affirming grant of summary judgment on the basis that because the injured welder spent only 14% of his work activity aboard vessels during a 34 month period of employment, there was insufficient evidence to support submission of question of seaman status to the jury
How later courts described this case
- affirming grant of summary judgment on the basis that because the injured welder spent only 14% of his work activity aboard vessels during a 34 month period of employment, there was insufficient evidence to support submission of question of seaman status to the jury
- holding that Scindia imposes no duty on a vessel to monitor a contractor’s operations for the development of hazardous conditions
- noting that the appellant “spent proportionally even less time working on a vessel ” than did the appellant in Barrett
- "Recovery for injury to a person, other than a Jones Act seaman, working on the outer continental shelf is governed by the LHWCA...."
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I Concur. I concur fully in the Court’s opinion denying Robinson-Barrett seaman’s status. With less enthusiasm, I concur in denial of § 905(b) relief from Aries, the vessel owner. I concur solely because the gangway was not being used — or intended by IMM to be used — as a gangway. Rather it was used — and intended to be used — as a work platform by welders. No Captain in his right mind could think allowing a gangway to be unsecured for an hour could satisfy the demanding standards of the general maritime law as far back as the Laws of Oleron, the Jones Act, or even Scindia’s treatment of § 905. And under no circumstances would he be permitted to retire to much needed sleep confident that somehow, someone — not asleep — would become conscious that for the gangway to be safe as ingress or egress from the vessel, it would now have to be securely fastened. Whether characterized as seaworthiness or unseaworthiness, failure to establish this would be such glaring fault that neither § 905 or Scindia, not even F.R.Civ.P. 52(a) could ever rescue the vessel from the maritime inexorable decree of absolute liability.