362
Opinion of the Court
workers who unmistakably confront the perils of the sea, often in extreme form, are thereby left out of the seamen's protections" (footnote omitted)). A "voyage test" would conflict with our prior understanding of the Jones Act as fundamentally status based, granting the negligence cause of action to those maritime workers who form the ship's company. Swanson, supra, at 4-5; O'Donnell, supra, at 42-43.
Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187, 190 (1952), is not to the contrary. Although some language in that case does suggest that whether an individual is a seaman depends upon "the activity in which he was engaged at the time of injury," the context of that discussion reveals that "activity" referred to the worker's employment as a laborer on a vessel undergoing seasonal repairs while out of navigation, and not to his precise task at the time of injury. Similarly, despite Justice Harlan's suggestion in dissent that the Court's decision in Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co., 356 U. S. 252 (1958), necessarily construed the word seaman "to mean nothing more than a person injured while working at sea," id., at 255, our short per curiam opinion in that case does not indicate that we adopted so expansive a reading of the statutory term. Citing our prior cases which emphasized that the question of seaman status is normally for the fact-finder to decide, see, e. g., Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370, 371-372 (1957); Bassett, 309 U. S., at 257-258, we reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and held simply that the jury could have inferred from the facts presented that the petitioner was a member of a crew in light of his overall service to the company (as the District Court had concluded in ruling on a motion for a directed verdict at the close of petitioner's case). Grimes, supra, at 253. That neither Desper nor Grimes altered our established course in favor of a voyage test is confirmed by reference to our later decision in Braen, supra, at 131, in which we repeated that "[t]he injured party must of course have 'status as a member of the vessel' for it is seamen, not others who may work on
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