Bertrand v. International Mooring & Marine, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 March 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-3450,81-3450
• Citation: 700 F.2d 240
• Parties: Deborah M. BERTRAND, Etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. INTERNATIONAL MOORING & MARINE, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees, v. FIDELITY & CASUALTY COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 240

700 F.2d 240

1984 A.M.C. 1740

Deborah M. BERTRAND, Etc., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. INTERNATIONAL MOORING & MARINE, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellees, v. FIDELITY & CASUALTY COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 81-3450.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

March 17, 1983.

Hunt, Godwin, Painter & Robby, David Painter, Lake Charles, La., David W. Robertson, Alexandria, La., for Deborah M. Bertrand.

Conery & Breaux, John E. Conery, Franklin, La., for Shmuel Mezan.

Paul H. Due, Baton Rouge, La., for amicus curiae La. Trial Lawyers.

Landry, Watkins & Bronin, Alfred Smith Landry, Iberia, La., for Fidelity & Cas.

Voorhies & Labbe, W. Gerald Gaudet, Lafayette, La., for Am. Gen., Inso., Co.

Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre, Robert M. Contois, Jr., New Orleans, La., for Arkwright-Boston Manuf. Mut. Ins. Co.

Allen, Gooch & Bouregois, Raymond Morgan Allen, Randall Theunissen, Lafayette, La., for Intern. Mooring & Marine, Inc.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before INGRAHAM, REAVLEY and POLITZ, Circuit Judges.

INGRAHAM, Circuit Judge.

The issue of which marine workers qualify as Jones Act seamen again surfaces before this court. Plaintiffs, who were members of an anchorhandling crew for International Mooring and Marine, Inc. (IMM), sued under the Jones Act to recover for injuries suffered in a one-vehicle accident while returning from a one-week relocation job. Both sides moved for summary judgment on the issue of seaman status. The district court denied plaintiffs' motion and granted defendants' motion. Bertrand v. International Mooring and Marine, Inc., 517 F.Supp. 342, 348 (W.D.La.1981). Plaintiffs have appealed the judgment and contend that summary judgment was erroneous because the evidence supported summary judgment for plaintiffs or created a fact issue for jury determination. Concluding that the district court relied on a mistaken formulation of the legal principles governing the status determination, we reverse the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

On April 7, 1979, IMM dispatched an anchoring and mooring crew, which included Robert Clark as supervisor, Emile Bertrand, III, as winch operator, and Shmuel Mezan and William Emery as riggers. ¹ For this particular mission, the anchorhandling crew worked on the Aquamarine 503 and relocated Tenneco's drilling rig, the Marlin 7, from a point near Intercoastal City, Louisiana, to a point off the coast of Galveston, Texas. The Aquamarine 503 ² was chartered by Tenneco for IMM's use and was specially outfitted for lifting the heavy anchors from the ocean floor. It had sufficient deck space to stow the anchors until the rig reached its new location and the anchors reset. The IMM crew ate and slept aboard the vessel for the duration of the mission, which lasted seven days. ³ In addition to performing their anchorhandling duties, the IMM crew assisted in readying the vessel for its mission. Upon completing the Marlin 7 relocation, the IMM crew was met in Galveston by Paul Bertrand, who had been dispatched in the company van to pick up the crew. Paul Bertrand had been a standby rigger for this mission and thus had remained on call at the IMM headquarters in New Iberia, Louisiana. On the return trip the van was involved in a one-vehicle accident that killed Emile Bertrand, III, Paul Bertrand, and William Emery and injured Shmuel Mezan.

