Cite as: 515 U. S. 347 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
ture and location of his occupation taken as a whole"). In Barrett, the court noted that the worker "performed seventy to eighty percent of his work on platforms and no more than twenty to thirty percent of his work on vessels" and then concluded that, "[b]ecause he did not perform a substantial portion of his work aboard a vessel or fleet of vessels, he failed to establish that he was a member of the crew of a vessel." 781 F. 2d, at 1076. Since Barrett, the Fifth Circuit consistently has analyzed the problem in terms of the percentage of work performed on vessels for the employer in question—and has declined to find seaman status where the employee spent less than 30 percent of his time aboard ship. See, e. g., Palmer v. Fayard Moving & Transp. Corp., 930 F. 2d 437, 439 (1991); Lormand v. Superior Oil Co., 845 F. 2d 536, 541 (1987), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1031 (1988); cf. Leonard v. Dixie Well Service & Supply, Inc., 828 F. 2d 291, 295 (1987); Pickle v. International Oilfield Divers, Inc., 791 F. 2d 1237, 1240 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1059 (1987).
Although some Courts of Appeals have varied the applicable tests to some degree, see, e. g., Johnson v. John F. Beasley Constr. Co., 742 F. 2d, at 1062-1063, the traditional Carumbo seaman status formulation and the subsequent Robison modification are universally recognized, and one or the other is applied in every Federal Circuit to have considered the issue. See Bull, Seaman Status Revisited: A Practical Guide To Status Determination, 6 U. S. F. Mar. L. J. 547, 562-572 (1994) (collecting cases). The federal 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. Although the traditional test requires a "more or less permanent connection" and the Robison formulation calls for "substantial" work aboard a vessel, "this general requirement varies little, if at all, from one jurisdiction to another," Bull, supra, at 587, and "[t]he courts have repeatedly held
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