Some injured workers in the maritime industry have had difficulty establishing the status of a seaman under the Jones Act. This has been particularly true in the fish processing industry and the offshore oil industry.
In a unanimous decision on February 19, 1991 in the case of McDermott International vs Wilander, the Supreme Court upheld the fifth circuit's traditional Offshore Co. vs. Robison test to determine seaman status. The Robison test provides that if there is evidence that the injured worker was assigned permanently to a vessel or performed a substantial part of his or her work aboard a vessel and the employment of the worker contributed to the function of the vessel or to accomplish the mission of the vessel, or to the operation or welfare of the vessel in terms of its maintenance, it could go to the jury.
The Supreme Court rejected the idea that in order for a worker to have status as a Jones Act Seaman, he or she had to contribute to the transportation function of the vessel.
While the issue of what constitutes "ships work" was left open, it was construed broadly in giving a paint foreman assigned to a vessel for sandblasting and painting of offshore structures the right to sue his employer even though he did not contribute to the navigation of his vessel.
Under this case, there is little doubt but that workers aboard a fish processing vessel who clean, freeze or pack fish caught either by another vessel or by the vessel on which they are working, will also have seaman status. In fact, in Donna Wells vs. Arctic Alaska Fisheries., the Western District Court of Washington granted a motion for partial summary judgement on October 16, 1990 on the issue of whether a worker who was the lead person on the sumiri processing line aboard a processing vessel was a Jones Act seaman. In deciding that the worker was a seaman, the District Court also used the Robison test. The later Supreme Court decision confirmed that rational.
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