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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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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 O'Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.
  This case asks us to clarify what -employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation,- McDermott Interna-
tional, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 355 (1991), is
necessary for a maritime worker to qualify as a seaman
under the Jones Act, 46 U. S. C. App. 688(a).  In
Wilander, we addressed the type of activities that a
seaman must perform and held that, under the Jones
Act, a seaman's job need not be limited to transporta-
tion-related functions that directly aid in the vessel's
navigation.  We now determine what relationship a
worker must have to the vessel, regardless of the
specific tasks the worker undertakes, in order to obtain
seaman status.

                            I
  In May 1989, respondent Antonios Latsis was em-
ployed by petitioner Chandris, Inc., as a salaried
superintendent engineer.  Latsis was responsible for
maintaining and updating the electronic and communica-
tions equipment on Chandris' fleet of vessels, which
consisted of six passenger cruise ships.  Each ship in the
Chandris fleet carried between 12 and 14 engineers who
were assigned permanently to that vessel.  Latsis, on
the other hand, was one of two supervising engineers
based at Chandris' Miami office; his duties ran to the
entire fleet and included not only overseeing the vessels'
engineering departments, which required him to take a
number of voyages, but also planning and directing ship
maintenance from the shore.  Latsis claimed at trial
that he spent 72 percent of his time at sea, App. 58; his
immediate supervisor testified that the appropriate
figure was closer to 10 percent, id., at 180.
  On May 14, 1989, Latsis sailed for Bermuda aboard
the S. S. Galileo to plan for an upcoming renovation of
the ship, which was one of the older vessels in the
Chandris fleet.  Latsis developed a problem with his
right eye on the day of departure, and he saw the ship's
doctor as the Galileo left port.  The doctor diagnosed a
suspected detached retina but failed to follow standard
medical procedure, which would have been to direct
Latsis to see an ophthalmologist on an emergency basis.
Instead, the ship's doctor recommended that Latsis relax
until he could see an eye specialist when the Galileo
arrived in Bermuda two days later.  No attempt was
made to transport Latsis ashore for prompt medical care
by means of a pilot vessel or helicopter during the 11
hours it took the ship to reach the open sea from
Baltimore, and Latsis received no further medical care
until after the ship arrived in Bermuda.  In Bermuda,
a doctor diagnosed a detached retina and recommended
immediate hospitalization and surgery.  Although the
operation was a partial success, Latsis lost 75 percent of
his vision in his right eye.
  Following his recuperation, which lasted approximately
six weeks, Latsis resumed his duties with Chandris.  On
September 30, 1989, he sailed with the Galileo to
Bremerhaven, Germany, where the vessel was placed in
drydock for a 6-month refurbishment.  After the conver-
sion, the company renamed the vessel the S. S. Meridi-
an.  Latsis, who had been with the ship the entire time
it was in drydock in Bremerhaven, sailed back to the
United States on board the Meridian and continued to
work for Chandris until November 1990, when his
employment was terminated for reasons that are not
clear from the record.
  In October 1991, Latsis filed suit in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York
seeking compensatory damages under the Jones Act, 46
U. S. C. App. 688, for the negligence of the ship's
doctor that resulted in the significant loss of sight in
Latsis' right eye.  The Jones Act provides, in pertinent
part, that -[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, with the right
of trial by jury . . . .-  The District Court instructed the
jury that it could conclude that Latsis was a seaman
within the meaning of the statute if it found as follows:
-[T]he plaintiff was either permanently assigned to
the vessel or performed a substantial part of his
work on the vessel.  In determining whether Mr.
Latsis performed a substantial part of his work on
the vessel, you may not consider the period of time
the Galileo was in drydock in Germany, because
during that time period she was out of navigation.
You may, however, consider the time spent sailing
to and from Germany for the conversion.  Also, on
this first element of being a seaman, seamen do not
include land-based workers.-  App. 210.
The parties stipulated to the District Court's second
requirement for Jones Act coverage-that Latsis' duties
contributed to the accomplishment of the missions of the
Chandris vessels.  Id., at 211.  Latsis did not object to
the seaman status jury instructions in their entirety, but
only contested that portion of the charge which explicitly
took from the jury's consideration the period of time that
the Galileo was in drydock.  The jury returned a verdict
in favor of Chandris solely on the issue of Latsis' status
as a seaman under the Jones Act.  Id., at 213.
  Respondent appealed to the Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit, which vacated the judgment and re-
manded the case for a new trial.  20 F. 3d 45 (1994).
The court emphasized that its longstanding test for
seaman status under the Jones Act required -`a more or
less permanent connection with the ship,'- Salgado v.
M. J. Rudolph Corp., 514 F. 2d 750, 755 (CA2 1975), a
connection that need not be limited to time spent on the
vessel but could also be established by the nature of the
work performed.  The court thought that the alternate
formulation employed by the District Court (permanent
assignment to the vessel or performance of a substantial
part of his work on the vessel), which was derived from
Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F. 2d 769, 779 (CA5 1959),
improperly framed the issue for the jury primarily, if not
solely, in terms of Latsis' temporal relationship to the
vessel.  With that understanding of what the language
of the Robison test implied, the court concluded that the
District Court's seaman status jury instructions consti-
tuted plain error under established circuit precedent.
The court then took this case as an opportunity to
clarify its seaman status requirements, directing the
District Court that the jury should be instructed on
remand as follows:
-[T]he test of seaman status under the Jones Act is
an employment-related connection to a vessel in
navigation.  The test will be met where a jury finds
that (1) the plaintiff contributed to the function of
or helped accomplish the mission of, a vessel; (2) the
plaintiff's contribution was limited to a particular
vessel or identifiable group of vessels; (3) the
plaintiff's contribution was substantial in terms of
its (a) duration or (b) nature; and (4) the course of
the plaintiff's employment regularly exposed the
plaintiff to the hazards of the sea.-  20 F. 3d, at 57.
