Circuit, I concur in the majority opinion.
Were I free to do so, however, I would adopt for our Circuit the rule of Johnson v. John F. Beasley Construction Co., 742 F.2d 1054 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 1180, 84 L.Ed.2d 328 (1985). I would do so for the reasons there well stated by Judge Wood, the author of that opinion. In particular, with the advent of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1333(b), and the 1972 amendments to the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., the reasons which drove our Circuit’s broad construction of the Jones Act’s undefined term “seamen” have largely vanished. See Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769, 780 (5th Cir.1959) (other workers in “many instances ... are exposed to more hazards than are blue-water sailors.”)
So long as Jones Act benefits are more attractive than those of the other marine compensation schemes, astute counsel will seek to qualify their clients as “seamen.” A bright-line rule is called for, one that nudges coverage back toward the blue-water sailors for whom the Jones Act was meant. The Johnson test is such a rule; I would adopt it if I could. But because it is more important to have a rule than to have the correct one, I concur.