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U.S. Supreme Court
CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___ (1995)
CHANDRIS, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ANTONIOS LATSIS
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SECOND CIRCUIT
No. 94-325.
Argued February 21, 1995
Decided June 14, 1995

Respondent Latsis' duties as a superintendent engineer for
petitioner Chandris, Inc., required him to take voyages on
Chandris' ships. He lost substantial vision in one eye after a
condition that he developed while on one of those voyages went
untreated by a ship's doctor. Following his recuperation, he sailed
to Germany on the S. S. Galileo and stayed with the ship while it
was in drydock for refurbishment. Subsequently, he sued
Chandris for damages for his eye injury under the Jones Act,
which provides a negligence cause of action for “any seaman”
injured in the course of his employment.; The District Court
instructed the jury that Latsis was a “seaman” if he was
permanently assigned to, or performed a substantial part of his
work on, a vessel, but that the time Latsis spent with the Galileo
while it was in drydock could not be considered because the
vessel was then out of navigation. The jury returned a verdict for
Chandris based solely on Latsis' seaman status. The Court of
Appeals vacated the judgment, finding that the jury instruction
improperly framed the issue primarily in terms of Latsis'
temporal relationship to the vessel. It held that the “employment-
related connection to a vessel in navigation” required for seaman
status under the Jones Act, McDermott International, Inc. v.
Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 355 , exists where an individual
contributes to a vessel's function or the accomplishment of its
mission; the contribution is limited to a particular vessel or
identifiable group of vessels; the contribution is substantial in
terms of its duration or nature; and the course of the individual's
employment regularly exposes him to the hazards of the sea. It
also found that the District Court erred in instructing the jury that
the Galileo's drydock time could not count in the substantial
connection equation. Page IIHeld:1. The “employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation” necessary for seaman
status comprises two basic elements: the worker's duties must
contribute to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment
of its mission, id., at 355, and the worker must have a connection
to a vessel in navigation (or an identifiable group of vessels) that
is substantial in both its duration and its nature. Pp. 6-25.(a) The
Jones Act provides heightened legal protections to seamen
because of their exposure to the perils of the sea, but does not
define the term “seaman.” However, the Court's Jones Act cases
establish the basic principles that the term does not include land-
based workers, id., at 348, and that seaman status depends “not
on the place where the injury is inflicted . . . but on the nature of
the seaman's service, his status as a member of the vessel, and
his relationship . . . to the vessel and its operation in navigable
waters,” Swanson v. Marra Brothers, Inc., 328 U.S. 1, 4 . Thus,
land-based maritime workers do not become seamen when they
happen to be working aboard a vessel, and seamen do not lose
Jones Act coverage when their service to a vessel takes them
ashore. Latsis' proposed “voyage test” - under which any
maritime worker assigned to a vessel for the duration of a
voyage, whose duties contribute to the vessel's mission, would
be a seaman for injuries incurred during that voyage - conflicts
with this status-based inquiry. Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co.,
342 U.S. 187, 190 , and Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co, 356
U.S. 252, 255 , distinguished. Pp. 6-16.(b) Beyond the basic
themes outlined here, the Court's cases have been silent as to
the precise relationship a maritime worker must bear to a vessel
in order to come within the Jones Act's ambit, leaving the lower
federal courts the task of developing appropriate criteria to
distinguish “ship's company” from land-based maritime workers.
Those courts generally require at least a significant connection
to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable fleet of vessels) for
a maritime worker to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act.
Pp. 16-20.(c) The test for seaman status adopted here has two
essential requirements. The first is a broad threshold
requirement that makes all maritime employees who do the
ship's work eligible for seaman status. Wilander, supra, at 355.
The second requirement determines which of these eligible
maritime employees have the required employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation to make them in fact entitled
to Jones Act benefits. This requirement gives full effect to the
remedial scheme created by Congress and separates sea-based
maritime employees entitled to Jones Act Page III protection from
land-based workers whose employment does not regularly
expose them to the perils of the sea. Who is a “member of a
crew” is a mixed question of law and fact. A jury should be able
to consider all relevant circumstances bearing on the two
requirements. The duration of a worker's connection to a vessel
and the nature of the worker's activities, taken together,
determine whether he is a seaman, because the ultimate inquiry
is whether the worker is part of the vessel's crew or simply a
land-based employee who happens to be working on the vessel
at a given time. Although seaman status is not merely a temporal
concept, it includes a temporal element. A worker who spends
only a small fraction of his working time aboard a vessel is
fundamentally land-based and therefore not a crew member
regardless of his duties. An appropriate rule of thumb is that 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.
This figure is only a guideline that allows a court to take the
question from the jury when a worker has a clearly inadequate
temporal connection to the vessel. On the other hand, the
seaman status inquiry should not be limited exclusively to an
examination of the overall course of a worker's service with a
particular employer, since his seaman status may change with
his basic assignment. Pp. 20-25.2. The District Court's drydock
instruction was erroneous. Whether a vessel is in navigation is a