The Jones Act suits ⁴ of Mezan and decedents' representatives were consolidated in the district court. Plaintiffs and defendants moved for summary judgment on the issue of seaman status. For purposes of the summary judgment motions, neither defendants nor the district court distinguished the status of Paul Bertrand from the other crew members. ⁵ The district court denied plaintiffs' motion, granted defendants' motion, and stated that while "this anchor-handling crew was continuously subjected to the perils of the sea like blue water seamen and was engaged in classical seaman's work, the Court finds as a matter of law that there is no reasonable evidentiary basis to support a jury finding that the injured party and the decedents involved herein were permanently assigned to any specific vessel or group of vessels and therefore, they were not seamen under the Jones Act." Id. at 348. Plaintiffs now appeal the judgment and assert that the decision was erroneous because summary judgment was appropriate for plaintiffs or that the issue should have gone to the jury. ⁶

Our analysis of the issue of seaman's status necessarily begins by articulating the standards that resolve which marine workers are "seamen" or "members of a crew," ⁷ since coverage under the Jones Act and the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act are mutually exclusive. E.g., McDermott, Inc. v. Boudreaux, 679 F.2d 452, 459 n. 7 (5th Cir.1982); Ardoin v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 641 F.2d 277, 280 (5th Cir.1981). In Ardoin, we noted that the McKie test ⁸ "still articulates the basic compass of the term 'seaman' as used in the Jones Act." Id. We further noted that "the entry of summary judgment for the defendant in a Jones Act case on the ground that the plaintiff lacked seaman's status was improper and that there was an evidentiary basis to submit that question 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 to 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 280-81 (citing Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769, 779 (5th Cir.1959) (the Robison test)). As we recently stated, however, "our subsequent decisions make it clear that the Robison test, with its broad concept of seaman's status, is to be used not only in deciding whether a case goes to the jury in a Jones Act dispute, but also in delimiting the power of the factfinder to deny or confer such status." McDermott, 679 F.2d at 457. Consequently, we analyze this case under the test laid down in Robison. ⁹

Turning to the appropriateness of summary judgment on the issue of seaman status, we note that it has been described as a mixed question of law and fact, Holland v. Allied Structural Steel Co., 539 F.2d 476, 483 (5th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1105, 97 S.Ct. 1136, 51 L.Ed.2d 557 (1977); Keener v. Transworld Drilling Co., 468 F.2d 729, 730 (5th Cir.1972), and as "one whose resolution requires 'the application of legal principles to specific underlying facts,' " Ardoin, 641 F.2d at 280 (quoting Longmire v. Sea Drilling Corp., 610 F.2d 1342, 1345 (5th Cir.1980)), and thus is normally a question for the jury. Barrios v. Engine & Gas Compressor Services, Inc., 669 F.2d 350, 352 (5th Cir.1982); Watkins v. Pentzien, 660 F.2d 604, 606 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2010, 72 L.Ed.2d 467 (1982); Robison, 266 F.2d at 779-80. While "the issue is to be left to the jury even when a claim to seaman status is to be a relatively marginal one," Barrios v. Louisiana Construction Materials Co., 465 F.2d 1157, 1162 (5th Cir.1972), summary judgment or a directed verdict by the court is proper in cases where the underlying facts are undisputed and the record reveals no evidence from which reasonable persons might draw conflicting inferences about these facts. Abshire v. Seacoast Products, Inc., 668 F.2d 832, 835 (5th Cir.1982); Ardoin, 641 F.2d at 280; Guidry v. South Louisiana Contractors, Inc., 614 F.2d 447, 454 (5th Cir.1980); Landry v. Amoco Production Co., 595 F.2d 1070, 1072 (5th Cir.1979); Robison, 266 F.2d at 779-80. Since the underlying facts are undisputed in the present case, we review them to determine whether reasonable persons might draw conflicting inferences.

In resolving the claim to seaman status, the district court concluded that "one cannot be a member of a crew of numerous vessels which have no common ownership or control." Bertrand, 517 F.Supp. at 347. Although one can be a member of a crew of numerous vessels which have common ownership or control, e.g., Braniff v. Jackson Avenue-Gretna Ferry, Inc., 280 F.2d 523 (5th Cir.1960), the obverse statement, i.e., the district court's conclusion of law, is neither dictated nor supported by case law. We have never held that a seaman is barred from coverage under the Jones Act if the employer neither owns nor controls the several vessels upon which the seaman works. Instead, we have specifically held that in the context of the single vessel, the employer need not be the owner or operator of the vessel for Jones Act liability to attach. E.g., Roberts v. Williams-McWilliams Co., 648 F.2d 255, 262 (5th Cir.1981); Guidry v. South Louisiana Contractors, Inc., 614 F.2d at 454; Barrios v. