348
Syllabus
the term "seaman." However, the Court's Jones Act cases establish the basic principles that the term does not include land-based workers, 498 U. S., 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. 354-364. (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. 364-368. (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 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
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