Cite as: 520 U. S. 548 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
man's Union hiring hall. He testified that about 70 percent of his work was as a deckhand, and that "most of that work [was] done while the boats were moving on the water." App. 34. If all of that deckhand work had been performed for petitioner, there would be no doubt about Papai's status as a seaman.
Petitioner, however, did not maintain a permanent crew on any of its vessels. 67 F. 3d 203, 204 (CA9 1995). Instead, like other tugboat operators in the San Francisco Bay area, it obtained its deckhands on a job-by-job basis through the union hiring hall. Under these circumstances, I believe the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that Papai's status as a seaman should be tested by the character of his work for the group of vessel owners that used the same union agent to make selections from the same pool of employees.
In Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U. S. 347 (1995), the Court rejected a "voyage test" of seaman status, concluding that an employee who was injured while performing his duties on a vessel on the high seas was not necessarily a Jones Act seaman. Id., at 358-364. The Court instead adopted a status-based inquiry that looked at the nature and duration of the employee's relationship to a vessel—or an identifiable group of vessels—in navigation to determine whether that employee received Jones Act coverage. Id., at 370-371. Today, the majority apparently concludes that an employee is not necessarily protected by the Jones Act even if he was injured aboard a vessel in navigation and his work over the preceding two years was primarily seaman's work. I believe this conclusion is unsupported by either the reasoning or the language in the Chandris opinion.
Chandris' status-based test requires a maritime worker to have a relationship that is substantial in duration and nature with a vessel, or an identifiable group of vessels, in navigation. See id., at 376. Nothing in the Court's holding there intimated that the "identifiable group of vessels" need all be
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