Elsewhere on the same page, however, the court phrased
the third prong as requiring a substantial connection in
terms of both duration and nature.  Finally, the Court
of Appeals held that the District Court erred in instruct-
ing the jury that the time Latsis spent with the ship
while it was in drydock could not count in the substan-
tial connection equation.  Id., at 55-56.  Judge Kearse
dissented, arguing that the drydock instruction was not
erroneous and that the remainder of the charge did not
constitute plain error.  Id., at 58.
  We granted certiorari, 513 U. S. ___ (1994), to resolve
the continuing conflict among the Courts of Appeals
regarding the appropriate requirements for seaman
status under the Jones Act.


                           II
  The Jones Act provides a cause of action in negligence
for -any seaman- injured -in the course of his employ-
ment.-  46 U. S. C. App. 688(a).  Under general
maritime law prevailing prior to the statute's enactment,
seamen were entitled to -maintenance and cure- from
their employer for injuries incurred -in the service of the
ship- and to recover damages from the vessel's owner for
-injuries received by seamen in consequence of the
unseaworthiness of the ship,- but they were -not allowed
to recover an indemnity for the negligence of the master,
or any member of the crew.-  The Osceola, 189 U. S.
158, 175 (1903); see also Cortes v. Baltimore Insular
Line, Inc., 287 U. S. 367, 370-371 (1932).  Congress
enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to remove the bar to suit
for negligence articulated in The Osceola, thereby
completing the trilogy of heightened legal protections
(unavailable to other maritime workers) that seamen
receive because of their exposure to the -perils of the
sea.-  See G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty,
6-21, pp. 328-329 (2d ed. 1975); Robertson, A New
Approach to Determining Seaman Status, 64 Texas L.
Rev. 79 (1985) (hereinafter Robertson).  Justice Story
identified this animating purpose behind the legal
regime governing maritime injuries when he observed
that seamen -are emphatically the wards of the admi-
ralty- because they -are by the peculiarity of their lives
liable to sudden sickness from change of climate,
exposure to perils, and exhausting labour.-  Harden v.
Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 485, 483 (No. 6,047) (CC Me.
1823).  Similarly, we stated in Wilander that -[t]radi-
tional seamen's remedies . . . have been `universally
recognized as . . . 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 off-
setting the special hazards and disadvantages to which
they who go down to sea in ships are subjected.'-
498 U. S., at 354 (quoting Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki,
328 U. S. 85, 104 (1946) (Stone, C. J., dissenting)).
  The Jones Act, however, does not define the term
-seaman- and therefore leaves to the courts the determi-
nation of exactly which maritime workers are entitled to
admiralty's special protection.  Early on, we concluded
that Congress intended the term to have its established
meaning under the general maritime law at the time the
Jones Act was enacted.  See Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S.
155, 159 (1934).  In Warner, we stated that -a seaman
is a mariner of any degree, one who lives his life upon
the sea.-  Id., at 157.  Similarly, in Norton v. Warner
Co., 321 U. S. 565, 572 (1944), we suggested that
-`every one is entitled to the privilege of a seaman who,
like seamen, at all times contributes to the labors about
the operation and welfare of the ship when she is upon
a voyage'- (quoting The Buena Ventura, 243 F. 797, 799
(SDNY 1916)).
  Congress provided some content for the Jones Act
requirement in 1927 when it enacted the Longshore and
Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), which
provides scheduled compensation (and the exclusive
remedy) for injury to a broad range of land-based
maritime workers but which also explicitly excludes from
its coverage -a master or member of a crew of any
vessel.-  44 Stat. (part 2) 1424, as amended, 33 U. S. C.
902(3)(G).  As the Court has stated on several occa-
sions, the Jones Act and the LHWCA are mutually
exclusive compensation regimes: -`master or member of
a crew' is a refinement of the term `seaman' in the
Jones Act; it excludes from LHWCA coverage those
properly covered under the Jones Act.-  Wilander, 498
U. S., at 347.  Indeed, -it is odd but true that the key
requirement for Jones Act coverage now appears in
another statute.-  Ibid.  Injured workers who fall under
neither category may still recover under an applicable
state workers' compensation scheme or, in admiralty,
under general maritime tort principles (which are
admittedly less generous than the Jones Act's protec-
tions).  See Cheavens, Terminal Workers' Injury and
Death Claims, 64 Tulane L. Rev. 361, 364-365 (1989).
  Despite the LHWCA language, drawing the distinction
between those maritime workers who should qualify as
seamen and those who should not has proved to be a
difficult task and the source of much litiga-
tion-particularly because -the myriad circumstances in
which men go upon the water confront courts not with
discrete classes of maritime employees, but rather with
a spectrum ranging from the blue-water seaman to the
land-based longshoreman.-  Brown v. ITT Rayonier, Inc.,
497 F. 2d 234, 236 (CA5 1974).  The federal courts have
struggled over the years to articulate generally applica-
ble criteria to distinguish among the many varieties of
maritime workers, often developing detailed multi-
pronged tests for seaman status.  Since the 1950s, this
Court largely has left definition of the Jones Act's scope
to the lower courts.  Unfortunately, as a result, -[t]he
perils of the sea, which mariners suffer and shipowners
insure against, have met their match in the perils of
judicial review.-  Gilmore & Black, supra, 6-1, at 272.
Or, as one court paraphrased Diderot in reference to this
body of law: -`We have made a labyrinth and got lost in
it.  We must find our way out.'-  Johnson v. John F.
Beasley Constr. Co., 742 F. 2d 1054, 1060 (CA7 1984),
cert. denied, 469 U. S. 1211 (1985); see 9 Diderot,
Oeuvres Compl-tes 203 (J. Ass-zat ed. 1875).

                            A
  In Wilander, decided in 1991, the Court attempted for
the first time in 33 years to clarify the definition of a
-seaman- under the Jones Act.  Jon Wilander was
injured while assigned as a foreman supervising the
sandblasting and painting of various fixtures and piping
on oil drilling platforms in the Persian Gulf.  His
employer claimed that he could not qualify as a seaman
because he did not aid in the navigation function of the
vessels on which he served.  Emphasizing that the
question presented was narrow, we considered whether
the term -seaman- is limited to only those maritime
workers who aid in a vessel's navigation.
