Court Opinion

ID: 9622129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:12:23.907907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:13.771575
License: Public Domain

OWEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This is a very difficult case, in my view. The panel’s opinion sets forth cogent arguments as to why there should be a bright-line rule as to when a vessel under construction becomes a “vessel in navigation” for purposes of determining whether an injured worker was a “seaman” within the meaning of the Jones Act. However, the language used by the United States Supreme Court in Stewart v. Dutra Construction Company1 is broad and seems to require us to conclude that the CAJUN EXPRESS is a contrivance that is capable of being used as a means of transportation on water since the CAJUN EXPRESS did in fact transport Cain and others across an ocean.
There are undoubtedly conceptual difficulties in applying the principle that a “contrivance” becomes a vessel in navigation when it is a “watercraft practically capable of maritime transportation, regardless of its primary purpose or state of *304transit at a particular moment.”2 At some point prior to its actual commissioning, a “contrivance” under construction may become capable of maritime transportation in a physical and practical sense whether moored in the water or in dry dock. The uncertainties as to the hour or day the practical capability of maritime transportation occurs would seem a fertile source of contract and tort litigation and may lead to overlapping insurance arrangements, and unnecessary costs in obtaining that coverage. Additionally, a contrivance under construction may be moored for long periods of time while further construction continues after an initial voyage transported crew members on the seas, as was the case here.
In spite of the certainty and predictability that the panel’s decision would bring in many if not most scenarios involving vessels under construction, the CAJUN EXPRESS appears to have all the attributes that the Supreme Court ascribed to a “vessel” in Stewart. I therefore, very respectfully, dissent.

. 543 U.S. 481, 125 S.Ct. 1118, 160 L.Ed.2d 932 (2005).

. Id. at 497, 125 S.Ct. 1118.