Cite as: 512 U. S. 92 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
or a breach thereof at the time the injury occurred." 33 U. S. C. § 905(b).
This provision, enacted as part of the extensive 1972 amendments to the Act, effected fundamental changes in the nature of the third-party action. First, it abolished the longshoreman's pre-existing right to sue a shipowner based upon the warranty of seaworthiness, a right that had been established in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85 (1946). Section 5(b) also eliminated the stevedore's obligation, imposed by Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U. S. 124 (1956), to indemnify a shipowner, if held liable to a longshoreman, for breach of the stevedore's express or implied warranty to conduct cargo operations with reasonable safety. See generally Scindia Steam Nav. Co. v. De los Santos, 451 U. S. 156, 165 (1981); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty § 6-57, pp. 449-455 (2d ed. 1975) (hereinafter Gilmore & Black). Other sections of the 1972 amendments provided for a substantial increase in the statutory benefits injured longshoremen are entitled to receive from their stevedore-employers. See Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U. S. 249, 261-262 (1977); Gilmore & Black § 6-46, at 411; Note, 13 Tulane Mar. L. J. 163, 163-164 (1988). The design of these changes was to shift more of the responsibility for compensating injured longshoremen to the party best able to prevent injuries: the stevedore-employer. See Scindia Steam, 451 U. S., at 171. Subjecting vessels to suit for injuries that could be anticipated and prevented by a competent stevedore would threaten to upset the balance Congress was careful to strike in enacting the 1972 amendments.
The question whether Howlett produced evidence sufficient to hold Birkdale liable for his injuries turns on the meaning of the term "negligence" in § 5(b). Because Congress did not "specify the acts or omissions of the vessel that would constitute negligence," the contours of a vessel's duty to longshoremen are "left to be resolved through the 'appli-
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