  After surveying the history of an -aid in navigation-
requirement under both the Jones Act and general
maritime law, we concluded that -all those with that
`peculiar relationship to the vessel' are covered under
the Jones Act, regardless of the particular job they
perform,- 498 U. S., at 354, and that -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,- ibid.  Thus, we held that, although -[i]t
is not necessary that a seaman aid in navigation or
contribute to the transportation of the vessel, . . . a
seaman must be doing the ship's work.-  Id., at 355.
We explained that -[t]he key to seaman status is
employment-related connection to a vessel in navigation,-
and that, although -[w]e are not called upon here to
define this connection in all details, . . . we believe the
requirement that an employee's duties must `contribut[e]
to the function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of
its mission' captures well an important requirement of
seaman status.-  Ibid.
  Beyond dispensing with the -aid to navigation-
requirement, however, Wilander did not consider the
requisite connection to a vessel in any detail and
therefore failed to end the prevailing confusion regarding
seaman status.

                            B
  Respondent urges us to find our way out of the Jones
Act -labyrinth- by focusing on the seemingly activity-
based policy underlying the statute (the protection of
those who are exposed to the perils of the sea), and to
conclude that anyone working on board a vessel for the
duration of a -voyage- in furtherance of the vessel's
mission has the necessary employment-related connection
to qualify as a seaman.  Brief for Respondent 12-17.
Such an approach, however, would run counter to our
prior decisions and our understanding of the remedial
scheme Congress has established for injured maritime
workers.  A brief survey of the Jones Act's tortured
history makes clear that we must reject the initial
appeal of such a -voyage- test and undertake the more
difficult task of developing a status-based standard that,
although it determines Jones Act coverage without
regard to the precise activity in which the worker is
engaged at the time of the injury, nevertheless best
furthers the Jones Act's remedial goals.
  Our Jones Act cases establish several basic principles
regarding the definition of a seaman.  First, -[w]hether
under the Jones Act or general maritime law, seamen do
not include land-based workers.-  Wilander, supra, at
348; see also Allbritton, Seaman Status in Wilander's
Wake, 68 Tulane L. Rev. 373, 387 (1994).  Our early
Jones Act decisions had not recognized this fundamental
distinction.  In International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty,
272 U. S. 50 (1926), we held that a longshoreman
injured while stowing cargo, and while aboard but not
employed by a vessel at dock in navigable waters, was
a seaman covered by the Jones Act.  Recognizing that
-for most purposes, as the word is commonly used,
stevedores are not `seamen,'- the Court nevertheless
concluded that -[w]e cannot believe that Congress
willingly would have allowed the protection to men
engaged upon the same maritime duties to vary with the
accident of their being employed by a stevedore rather
than by the ship.-  Id., at 52.  Because stevedores are
engaged in -a maritime service formerly rendered by the
ship's crew,- ibid. (citing Atlantic Transport Co. of W.
Va. v. Imbrovek, 234 U. S. 52, 62 (1914)), we concluded,
they should receive the Jones Act's protections.  See also
Uravic v. F. Jarka Co., 282 U. S. 234, 238 (1931);
Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 639 (1930).  In
1946, the Court belatedly recognized that Congress had
acted, in passing the LHWCA in 1927, to undercut the
Court's reasoning in the Haverty line of cases and to
emphasize that land-based maritime workers should not
be entitled to the seamen's traditional remedies.  Our
decision in Swanson v. Marra Brothers, Inc., 328 U. S.
1, 7 (1946), acknowledged that Congress had expressed
its intention to -confine the benefits of the Jones Act to
the members of the crew of a vessel plying in navigable
waters and to substitute for the right of recovery
recognized by the Haverty case only such rights to
compensation as are given by [the LHWCA].-  See also
South Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U. S.
251, 257 (1940).  Through the LHWCA, therefore,
Congress -explicitly den[ied] a right of recovery under
the Jones Act to maritime workers not members of a
crew who are injured on board a vessel.-  Swanson,
supra, at 6.  And this recognition process culminated in
Wilander with the Court's statement that, -[w]ith the
passage of the LHWCA, Congress established a clear
distinction between land-based and sea-based maritime
workers.  The latter, who owe their allegiance to a
vessel and not solely to a land-based employer, are
seamen.-  498 U. S., at 347.
  In addition to recognizing a fundamental distinction
between land-based and sea-based maritime employees,
our cases also emphasize that Jones Act coverage, like
the jurisdiction of admiralty over causes of action for
maintenance and cure for injuries received in the course
of a seamen's employment, depends -not on the place
where the injury is inflicted . . . but on the nature of
the seaman's service, his status as a member of the
vessel, and his relationship as such to the vessel and its
operation in navigable waters.-  Swanson, supra, at 4.
Thus, maritime workers who obtain seaman status do
not lose that protection automatically when on shore and
may recover under the Jones Act whenever they are
injured in the service of a vessel, regardless of whether
the injury occurs on or off the ship.  In O'Donnell v.
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 318 U. S. 36 (1943), the
Court held a shipowner liable for injuries caused to a
seaman by a fellow crew member while the former was
on shore repairing a conduit that was a part of the
vessel and that was used for discharging the ship's
cargo.  We explained: -The right of recovery in the Jones
Act is given to the seaman as such, and, as in the case
of maintenance and cure, the admiralty jurisdiction over
the suit depends not on the place where the injury is
inflicted but on the nature of the service and its rela-
tionship to the operation of the vessel plying in naviga-
ble waters.-  Id., at 42-43.  Similarly, the Court in
Swanson emphasized that the LHWCA -leaves unaf-
fected the rights of members of the crew of a vessel to
recover under the Jones Act when injured while pursu-
ing their maritime employment whether on board . . . or
on shore.-  328 U. S., at 7-8.  See also Braen v. Pfeiffer
Transportation Co., 361 U. S. 129, 131-132 (1959).
