Welder on Barges and Towboats Lacks Connection to Vessel for Seaman Status

Welder on Barges and Towboats Lacks Connection to Vessel for Seaman Status

By: David Wagner

Edited by: Molly MacKenzie

Turner v. Wayne B. Smith, Inc., Case No. 2:13-CV-100-SPM, 2014 WL 6775796, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166835 (E.D. Missouri 12/2/14).The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Northern Division, granted Defendant Wayne B. Smith, Inc.’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The Defendant owned a facility that loaded materials onto barges and railcars along the Mississippi River. LLoyd E. Turner Jr. (“Plaintiff”) was an employee of the Defendant as its sole welder since 2003, and he spent 90% of his working time welding various metal components around Defendant’s land-based facilities on barges and towboats. The other 10% of the time, the Plaintiff worked on various tasks on land and docked boats.When the Plaintiff would weld on land, he would bring his welding truck because of the necessary equipment it contained. When working on vessels, the Plaintiff would have to use equipment already onboard. A towboat would be brought to the dock for the Plaintiff to work on, and he would board the vessel, do the welding, and disembark the vessel. This accounted for 90% of the work the Plaintiff performed. The Plaintiff would rarely work on vessels while they were traveling on the river. The Plaintiff testified that “90% of [his] work as a welder was either on land or connected to the land right there on the dock.” The Plaintiff was never assigned as a crewmember, deckhand, or engineer on any of the Defendant’s towboats, and never considered himself as a crewmember, nor held any marine licenses or a marine radio. On November 14, 2012, the Plaintiff was injured while aboard the ADMIRAL, which was the Defendant’s water taxi for transporting crewmembers to and from job sites. Plaintiff had finished his work for the day, which involved performing welding on a structure in the Mississippi River. The Plaintiff filed a complaint against the employer asserting status as a seaman under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30101.The main issue in the case was whether the Plaintiff was a seaman under the Jones Act or a maritime worker under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (“LHWCA”).To determine whether the Jones Act applied, the Court used the two-prong test from Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347, 354-355 (1995), which is as follows: (1) “an employee’s duties must ‘contribute to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission,’” and (2) “a seaman must have a connection to a vessel in navigation (or to an identifiable group of such vessels) that is substantial in terms of both duration and nature.” The Court decided that the Plaintiff satisfied the first prong because he was injured on a water taxi, his duties contributed to the function of the Defendant’s vessels, and “seaman” is a status-based inquiry without regard to the precise activity at the time of the injury.The Court then looked at the duration and nature components from the second prong, and first, decided that the Plaintiff satisfied the duration component. Applying the 30% guideline from Chandris, the Court determined that the Plaintiff’s testimony stating that he spent 90% of the time working aboard the Defendant’s docked towboats exceeded the Chandris standard of 30%; the fact that the vessels were docked was not dispositive. Next, the Court looked at the Plaintiff’s duties and at how lower courts had viewed similar duties performed on vessels, and determined as a matter of law that “no reasonable jury could find that Plaintiff has a substantial connection to Defendant’s vessels that satisfies the second prong of the Chandris test.”The Court also determined that because the Plaintiff only rarely worked on vessels going up or down the river, was not assigned to any vessel, did not traditionally perform sea-based activities, and did not have a marine license or marine radio, the Plaintiff was not a member of the vessel’s crew, but rather a land-based employee who happened to be aboard the vessel at the time of injury. The Court concluded that because no reasonable jury could determine that the second prong of the Chandris test was satisfied, the Defendant was entitled to Summary Judgment on the Plaintiff’s Jones Act claim.