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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 94-325
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CHANDRIS, INC., et al., PETITIONERS v.
 ANTONIOS LATSIS
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the second circuit
[June 14, 1995]

  Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Thomas and
Justice Breyer join, concurring in the judgment.
  The majority has reached the odd conclusion that a
maritime engineer, injured aboard ship on the high seas
while performing his duties as an employee of the ship,
might not be a -seaman- within the meaning of the
Jones Act.  This decision is unprecedented.  It ignores
the critical distinction between work performed aboard
ship during a voyage-when the members of the crew
encounter -the perils of the sea--and maritime work
performed on a vessel moored to a dock in a safe
harbor.  In my judgment, an employee of the ship who
is injured at sea in the course of his employment is
always a -seaman.-  I would leave more ambiguous,
shore-bound cases for another day.  Accordingly, though
I concur in the Court's disposition of this case, returning
it to the District Court for a new trial, I disagree with
the standard this Court directs the trial court to apply
on remand.

                            I
  The Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. 688, provides, in
part, -[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal injury in
the course of his employment may, at his election,
maintain an action for damages at law.-  In this case,
it is undisputed that respondent, Antonios Latsis, was
injured in the course of his employment.  When the
injury occurred, he was on board the steamship Galileo,
a vessel in navigation in the Atlantic Ocean.  He was
therefore exposed to the perils of the sea; indeed, as the
Court of Appeals correctly noted, -his injury was the
result of such a peril.-  Respondent was not a mere
passenger; he was performing duties for his employer
that contributed to the ship's mission.  In common
parlance, then, he was a member of the crew of the
Galileo.  I think these facts are sufficient to establish
that respondent was, as a matter of law, a -seaman-
within the meaning of the Jones Act at the time of his
injury.  Although the character of Latsis' responsibilities
before the voyage began and after it ended would be
relevant in determining his status if he had been injured
while the ship was in port, they have no bearing on his
status as a member of the Galileo's crew during the
voyage.
  This conclusion follows, first, from the language of the
Jones Act and of the Longshore and Harbor Workers'
Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U. S. C. 901, et seq.
The latter, a federal workers' compensation scheme for
shore-based maritime workers, exempts any -master or
member of a crew of any vessel,- 33 U. S. C. 902(3)
(G)-a formulation that, we have held, is coextensive
with the term -seaman- in the Jones Act.  McDermott
International, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 347
(1991).  In ordinary parlance, an employee of a ship at
sea who is on that ship as part of his employment and
who contributes to the ship's mission is both a -seaman-
and a -member of [the] crew of [the] vessel.-  Indeed, I
am not sure how these words can reasonably be read to
exclude such an employee.  Surely none of the statutory
language suggests that the individual must be a member
of the ship's crew for longer than a single voyage.
  My conclusion also comports with the clear purpose of
the Jones Act and of the other maritime law remedies
traditionally afforded to seamen: to protect maritime
workers from exposure to the perils of the sea.  In
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 354, we endorsed Chief Justice
Stone's explanation of the admiralty law's favored
treatment of seamen.  Chief Justice Stone wrote:
      -The liability of the vessel or owner for mainte-
nance and cure, regardless of their negligence, was
established long before our modern conception of
contract.  But it, like the liability to indemnify the
seaman for injuries resulting from unseaworthiness,
has been universally recognized as an obligation
growing out of the status of the seaman and his
peculiar relationship to the vessel, and as a feature
of the maritime law compensating or offsetting the
special hazards and disadvantages to which they
who go down to sea in ships are subjected.  They
are exposed to the perils of the sea and all the risks
of unseaworthiness, with little opportunity to avoid
those dangers or to discover and protect themselves
from them or to prove who is responsible for the
unseaworthiness causing the injury.
      -For these reasons the seaman has been given a
special status in the maritime law as the ward of
the admiralty, entitled to special protection of the
law not extended to land employees.  Justice Story
said in Reed v. Canfield, Fed. Cas. No. 11,641, 1
Sumn. 195, 199: `Seamen are in some sort co-adven-
turers upon the voyage; and lose their wages upon
casualties, which do not affect artisans at home.
They share the fate of the ship in cases of ship-
wreck and capture.  They are liable to different
rules of discipline and sufferings from landsmen.
The policy of the maritime law, for great, and wise,
and benevolent purposes, has built up peculiar
rights, privileges, duties, and liabilities in the sea-
service, which do not belong to home pursuits.'-
Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85, 104-105
(1946) (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted).
This exposure to the perils of the sea is what separates
seamen from longshoremen, who are subject to entirely
different, and usually less advantageous, remedies for
injuries suffered in the course of their employment.
Chief Justice Stone continued:
      -It is for these reasons that throughout the long
history of the maritime law the right to mainte-
nance and cure, and later the right to indemnity for
injuries attributable to unseaworthiness, have been
confined to seamen.  Longshoremen and harbor
workers are in a class very different from seamen,
and one not calling for the creation of extraordinary
obligations of the vessel or its owner in their favor,
more than other classes of essentially land workers.