  Our LHWCA cases also recognize the converse: land-
based maritime workers injured while on a vessel in
navigation remain covered by the LHWCA, which
expressly provides compensation for injuries to certain
workers engaged in -maritime employment- that are
incurred -upon the navigable waters of the United
States,- 33 U. S. C. 903(a).  Thus, in Director, OWCP
v. Perini North River Associates, 459 U. S. 297 (1983),
we held that a worker injured while -working on a
barge in actual navigable waters- of the Hudson River,
id., at 300, n. 4, could be compensated under the
LHWCA, id., at 324.  See also Parker v. Motor Boat
Sales, Inc., 314 U. S. 244, 244-245 (1941) (upholding
LHWCA coverage for a worker testing outboard motors
who -was drowned when a motor boat in which he was
riding capsized-).  These decisions, which reflect our
longstanding view of the LHWCA's scope, indicate that
a maritime worker does not become a -member of a
crew- as soon as a vessel leaves the dock.
  It is therefore well settled after decades of judicial
interpretation that the Jones Act inquiry is fundamen-
tally status-based: land-based maritime workers do not
become seamen because they happen to be working on
board a vessel when they are injured, and seamen do
not lose Jones Act protection when the course of their
service to a vessel takes them ashore.  In spite of this
background, respondent and Justice Stevens suggest
that any maritime worker who is assigned to a vessel
for the duration of a voyage-and whose duties contrib-
ute to the vessel's mission-should be classified as a
seaman for purposes of injuries incurred during that
voyage.  See Brief for Respondent 14; post, at 1 (Stev-
ens, J., concurring in the judgment).  Under such a
-voyage test,- which relies principally upon this Court's
statements that the Jones Act was designed to protect
maritime workers who are exposed to the -special
hazards- and -particular perils- characteristic of work on
vessels at sea, see, e.g., Wilander, supra, at 354, the
worker's activities at the time of the injury would be
controlling.
  The difficulty with respondent's argument, as the
foregoing discussion makes clear, is that the LHWCA
repudiated the Haverty line of cases and established that
a worker is no longer considered to be a seaman simply
because he is doing a seaman's work at the time of the
injury.  Seaman status is not coextensive with seamen's
risks.  See, e.g., Easley v. Southern Shipbuilding Corp.,
965 F. 2d 1, 4-5 (CA5 1992), cert. denied, 506 U. S. ___
(1993); Robertson 93 (following -the overwhelming
weight of authority in taking it as given that seaman
status cannot be established by any worker who fails to
demonstrate that a significant portion of his work was
done aboard a vessel- and acknowledging that -[s]ome
workers who unmistakably confront the perils of the sea,
often in extreme form, are thereby left out of the
seamen's protections- (footnote omitted)).  A -voyage
test- would conflict with our prior understanding of the
Jones Act as fundamentally status-based, granting the
negligence cause of action to those maritime workers
who form the ship's company.  Swanson, supra, at 4-5;
O'Donnell, supra, at 42-43.
  Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co., 342 U. S. 187, 190
(1952), is not to the contrary.  Although some language
in that case does suggest that whether an individual is
a seaman depends upon -the activity in which he was
engaged at the time of injury,- the context of that
discussion reveals that -activity- referred to the worker's
employment as a laborer on a vessel undergoing sea-
sonal repairs while out of navigation, and not to his
precise task at the time of injury.  Similarly, despite
Justice Harlan's suggestion in dissent that the Court's
decision in Grimes v. Raymond Concrete Pile Co.
necessarily construed the word seaman -to mean nothing
more than a person injured while working at sea,- 356
U. S. 252, 255 (1958), our short per curiam opinion in
that case does not indicate that we adopted so expansive
a reading of the statutory term.  Citing our prior cases
which emphasized that the question of seaman status is
normally for the fact finder to decide, see, e.g., Senko v.
La Crosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370, 371-372
(1957); Bassett, supra, at 257-258, we reversed the
judgment of the Court of Appeals and held simply that
the jury could have inferred from the facts presented
that the petitioner was a member of a crew in light of
his overall service to the company (as the District Court
had concluded in ruling on a motion for a directed
verdict at the close of petitioner's case).  Grimes, 356
U. S., at 253.  That neither Desper nor Grimes altered
our established course in favor of a voyage test is
confirmed by reference to our later decision in Braen,
361 U. S., at 131, in which we repeated that -[t]he
injured party must of course have `status as a member
of the vessel' for it is seamen, not others who may work
on the vessel (Swanson v. Marra Bros., 328 U. S. 1, 4),
to whom Congress extended the protection of the Jones
Act.-
  We believe it is important to avoid -`engrafting upon
the statutory classification of a -seaman- a judicial gloss
so protean, elusive, or arbitrary as to permit a worker
to walk into and out of coverage in the course of his
regular duties.'-  Barrett v. Chevron, U. S.A., Inc., 781
F. 2d 1067, 1075 (CA5 1986) (en banc) (quoting Long-
mire v. Sea Drilling Corp., 610 F. 2d 1342, 1347, n. 6
(CA5 1980)).  In evaluating the employment-related
connection of a maritime worker to a vessel in naviga-
tion, courts should not employ -a `snapshot' test for
seaman status, inspecting only the situation as it exists
at the instant of injury; a more enduring relationship is
contemplated in the jurisprudence.-  Easley, supra, at 5.
Thus, a worker may not oscillate back and forth between
Jones Act coverage and other remedies depending on the
activity in which the worker was engaged while injured.
Reeves v. Mobile Dredging & Pumping Co., 26 F. 3d
1247, 1256 (CA3 1994).  Unlike Justice Stevens, see
post, at 8, we do not believe that any maritime worker
on a ship at sea as part of his employment is automati-
cally a member of the crew of the vessel within the
meaning of the statutory terms.  Our rejection of the
voyage test is also consistent with the interests of
employers and maritime workers alike in being able to
predict who will be covered by the Jones Act (and,
perhaps more importantly for purposes of the employers'
workers' compensation obligations, who will be covered
by the LHWCA) before a particular work day begins.
