Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347, 13 (1995)

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Cite as: 515 U. S. 347 (1995)

Opinion of the Court

52. Because stevedores are engaged in "a maritime service formerly rendered by the ship's crew," ibid. (citing Atlantic Transport Co. of W. Va. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, 62 (1914)), we concluded, they should receive the Jones Act's protections. See also Uravic v. F. Jarka Co., 282 U. S. 234, 238 (1931); Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 639 (1930). In 1946, the Court belatedly recognized that Congress had acted, in passing the LHWCA in 1927, to undercut the Court's reasoning in the Haverty line of cases and to emphasize that land-based maritime workers should not be entitled to the seamen's traditional remedies. Our decision in Swanson v. Marra Brothers, Inc., 328 U. S. 1, 7 (1946), acknowledged that Congress had expressed its intention to "confine the benefits of the Jones Act to the members of the crew of a vessel plying in navigable waters and to substitute for the right of recovery recognized by the Haverty case only such rights to compensation as are given by [the LHWCA]." See also South Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S. 251, 257 (1940). Through the LHWCA, therefore, Congress "explicitly den[ied] a right of recovery under the Jones Act to maritime workers not members of a crew who are injured on board a vessel." Swanson, supra, at 6. And this recognition process culminated in Wilander with the Court's statement that, "[w]ith the passage of the LHWCA, Congress established a clear distinction between land-based and sea-based maritime workers. The latter, who owe their allegiance to a vessel and not solely to a land-based employer, are seamen." 498 U. S., at 347.

In addition to recognizing a fundamental distinction between land-based and sea-based maritime employees, our cases also emphasize that Jones Act coverage, like the jurisdiction of admiralty over causes of action for maintenance and cure for injuries received in the course of a seaman's employment, 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 as

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