fact-intensive question that can be removed from the jury's
consideration only where the facts and the law will reasonably
support one conclusion. Based upon the record here, the trial
court failed adequately to justify its decision to remove that
question from the jury. Moreover, the court's charge to the jury
swept too broadly in prohibiting the jury from considering the
time Latsis spent with the vessel while in drydock for any
purpose. Pp. 25-29.20 F.3d 45, affirmed.O'CONNOR, J., delivered
the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA,
KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed
an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which THOMAS and
BREYER, JJ., joined. [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___
(1995) , 1]; JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case asks us to clarify what “employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation,” McDermott International,
Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337, 355 (1991), is necessary for a
maritime worker to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act, 46
U.S.C. App. 688(a). In Wilander, we addressed the type of
activities that a seaman must perform and held that, under the
Jones Act, a seaman's job need not be limited to transportation-
related functions that directly aid in the vessel's navigation. We
now determine what relationship a worker must have to the
vessel, regardless of the specific tasks the worker undertakes,
in order to obtain seaman status.IIn May 1989, respondent
Antonios Latsis was employed by petitioner Chandris, Inc., as a
salaried superintendent engineer. Latsis was responsible for
maintaining and updating the electronic and communications
equipment on Chandris' fleet of vessels, which consisted of six
passenger cruise ships. Each ship in the Chandris fleet carried
between 12 and 14 engineers who were assigned permanently to
that vessel. Latsis, on the other hand, was one of two supervising
engineers [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___ (1995) , 2]
based at Chandris' Miami office; his duties ran to the entire fleet
and included not only overseeing the vessels' engineering
departments, which required him to take a number of voyages,
but also planning and directing ship maintenance from the shore.
Latsis claimed at trial that he spent 72 percent of his time at sea,
App. 58; his immediate supervisor testified that the appropriate
figure was closer to 10 percent, id., at 180.On May 14, 1989,
Latsis sailed for Bermuda aboard the S. S. Galileo to plan for an
upcoming renovation of the ship, which was one of the older
vessels in the Chandris fleet. Latsis developed a problem with his
right eye on the day of departure, and he saw the ship's doctor as
the Galileo left port. The doctor diagnosed a suspected detached
retina but failed to follow standard medical procedure, which
would have been to direct Latsis to see an ophthalmologist on an
emergency basis. Instead, the ship's doctor recommended that
Latsis relax until he could see an eye specialist when the Galileo
arrived in Bermuda two days later. No attempt was made to
transport Latsis ashore for prompt medical care by means of a
pilot vessel or helicopter during the 11 hours it took the ship to
reach the open sea from Baltimore, and Latsis received no
further medical care until after the ship arrived in Bermuda. In
Bermuda, a doctor diagnosed a detached retina and
recommended immediate hospitalization and surgery. Although
the operation was a partial success, Latsis lost 75 percent of his
vision in his right eye.Following his recuperation, which lasted
approximately six weeks, Latsis resumed his duties with
Chandris. On September 30, 1989, he sailed with the Galileo to
Bremerhaven, Germany, where the vessel was placed in drydock
for a 6-month refurbishment. After the conversion, the company
renamed the vessel the S. S. Meridian. Latsis, who had been with
the ship the entire time it was in drydock in Bremerhaven, sailed
back to the [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___ (1995) , 3]
United States on board the Meridian and continued to work for
Chandris until November 1990, when his employment was
terminated for reasons that are not clear from the record.In
October 1991, Latsis filed suit in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York seeking compensatory
damages under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. App. 688, for the
negligence of the ship's doctor that resulted in the significant
loss of sight in Latsis' right eye. The Jones Act provides, in
pertinent part, that “[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal
injury in the course of his employment may, at his election,
maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by
jury . . . .” The District Court instructed the jury that it could
conclude that Latsis was a seaman within the meaning of the
statute if it found as follows:”[T]he plaintiff was either
permanently assigned to the vessel or performed a substantial
part of his work on the vessel. In determining whether Mr. Latsis
performed a substantial part of his work on the vessel, you may
not consider the period of time the Galileo was in drydock in
Germany, because during that time period she was out of
navigation. You may, however, consider the time spent sailing to
and from Germany for the conversion. Also, on this first element
of being a seaman, seamen do not include land-based workers.”
App. 210.The parties stipulated to the District Court's second
requirement for Jones Act coverage - that Latsis' duties
contributed to the accomplishment of the missions of the
Chandris vessels. Id., at 211. Latsis did not object to the seaman
status jury instructions in their entirety, but only contested that
portion of the charge which explicitly took from the jury's
consideration the period of time that the Galileo was in drydock.
The jury returned a verdict [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S.
___ (1995) , 4] in favor of Chandris solely on the issue of Latsis'
status as a seaman under the Jones Act. Id., at 213.Respondent
appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which
vacated the judgment and remanded the case for a new trial. 20 F.
3d 45 (1994). The court emphasized that its longstanding test for
seaman status under the Jones Act required “`a more or less
permanent connection with the ship,'“ Salgado v. M. J. Rudolph
Corp., 514 F.2d 750, 755 (CA2 1975), a connection that need not