  To say that our cases have recognized a distinction
between land-based and sea-based maritime workers
that precludes application of a voyage test for seaman
status, however, is not to say that a maritime employee
must work only on board a vessel to qualify as a
seaman under the Jones Act.  In Southwest Marine, Inc.
v. Gizoni, 502 U. S. 81 (1991), decided only a few
months after Wilander, we concluded that a worker's
status as a ship repairman, one of the enumerated
occupations encompassed within the term -employee-
under the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. 902(3), did not neces-
sarily restrict the worker to a remedy under that
statute.  We explained that, -[w]hile in some cases a
ship repairman may lack the requisite connection to a
vessel in navigation to qualify for seaman status, . . .
not all ship repairmen lack the requisite connection as
a matter of law.  This is so because `[i]t is not the
employee's particular job that is determinative, but the
employee's connection to a vessel.'-  Gizoni, supra, at 89
(quoting Wilander, 498 U. S., at 354) (footnote omitted).
Thus, we concluded, the Jones Act remedy may be
available to maritime workers who are employed by a
shipyard and who spend a portion of their time working
on shore but spend the rest of their time at sea.
  Beyond these basic themes, which are sufficient to
foreclose respondent's principal argument, our cases are
largely silent as to the precise relationship a maritime
worker must bear to a vessel in order to come within
the Jones Act's ambit.  We have, until now, left to the
lower federal courts the task of developing appropriate
criteria to distinguish the -ship's company- from those
members of the maritime community whose employment
is essentially land-based.

                            C
  The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit was
apparently the first to develop a generally applicable
test for seaman status.  In Carumbo v. Cape Cod S. S.
Co., 123 F. 2d 991 (CA1 1941), the court retained the
pre-Swanson view that -the word `seaman' under the
Jones Act did not mean the same thing as `member of
a crew' under the [LHWCA],- id., at 994.  It concluded
that -one who does any sort of work aboard a ship in
navigation is a `seaman' within the meaning of the Jones
Act.-  Id., at 995.  The phrase -member of a crew,- on
the other hand, the court gave a more restrictive
meaning.  The court adopted three elements to define
the phrase that had been used at various times in prior
cases, holding that -[t]he requirements that the ship be
in navigation; that there be a more or less permanent
connection with the ship; and that the worker be aboard
primarily to aid in navigation appear to us to be the
essential and decisive elements of the definition of a
`member of a crew.'-  Ibid.  Cf. Senko, supra, at 375
(Harlan, J., dissenting) (-According to past decisions, to
be a `member of a crew' an individual must have some
connection, more or less permanent, with a ship and a
ship's company-).  Once it became clear that the phrase
-master or member of a crew- from the LHWCA is
coextensive with the term -seaman- in the Jones Act,
courts accepted the Carumbo formulation of master or
member of a crew in the Jones Act context.  See Boyd
v. Ford Motor Co., 948 F. 2d 283 (CA6 1991); Estate of
Wenzel v. Seaward Marine Services, Inc., 709 F. 2d 1326,
1327 (CA9 1983); Whittington v. Sewer Constr. Co., 541
F. 2d 427, 436 (CA4 1976); Griffith v. Wheeling Pitts-
burgh Steel Corp., 521 F. 2d 31, 36 (CA3 1975), cert.
denied, 423 U. S. 1054 (1976); McKie v. Diamond Marine
Co., 204 F. 2d 132, 136 (CA5 1953).  The Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit initially was among the
jurisdictions to adopt the Carumbo formulation as the
basis of its seaman status inquiry, see Salgado v. M. J.
Rudolph Corp., 514 F. 2d, at 755, but that court took
the instant case as an opportunity to modify the tradi-
tional test somewhat (replacing the -more or less
permanent connection- prong with a requirement that
the connection be -substantial in terms of its (a) dura-
tion and (b) nature-), 20 F. 3d, at 57.
  The second major body of seaman status law developed
in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which has
a substantial Jones Act caseload, in the wake of Offshore
Co. v. Robison, 266 F. 2d 769 (CA5 1959).  At the time
of his injury, Robison was an oil worker permanently
assigned to a drilling rig mounted on a barge in the
Gulf of Mexico.  In sustaining the jury's award of
damages to Robison under the Jones Act, the court
abandoned the aid in navigation requirement of the
traditional test and held as follows:
-[T]here is an evidentiary basis for a Jones Act case
to go to the jury: (1) if there is evidence that the
injured workman was assigned permanently to a
vessel . . . or performed a substantial part of his
work on the vessel; and (2) if the capacity in which
he was employed or the duties which he performed
contributed to the function of the vessel or the
accomplishment of its mission, or to the operation or
welfare of the vessel in terms of its maintenance
during its movement or during anchorage for its
future trips.-  Id., at 779 (footnote omitted).
Soon after Robison, the Fifth Circuit modified the test
to allow seaman status for those workers who had the
requisite connection with an -identifiable fleet- of
vessels, a finite group of vessels under common owner-
ship or control.  Braniff v. Jackson Avenue-Gretna Ferry,
Inc., 280 F. 2d 523, 528 (1960).  See also Barrett, 781
F. 2d, at 1074; Bertrand v. International Mooring &
Marine, Inc., 700 F. 2d 240 (CA5 1983), cert. denied, 464
U. S. 1069 (1984).  The modified Robison formulation,
which replaced the Carumbo version as the definitive
test for seaman status in the Fifth Circuit, has been
highly influential in other courts as well.  See Robertson
95; Miller v. Patton-Tully Transp. Co., 851 F. 2d 202,
204 (CA8 1988); Caruso v. Sterling Yacht & Shipbuild-
ers, Inc., 828 F. 2d 14, 15 (CA11 1987); Bennett v. Perini
Corp., 510 F. 2d 114, 115 (CA1 1975).
  While the Carumbo and Robison approaches may not
seem all that different at first glance, subsequent
developments in the Fifth Circuit's Jones Act jurispru-
dence added a strictly temporal gloss to the Jones Act
inquiry.  Under Barrett v. Chevron, U. S.A., Inc., supra,
if an employee's regular duties require him to divide his
time between vessel and land, his status as a crew
member is determined -in the context of his entire
employment- with his current employer.  Id., at 1075.
