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STEWART, WILLARD v. DUTRA CONST. CO. (03-814)
Web-accessible at:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-814.ZS.html
Argued November 1, 2004 -- Decided February 22, 2005
Opinion author: Thomas
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As part of a project to extend the Massachusetts
Turnpike, respondent Dutra Construction Company dug a
trench beneath Boston Harbor using its dredge, the
Super Scoop, a floating platform with a bucket that
removes silt from the ocean floor and dumps it onto
adjacent scows. The Super Scoop has limited means of
self-propulsion, but can navigate short distances by
manipulating its anchors and cables. When dredging the
trench here, it typically moved once every couple of
hours. Petitioner, a marine engineer hired by Dutra to
maintain the Super Scoops mechanical systems, was
seriously injured while repairing a scows engine when
the Super Scoop and the scow collided. He sued Dutra
under the Jones Act, alleging that he was a seaman
injured by Dutras negligence, and under 5(b) of the
Longshore and Harbor Workers Compensation Act
(LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 905(b), which authorizes covered
employees to sue a "vessel" owner as a third party for
an injury caused by the owners negligence. The
District Court granted Dutra summary judgment on the
Jones Act claim, and the First Circuit affirmed. On
remand, the District Court granted Dutra summary
judgment on the LHWCA claim. In affirming, the First
Circuit noted that Dutra had conceded that the Super
Scoop was a "vessel" under 905(b), but found that
Dutras alleged negligence had been committed in its
capacity as an employer and not as the vessels owner.
Held: A dredge is a "vessel" under the LHWCA. Pp.
415.
(a) Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to
remove the bar to negligence suits by seamen. Although
that Act does not define "seaman," the maritime law
backdrop at the time it was passed shows that "seaman"
is a term of art with an established meaning under
general maritime law. The LHWCA, enacted in 1927 to
provide scheduled compensation to land-based maritime
workers but not to "a master or member of a crew of
any vessel," 33 U.S.C. 902(3)(G), works in tandem
with the Jones Act: The Jones Act provides tort
remedies to sea-based maritime workers and the LHWCA
provides workers compensation to land-based maritime
employees. In McDermott Intl, Inc. v. Wilander, 498
U.S. 337, and Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347,
this Court addressed the relationship a worker must
have to a vessel in order to be a "master or member"
of its crew. Now the Court turns to the other half of
the LHWCAs equation: determining whether a watercraft
is a vessel. Pp. 46.
(b) The LHWCA did not define "vessel" when
enacted, but 1 and 3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873
specified that, in any Act passed after February 25,
1871, " vessel includes every description of water-
craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable
of being used, as a means of transportation on water."
The LHWCA is such an Act. Section 3s definition has
remained virtually unchanged to the present and
continues to supply the default definition of "vessel"
throughout the U.S. Code. Section 3 merely codified
the meaning "vessel" had acquired in general maritime
law. In fact, prior to the passage of the Jones Act
and the LHWCA, this Court and lower courts had treated
dredges as vessels. By the time those Acts became law
in the 1920s, it was settled that 3 defined "vessel"
for their purposes, and that a structures status as a
vessel under 3 depended on whether the structure was
an instrument of naval transportation. See Ellis v.
United States, 206 U.S. 246, 259. Then as now, dredges
served a waterborne transportation function: In
performing their work they carried machinery,
equipment, and a crew over water. This Court has
continued to treat 3 as defining "vessel" in the
LHWCA and to construe 3 consistently with general
maritime law. Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U.S. 565. Pp.
610.
(c) Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co., 119 U.S. 625,
and Evansville & Bowling Green Packet Co. v. Chero
Cola Bottling Co., 271 U.S. 19, did not adopt a
definition of vesselhood narrower than 3. Rather,
they made a sensible distinction between watercraft
temporarily stationed in a particular location and
those permanently anchored to shore or the ocean
floor. A watercraft is not capable of being used for
maritime transport in any meaningful sense if it has
been permanently moored or otherwise rendered
practically incapable of transportation or movement.
By including special-purpose vessels like dredges, 3
sweeps broadly, but other prerequisites to qualifying
for seaman status under the Jones Act provide some
limits. A worker seeking such status must prove that
his duties contributed to the vessels function or
mission and that his connection to the vessel was
substantial in nature and duration. Chandris, supra,
at 376. Pp. 1012.
(d) The First Circuit held that the Super Scoop is
not a "vessel" because its primary purpose is not
navigation or commerce and because it was not in
actual transit at the time of Stewarts injury.
Neither prong of that test is consistent with 3s
text or general maritime laws established meaning of
"vessel." Section 3 requires only that a watercraft be
"used, or capable of being used, as a means of
transportation on water," not that it be used
primarily for that purpose. The Super Scoop was not
only "capable of being used" to transport equipment
and passengers over waterit was so used. Similarly,
requiring a watercraft to be in motion to qualify as a
vessel under 3 is the sort of "snapshot" test
rejected in Chandris. That a vessel must be "in
navigation," Chandris, supra, at 373374, means not
that a structures locomotion at any given moment
matters, but that structures may lose their character
as vessels if withdrawn from the water for an extended
period. The "in navigation" requirement is thus
relevant to whether a craft is "used, or capable of
being used," for naval transportation. The inquiry
whether a craft is "used, or capable of being used,"
for maritime transportation may involve factual issues
for a jury, but here no relevant facts were in
dispute. Dutra conceded that the Super Scoop was only
tem
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