be limited to time spent on the vessel but could also be
established by the nature of the work performed. The court
thought that the alternate formulation employed by the District
Court (permanent assignment to the vessel or performance of a
substantial part of his work on the vessel), which was derived
from Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769, 779 (CA5 1959),
improperly framed the issue for the jury primarily, if not solely, in
terms of Latsis' temporal relationship to the vessel. With that
understanding of what the language of the Robison test implied,
the court concluded that the District Court's seaman status jury
instructions constituted plain error under established circuit
precedent. The court then took this case as an opportunity to
clarify its seaman status requirements, directing the District
Court that the jury should be instructed on remand as follows:”[T]
he test of seaman status under the Jones Act is an employment-
related connection to a vessel in navigation. The test will be met
where a jury finds that (1) the plaintiff contributed to the function
of or helped accomplish the mission of, a vessel; (2) the plaintiff's
contribution was limited to a particular vessel or identifiable
group of vessels; (3) the plaintiff's contribution was substantial in
terms of its (a) duration or (b) nature; and (4) the course of the
plaintiff's employment regularly exposed the [ CHANDRIS, INC. v.
LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___ (1995) , 5] plaintiff to the hazards of the
sea.” 20 F.3d, at 57.Elsewhere on the same page, however, the
court phrased the third prong as requiring a substantial
connection in terms of both duration and nature. Finally, the Court
of Appeals held that the District Court erred in instructing the jury
that the time Latsis spent with the ship while it was in drydock
could not count in the substantial connection equation. Id., at 55-
56. Judge Kearse dissented, arguing that the drydock instruction
was not erroneous and that the remainder of the charge did not
constitute plain error. Id., at 58.We granted certiorari, 513 U.S.
___ (1994), to resolve the continuing conflict among the Courts of
Appeals regarding the appropriate requirements for seaman
status under the Jones Act. * [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S.
___ (1995) , 6] The Jones Act provides a cause of action in
negligence for “any seaman” injured “in the course of his
employment.” 46 U.S.C. App. 688(a). Under general maritime law
prevailing prior to the statute's enactment, seamen were entitled
to “maintenance and cure” from their employer for injuries
incurred “in the service of the ship” and to recover damages
from the vessel's owner for “injuries received by seamen in
consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship,” but they were
“not allowed to recover an indemnity for the negligence of the
master, or any member of the crew.” The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158,
175 (1903); see also Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, Inc., 287 U.
S. 367, 370-371 (1932). Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920
to remove the bar to suit for negligence articulated in The
Osceola, thereby completing the trilogy of heightened legal
protections (unavailable to other maritime workers) that seamen
receive because of their exposure to the “perils of the sea.” See
G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty, 6-21, pp. 328-329
(2d ed. 1975); Robertson, A New Approach to Determining
Seaman Status, 64 Texas L. Rev. 79 (1985) (hereinafter
Robertson). Justice Story identified this animating purpose
behind the legal regime governing maritime injuries when he
observed that seamen “are emphatically the wards of the
admiralty” because they “are by the peculiarity of their lives liable
to sudden sickness from change of climate, exposure to perils,
and exhausting labour.” Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 485,
483 (No. 6,047) (CC Me. 1823). Similarly, we stated in Wilander
that “[t]raditional seamen's remedies . . . have been `universally
recognized as . . . growing out of the status of the seaman and his
peculiar relationship to the vessel, and as a feature of the
maritime law compensating or offsetting the special hazards and
disadvantages to which they who go down to sea in ships are
subjected.'“ [ CHANDRIS, INC. v. LATSIS, ___ U.S. ___ (1995) , 7]
498 U.S., at 354 (quoting Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S.
85, 104 (1946) (Stone, C. J., dissenting)).The Jones Act, however,
does not define the term “seaman” and therefore leaves to the
courts the determination of exactly which maritime workers are
entitled to admiralty's special protection. Early on, we concluded
that Congress intended the term to have its established meaning
under the general maritime law at the time the Jones Act was
enacted. See Warner v. Goltra, 293 U.S. 155, 159 (1934). In
Warner, we stated that “a seaman is a mariner of any degree,
one who lives his life upon the sea.” Id., at 157. Similarly, in
Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U.S. 565, 572 (1944), we suggested that
“`every one is entitled to the privilege of a seaman who, like
seamen, at all times contributes to the labors about the operation
and welfare of the ship when she is upon a voyage'“ (quoting The
Buena Ventura, 243 F. 797, 799 (SDNY 1916))

more to come

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an important case about seaman status

Jones Act seaman status - maritime law - legal issue about which maritime employees qualify as
seamen in the Jones Act - maritime law - important case law affecting the legal rights of mariners

This case is frequently cited by maritime attorneys. It covers the
“seaman status” test. Lawyers realize this is significant
because qualifying as a seaman under this test will determine
whether a commercial mariner will be entitled to legal benefits
under the Jones Act. The Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. 688 should cover
seamen injured in the course of employment. The significance of
this case in maritime law and its importance for maritime
attorneys is that unless an injured maritime employee or worker
can demonstrate seaman status, they may not be entitled to
Jones Act benefits. An injury can still be covered under the
Longshore and Harbor Workers Compensation Act or Workers’
Compensation law.