See also Allbritton, 68 Tulane L. Rev., at 386; Longmire,
610 F. 2d, at 1347 (explaining that a worker's seaman
status -should be addressed with reference to the nature
and location of his occupation taken as a whole-).  In
Barrett, the court noted that the worker -performed
seventy to eighty percent of his work on platforms and
no more than twenty to thirty percent of his work on
vessels- and then concluded that, -[b]ecause he did not
perform a substantial portion of his work aboard a
vessel or fleet of vessels, he failed to establish that he
was a member of the crew of a vessel.-  781 F. 2d, at
1076.  Since Barrett, the Fifth Circuit consistently has
analyzed the problem in terms of the percentage of work
performed on vessels for the employer in question-and
has declined to find seaman status where the employee
spent less than 30 percent of his time aboard ship.  See,
e.g., Palmer v. Fayard Moving & Transp. Corp., 930
F. 2d 437, 439 (CA5 1991); Lormand v. Superior Oil Co.,
845 F. 2d 536, 541 (CA5 1987), cert. denied, 484 U. S.
1031 (1988); cf. Leonard v. Dixie Well Service & Supply,
Inc., 828 F. 2d 291, 295 (CA5 1987); Pickle v. Interna-
tional Oilfield Divers, Inc., 791 F. 2d 1237, 1240 (CA5
1986), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 1059 (1987).
  Although some courts of appeals have varied the
applicable tests to some degree, see, e.g., Johnson v.
John F. Beasley Constr. Co., 742 F. 2d, at 1062-1063,
the traditional Carumbo seaman status formulation and
the subsequent Robison modification are universally
recognized, and one or the other is applied in every
federal circuit to have considered the issue.  See Bull,
Seaman Status Revisited: A Practical Guide To Status
Determination, 6 U. S. F. Mar. L.J. 547, 562-572 (1994)
(collecting cases).  The federal courts generally require
at least a significant connection to a vessel in navigation
(or to an identifiable fleet of vessels) for a maritime
worker to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act.
Although the traditional test requires a -more or less
permanent connection- and the Robison formulation calls
for -substantial- work aboard a vessel, -this general
requirement varies little, if at all, from one jurisdiction
to another,- id., at 587, and -[t]he courts have repeat-
edly held that the relationship creating seaman status
must be substantial in point of time and work, and not
merely sporadic,- id., at 587-588.

                            D
  From this background emerge the essential contours
of the -employment-related connection to a vessel in
navigation,- Wilander, 498 U. S., at 355, required for an
employee to qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act.
We have said that, in giving effect to the term -sea-
man,- our concern must be -to define the meaning for
the purpose of a particular statute- and that its use in
the Jones Act -must be read in the light of the mischief
to be corrected and the end to be attained.-  Warner,
293 U. S., at 158.  Giving effect to those guiding
principles, we think that the essential requirements for
seaman status are twofold.  First, as we emphasized in
Wilander, -an employee's duties must `contribut[e] to the
function of the vessel or to the accomplishment of its
mission.'-  498 U. S., at 355 (quoting Robison, 266
F. 2d, at 779).  The Jones Act's protections, like the
other admiralty protections for seamen, only extend to
those maritime employees who do the ship's work.  But
this threshold requirement is very broad: -[a]ll who work
at sea in the service of a ship- are eligible for seaman
status.  498 U. S., at 354.
  Second, and most important for our purposes here, 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 its duration and its nature.
The fundamental purpose of this substantial connection
requirement is to give full effect to the remedial scheme
created by Congress and to separate the sea-based
maritime employees who are entitled to Jones Act
protection from those land-based workers who have only
a transitory or sporadic connection to a vessel in
navigation, and therefore whose employment does not
regularly expose them to the perils of the sea.  See 1B
A. Jenner, Benedict on Admiralty, 11a, pp. 2-10.1 to
2-11 (7th ed. 1994) (-If it can be shown that the
employee performed a significant part of his work on
board the vessel on which he was injured, with at least
some degree of regularity and continuity, the test for
seaman status will be satisfied- (footnote omitted)).  This
requirement therefore determines which maritime
employees in Wilander's broad category of persons
eligible for seaman status because they are -doing the
ship's work,- 498 U. S., at 355, are in fact entitled to
the benefits conferred upon seamen by the Jones Act
because they have the requisite employment-related
connection to a vessel in navigation.
  It is important to recall that the question of who is a
-member of a crew,- and therefore who is a -seaman,- is
a mixed question of law and fact.  Because statutory
terms are at issue, their interpretation is a question of
law and it is the court's duty to define the appropriate
standard.  Wilander, 498 U. S., at 356.  On the other
hand, -[i]f reasonable persons, applying the proper legal
standard, could differ as to whether the employee was
a `member of a crew,' it is a question for the jury.-
Ibid.  See also Senko, 352 U. S., at 374 (explaining that
-the determination of whether an injured person was a
`member of a crew' is to be left to the finder of fact- and
that -a jury's decision is final if it has a reasonable
basis-).  The jury should be permitted, when determining
whether a maritime employee has the requisite employ-
ment-related connection to a vessel in navigation to
qualify as a member of the vessel's crew, to consider all
relevant circumstances bearing on the two elements
outlined above.
  In defining the prerequisites for Jones Act coverage,
we think it preferable to focus upon the essence of what
it means to be a seaman and to eschew the temptation
to create detailed tests to effectuate the congressional
purpose, tests that tend to become ends in and of
themselves.  The principal formulations employed by the
Courts of Appeals--more or less permanent assignment-
or -connection to a vessel that is substantial in terms of
its duration and nature--are simply different ways of
getting at the same basic point: the Jones Act remedy is
reserved for sea-based maritime employees whose work
regularly exposes them to -the special hazards and
disadvantages to which they who go down to sea in
ships are subjected.-  Sieracki, 328 U. S., at 104 (Stone,
C. J., dissenting).  Indeed, it is difficult to discern major
substantive differences in the language of the two
phrases.  In our view, -the total circumstances of an
individual's employment must be weighed to determine
whether he had a sufficient relation to the navigation of
vessels and the perils attendant thereon.-  Wallace v.
