382
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
than Warner,6 in which anyone even argued that an employee who was aboard the ship contributing to the ship's mission while the vessel was in navigation on the high seas was not a seaman. In light of the purposes of the Jones Act, that position is simply too farfetched. As a leading admiralty treatise has recognized, "[i]t seems never to have been questioned that any member of a ship's company who actually goes to sea, no matter what his (or her) duties may be, is a seaman." G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty § 6-21, p. 331 (2d ed. 1975).
Surely nothing in Wilander contradicts this basic proposition. In that opinion, we made several references to the importance of work performed on a voyage. Thus, we quoted from leading 19th-century treatises on admiralty: " 'The term mariner includes all persons employed on board ships and vessels during the voyage to assist in their navigation and preservation, or to promote the purposes of the voyage. . . . [A]t all times and in all countries, all the persons who have been necessarily or properly employed in a vessel as co-laborers to the great purpose of the voyage, have, by the law, been clothed with the legal rights of mariners.' " 498 U. S., at 344-345 (emphasis deleted), quoting E. Benedict, American Admiralty §§ 278, 241, pp. 158, 133-134 (1850). "An 1883 treatise declared: 'All persons employed on a vessel to assist in the main purpose of the voyage are mariners, and included under the name of seamen.' M. Cohen, Admiralty 239." 498 U. S., at 346. Summarizing our conclusion, we wrote:
"We believe the better rule is to define 'master or member of a crew' under the LHWCA, and therefore 'seaman' under the Jones Act, solely in terms of the em-6 Even in Warner, no one contested the basic proposition that an employee of a ship at sea is a "seaman." Instead, the issue in that case was whether the term "seaman" extended to the captain of such a ship, or whether it referred only to lower level employees. The Court, applying the "liberal construction" that Congress intended, held that the master was a "seaman."
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