Unlike members of the crew of a vessel they do not
go to sea; they are not subject to the rigid discipline
of the sea; they are not prevented by law or ship's
discipline from leaving the vessel on which they may
be employed; they have the same recourse as land
workers to avoid the hazards to which they are
exposed, to ascertain the cause of their injury and
to prove it in court.-  Id., at 105.
  In some cases, workers who labor on ships close to
shore may face sufficient exposure to the perils of the
sea to merit seaman status.  The determination of
seaman status will depend on the particular facts of the
case.  See, e.g., Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342
U. S. 187 (1952); Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352
U. S. 370 (1957); Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co.,
356 U. S. 252 (1958); Butler v. Whiteman, 356 U. S. 271
(1958).  When the extent and consequence of the
employee's exposure to the seaman's hazards is facially
unclear, a test like the majority's may be appropriate.
But no ambiguity exists when an employee is injured on
the high seas.  Unquestionably, that employee faces the
perils associated with the voyage.  Incontrovertibly, that
employee is a -master or member of a crew of any
vessel,- within the meaning of the LHWCA, and hence
a -seaman- under the Jones Act.  Whatever treatment
Congress intended for employees working in proximity to
the shoreline, certainly it intended to extend Jones Act
protection to the captain and crew of a ship on the high
seas.
  This conclusion is consistent with every Jones Act case
that this Court has decided.  Justice Cardozo's opinion
for the Court in Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S. 155 (1934),
set a course that we have consistently followed.  Ex-
plaining our holding that the master of a tugboat is a
-seaman,- he explained that -[i]t is enough that what he
does affects `the operation and welfare of the ship when
she is upon a voyage.'-  Id., at 157.  Indeed, apart from
the argument that a seaman must assist in performing
the transportation function of the vessel-an argument
finally  put to rest in McDermott International, Inc v.
Wilander, 498 U. S. 337 (1991)-I am not aware of a
single Jones Act case decided by this Court, other than
Warner, 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
employee's connection to a vessel in navigation.
This rule best explains our case law and is consis-
tent with the pre-Jones Act interpretation of `sea-
man' and Congress' land-based/sea-based distinction.
All who work at sea in the service of a ship face
those particular perils to which the protection of
maritime law, statutory as well as decisional, is
directed.-  Id., at 354.
  Our opinion in Wilander is thus entirely consistent
with my view that while a vessel is at sea every
member of its crew is a seaman within the meaning of
the Jones Act.

                           II
  Despite the language, history, and purpose of the
Jones Act, the Court today holds that seaman status
may require more than a single ocean voyage.  The
Court's opinion thus obscures, if it does not ignore, the
distinction between the perils of the sea and the risks
faced by maritime workers when a ship is moored to a
dock.  The test that the Court formulates may be
appropriate for the resolution of cases in the latter
category.  The Court fails, however, to explain why the
member of the crew of a vessel at sea is not always a
seaman.
  Respondent's argument, -that any worker who is
assigned to a vessel for the duration of a voyage and
whose duties contribute to the vessel's mission must be
classified as a seaman respecting injuries incurred on
that voyage,-  Brief for Respondent 14, is not inconsis-
tent with the Court's view, ante, at 11-13, that an
employee must occupy a certain status in order to
qualify as a seaman.  It merely recognizes that all
members of a ship's crew have that status while the
vessel is at sea.  In contrast, when the ship is in a
harbor, further inquiry may be necessary to separate
land-based from sea-based maritime employees.  The
Court is therefore simply wrong when it states that a
-`voyage test' would conflict with our prior understand-
ing of the Jones Act as fundamentally status-based,
granting the negligence cause of action to those mari-
time workers who form the ship's company,- ante, at 14.
The -ship's company- is readily identifiable when the
ship is at sea; the fact that it may be less so when the
ship is in port is not an acceptable reason for refusing
to rely on the voyage test in a case like this one.
  The Court is also quite wrong to suggest that our
prior cases -indicate that a maritime worker does not
become a `member of a crew' as soon as a vessel leaves
the dock,- ante, at 13.  In neither of the two cases on
which it relies to support this conclusion did the injured
workman even claim the status of a seaman.  In
Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v.
Perini North River Associates, 459 U. S. 297 (1983), we
held that an employee of a firm that was building the
foundation of a sewage treatment plant, which extended
over the Hudson River adjacent to Manhattan, was
covered by the LHWCA because he was injured while
working on a barge in navigable waters.  The Court of
Appeals had denied coverage on the ground that this
worker was not engaged in maritime employment.  Thus,
Perini had nothing to do with any possible overlap
between the Jones Act and the LHWCA; this Court's
reversal merely found a sufficient maritime connection
to support LHWCA coverage of an admittedly shore-
based worker.