Oceaneering Int'l, 727 F. 2d 427, 432 (CA5 1984).  The
duration of a worker's connection to a vessel and the
nature of the worker's activities, taken together, deter-
mine whether a maritime employee is a seaman because
the ultimate inquiry is whether the worker in question
is a member of the vessel's crew or simply a land-based
employee who happens to be working on the vessel at a
given time.
  Although we adopt the centerpiece of the formulation
used by the Court of Appeals in this case-that a
seaman must have a connection with a vessel in naviga-
tion that is substantial in both duration and nature-we
should point out how our understanding of the import of
that language may be different in some respects from
that of the court below.  The Court of Appeals suggested
that its test for seaman status -does not unequivocally
require a Jones Act seaman to be substantially con-
nected to a vessel- in terms of time if the worker
performs important work on board on a steady, although
not necessarily on a temporally significant, basis.
20 F. 3d, at 53.  Perhaps giving effect to this intuition,
or perhaps reacting to the temporal gloss placed on the
Robison language by later Fifth Circuit decisions, the
court phrased its standard at one point as requiring a
jury to find that a Jones Act plaintiff's contribution to
the function of the vessel was substantial in terms of its
duration or nature.  Id., at 57.  It is not clear which
version (-duration or nature- as opposed to -duration
and nature-) the Court of Appeals intended to adopt for
the substantial connection requirement-or indeed
whether the court saw a significant difference between
the two.  Nevertheless, we think it is important that a
seaman's connection to a vessel in fact be substantial in
both respects.
  We agree with the Court of Appeals that seaman
status is not merely a temporal concept, but we also
believe that it necessarily includes a temporal element.
A maritime worker who spends only a small fraction of
his working time on board a vessel is fundamentally
land-based and therefore not a member of the vessel's
crew, regardless of what his duties are.  Naturally,
substantiality in this context is determined by reference
to the period covered by the Jones Act plaintiff's mari-
time employment, rather than by some absolute mea-
sure.  Generally, the Fifth Circuit seems to have
identified an appropriate rule of thumb for the ordinary
case: a worker who spends less than about 30 percent of
his time in the service of a vessel in navigation should
not qualify as a seaman under the Jones Act.  This
figure of course serves as no more than a guideline
established by years of experience, and departure from
it will certainly be justified in appropriate cases.  As we
have said, -[t]he inquiry into seaman status is of
necessity fact specific; it will depend on the nature of
the vessel and the employee's precise relation to it.-
Wilander, 498 U. S., at 356.  Nevertheless, we believe
that courts, employers, and maritime workers can all
benefit from reference to these general principles.  And
where undisputed facts reveal that a maritime worker
has a clearly inadequate temporal connection to vessels
in navigation, the court may take the question from the
jury by granting summary judgment or a directed
verdict.  See, e.g., Palmer, 930 F. 2d, at 439.
  On the other hand, we see no reason to limit the sea-
man status inquiry, as petitioners contend, exclusively
to an examination of the overall course of a worker's
service with a particular employer.  Brief for Petitioners
14-15.  When a maritime worker's basic assignment
changes, his seaman status may change as well.  See
Barrett, 781 F. 2d, at 1077 (Rubin, J., dissenting) (-An
assignment to work as a crew member, like the voyage
of a vessel, may be brief, and the Robison test is
applicable in deciding the worker's status during any
such employment-); Longmire, 610 F. 2d, at 1347, n. 6.
For example, we can imagine situations in which
someone who had worked for years in an employer's
shoreside headquarters is then reassigned to a ship in
a classic seaman's job that involves a regular and
continuous, rather than intermittent, commitment of the
worker's labor to the function of a vessel.  Such a
person should not be denied seaman status if injured
shortly after the reassignment, just as someone actually
transferred to a desk job in the company's office and
injured in the hallway should not be entitled to claim
seaman status on the basis of prior service at sea.  If a
maritime employee receives a new work assignment in
which his essential duties are changed, he is entitled to
have the assessment of the substantiality of his vessel-
related work made on the basis of his activities in his
new position.  See Cheavens, 64 Tulane L. Rev., at
389-390.  Thus, nothing in our opinion forecloses Jones
Act coverage, in appropriate cases, for Justice Stevens'
paradigmatic maritime worker injured while reassigned
to -a lengthy voyage on the high seas,- post, at 10.
While our approach maintains the status-based inquiry
this Court's earlier cases contemplate, we recognize that
seaman status also should not be some immutable
characteristic that maritime workers who spend only a
portion of their time at sea can never attain.

                           III
  One final issue remains for our determination: whether
the District Court erred in instructing the jurors that,
-[i]n determining whether Mr. Latsis performed a
substantial part of his work on the vessel, [they could]
not consider the period of time the Galileo was in
drydock in Germany, because during that time period
she was out of navigation.-  We agree with the Court of
Appeals that it did.
  The foregoing discussion establishes that, to qualify as
a seaman under the Jones Act, a maritime employee
must have a substantial employment-related connection
to a vessel in navigation.  See Wilander, supra, at
354-355.  Of course, any time Latsis spent with the
Galileo while the ship was out of navigation could not
count as time spent at sea for purposes of that inquiry,
and it would have been appropriate for the District
Court to make this clear to the jury.  Yet the underlying
inquiry whether a vessel is or is not -in navigation- for
Jones Act purposes is a fact-intensive question that is
normally for the jury and not the court to decide.  See
Butler v. Whiteman, 356 U. S. 271 (1958) (per curiam);
2 M. Norris, Law of Seamen, 30.13, p. 363 (4th ed.
1985) (-Whether the vessel is in navigation presents a
question of fact to be determined by the trier of the
facts.  When the case is tried to a jury the fact question
should be left to their consideration if sufficient evidence
has been presented to provide the basis for jury consid-
eration-).  Removing the issue from the jury's consider-
ation is only appropriate where the facts and the law
will reasonably support only one conclusion, Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 250-251 (1986), and
the colloquy between the court and counsel does not
indicate that the District Court made any such findings
before overruling respondent's objection to the drydock
instruction.  See Tr. 432.  Based upon the record before
us, we think the court failed adequately to justify its
decision to remove the question whether the Galileo was
-in navigation- while in Bremerhaven from the jury.
  Under our precedent and the law prevailing in the
circuits, it is generally accepted that -a vessel does not
cease to be a vessel when she is not voyaging, but is at
anchor, berthed, or at dockside,- DiGiovanni v. Traylor
Bros., Inc., 959 F. 2d 1119, 1121 (CA1) (en banc), cert.
denied, 506 U. S. ___ (1992), even when the vessel is
undergoing repairs.  See Butler, supra, at 271; Senko,
352 U. S., at 373; Norris, supra, at 364 (-[A] vessel is in
navigation . . . when it returns from a voyage and is
taken to a drydock or shipyard to undergo repairs in
preparation to making another trip, and likewise a
vessel is in navigation, although moored to a dock, if it
remains in readiness for another voyage- (footnotes
omitted)).  At some point, however, repairs become
sufficiently significant that the vessel can no longer be
considered in navigation.  In West v. United States, 361
U. S. 118 (1959), we held that a shoreside worker was
not entitled to recover for unseaworthiness because the
vessel on which he was injured was undergoing an
overhaul for the purpose of making her seaworthy and
therefore had been withdrawn from navigation.  We
explained that, in such cases, -the focus should be upon
the status of the ship, the pattern of the repairs, and
the extensive nature of the work contracted to be done.-
Id., at 122.  See also United New York & New Jersey
Sandy Hook Pilots Assn. v. Halecki, 358 U. S. 613
(1959); Desper, 342 U. S., at 191.  The general rule
among the Courts of Appeals is that vessels undergoing
repairs or spending a relatively short period of time in
drydock are still considered to be -in navigation-
whereas ships being transformed through -major-
overhauls or renovations are not.  See Bull, 6 U. S. F.
Mar. L. J., at 582-584 (collecting cases).
  Obviously, while the distinction at issue here is one of
degree, the prevailing view is that -major renovations
can take a ship out of navigation, even though its use
before and after the work will be the same.-  McKinley
v. All Alaskan Seafoods, Inc., 980 F. 2d 567, 570 (CA9
1992).  Our review of the record in this case uncovered
relatively little evidence bearing on the Galileo's status
during the repairs, and even less discussion of the
question by the District Court.  On the one hand, the
work on the Chandris vessel took only about six months,
which seems to be a relatively short period of time for
important repairs on oceangoing vessels.  Cf. id., at 571
(17-month-long project involving major structural
changes took the vessel out of navigation); Wixom v.
Boland Marine & Manufacturing Co., 614 F. 2d 956
(CA5 1980) (similar 3-year project); see also Senko,
supra, at 373 (noting that -[e]ven a transoceanic liner
may be confined to berth for lengthy periods, and while
there the ship is kept in repair by its `crew'--and that
-[t]here can be no doubt that a member of its crew
would be covered by the Jones Act during this period,
even though the ship was never in transit during his
employment-).  On the other hand, Latsis' own descrip-
tion of the work performed suggests that the modifica-
tions to the vessel were actually quite significant,
including the removal of the ship's bottom plates and
propellers, the addition of bow thrusters, overhaul of the
main engines, reconstruction of the boilers, and renova-
tions of the cabins and other passenger areas of the
ship.  See App. 93-94.  On these facts, which are
similar to those in McKinley, it is possible that Chandris
could be entitled to partial summary judgment or a
directed verdict concerning whether the Galileo remained
in navigation while in drydock; the record, however,
contains no stipulations or findings by the District Court
to justify its conclusion that the modifications to the
Galileo were sufficiently extensive to remove the vessel
from navigation as a matter of law.  On that basis, we
agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court's
drydock instruction was erroneous.
  Even if the District Court had been justified in
directing a verdict on the question whether the Galileo
remained in navigation while in Bremerhaven, we think
that the court's charge to the jury swept too broadly.
Instead of simply noting the appropriate legal conclusion
and instructing the jury not to consider the time Latsis
spent with the vessel in drydock as time spent with a
vessel in navigation, the District Court appears to have
prohibited the jury from considering Latsis' stay in
Bremerhaven for any purpose.  In our view, Latsis'
activities while the vessel was in drydock are at least
marginally relevant to the underlying inquiry (whether
Latsis was a seaman and not a land-based maritime
employee).  Naturally, the jury would be free to draw
several inferences from Latsis' work during the conver-
sion, not all of which would be in his favor.  But the
choice among such permissible inferences should have
been left to the jury, and we think the District Court's
broadly worded instruction improperly deprived the jury
of that opportunity by forbidding the consideration of
Latsis' time in Bremerhaven at all.

                           IV
  Under the Jones Act, -[i]f reasonable persons, applying
the proper legal standard, could differ as to whether the
employee was a `member of a crew,' it is a question for
the jury.-  Wilander, 498 U. S., at 356.  On the facts of
this case, given that essential points are in dispute,
reasonable factfinders could disagree as to whether
Latsis was a seaman.  Because the question whether the
Galileo remained -in navigation- while in drydock should
have been submitted to the jury, and because the
decision on that issue might affect the outcome of the
ultimate seaman status inquiry, we affirm the judgment
of the Court of Appeals remanding the case to the
District Court for a new trial.
  On remand, the District Court should charge the jury
in a manner consistent with our holding that the
-employment-related connection to a vessel in naviga-
tion- necessary to qualify as a seaman under the Jones
Act, id., at 355, comprises two basic elements: the
worker's duties must contribute to the function of the
vessel or to the accomplishment of its mission, and the
worker must have a connection to a vessel in navigation
(or an identifiable group of vessels) that is substantial
in terms of both its duration and its nature.  As to the
latter point, the court should emphasize that the Jones
Act was intended to protect sea-based maritime workers,
who owe their allegiance to a vessel, and not land-based
employees, who do not.  By instructing juries in Jones
Act cases accordingly, courts can give proper effect to
the remedial scheme Congress has created for injured
maritime workers.
                                      It is so ordered.