  The other case that the Court cites, Parker v. Motor
Boat Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244 (1941), involved a janitor
who had drowned while riding in a motor boat on the
James River near Richmond.  The Court of Appeals had
held that his widow was not entitled to compensation
under the LHWCA on the alternative grounds (1) that
the janitor was not acting in the course of his employ-
ment when the boat capsized, and (2) that the LHWCA
did not apply because Virginia law could provide
compensation.  See id., at 245.  As in Perini, our opinion
reversing that decision did not discuss the Jones Act,
because no one had even mentioned the possibility that
the janitor might be a -seaman.-  Because Parker was
decided during the 19-year period -during which the
Court did not recognize the mutual exclusivity of the
LHWCA and the Jones Act,- Wilander, 498 U. S., at
348, it is not at all clear that the Court, if asked to do
so, would not have found that the janitor was a Jones
Act seaman as well as an LHWCA-covered employee.
Accordingly, the cases cited by the majority lend no
support to its holding that the member of a crew of a
ship at sea is not always a seaman.
  The Court's only other justification for refusing to
apply a voyage test is its purported concern about a
worker who might -walk into and out of coverage in the
course of his regular duties.-  Ante at 15 (internal
quotation marks omitted).  Because the only way that a
seaman could walk out of Jones Act coverage during a
voyage would be to quit his job and become a passenger
(or possibly jump overboard), I take the majority's
argument to mean that a single voyage is not a long
enough time to establish seaman status.  I simply do
not understand this argument.  Surely a voyage is
sufficient time to establish an employment-related,
status-based connection to a vessel in navigation that
exposes the employee to the perils of the sea.  The
majority cannot explain why an employee who signs on
for a single journey is any less a -seaman- or -member
of a crew- if he intends to become an insurance agent
after the voyage than if he intends to remain with the
ship.  What is important is the employee's status at the
time of the injury, not his status a day, a month, or a
year beforehand or afterward.
  Apparently, the majority's real concern about walking
in and out of coverage is that an employer will be
unable to predict which of his employees will be covered
by the Jones Act, and which by the LHWCA, on any
given day.  I think it is a novel construction of the
Jones Act to read it as a scheme to protect employers.
But even if Congress had shared the Court's concern,
this case does not implicate it in the least.  We are
talking here about a lengthy voyage on the high seas.
The employer controls who goes on that voyage; he
knows, more or less, when that voyage will begin and
when it will end.  And, but for the majority's decision
today, he would know that while the ship is at sea, all
his employees thereon would be covered by the Jones
Act and not by the LHWCA.  Thus, no one is walking
out of Jones Act coverage and into LHWCA coverage (or
vice versa) without the employer's knowledge and
control.  Once again, the majority's concern-and its
method of determining seaman status-is properly
directed at injuries occurring while the ship is at port.
  As a matter of history, this concern with oscillating
back and forth between different types of compensation
systems recalls a very different and far more serious
problem: the difficulty of defining who is a -maritime
employee- (a class of workers that includes both seaman
and longshoremen) and who is not.  Over the powerful
dissent of Justice Holmes, in Southern Pacific Co. v.
Jensen, 244 U. S. 205 (1917), the Court held that the
constitutional grant of admiralty and maritime jurisdic-
tion to the federal courts prevented the State of New
York from applying its workmen's compensation statute
to a longshoreman who was injured on a gang plank
about 10 feet seaward of Pier 49 in New York City.
Jensen was a shore-based worker who had walked out
of the coverage of the state law into an unprotected
federal area-the area seaward of the shoreline.  In
enacting the LHWCA, Congress in 1927 responded to
Jensen and its progeny by extending federal protection
to shore-based workers injured while temporarily on
navigable waters.  The statute excluded Jones Act
seamen, on the one hand, and shore-based workers while
they were on the landward side of the Jensen line, on
the other.  As we have explained on more than one
occasion, then, the LHWCA was originally a -gap-filling-
measure intended to create coverage for those workers
for whom, after Jensen, States could not provide compen-
sation.  See, e.g., Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565,
570 (1944); Davis v. Department of Labor and Industries
of Wash., 317 U. S. 249, 252-253 (1942); see also
S. Rep. No. 973, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1926).
  Thus, the majority's concern about employees -walking
in and out of coverage- evokes images of a real problem
engendered by Jensen-the problem of employees chang-
ing their legal status, sometimes many times a day,
merely by walking from one place to another in the
course of their employment.  That problem is not
implicated in this case.  At the time of his injury Latsis
was employed, with the full knowledge of his employer,
on a ship at sea.  He could not walk out of coverage
until the voyage was over.  At the end of the voyage, if
Latsis had taken on other duties, wholly or partly on
land, and had been injured while so engaged, then the
majority's concern might have substance.  But in this
case, the majority's concern-and its test for seaman
status-is completely misplaced.

                           III
  In my opinion every member of the crew of a vessel is
entitled to the protection of the Jones Act during a
voyage on the high seas, even if he was not a part of
the crew before the ship left port, and even if he
abandoned the ship the moment it arrived at its destina-
tion.  This view is consistent with every Jones Act case
this Court has ever decided, and it is faithful to the
statutory purpose to provide special protection to those
who must encounter the perils of the sea while earning
their livelihood.  Whether a sailor voluntarily signs on
for a single voyage, as Jim Hawkins did, or, like Billy
Budd, is impressed into duty against his will, he is
surely a seaman when his ship sails, whatever fate
might await him at the end of the voyage.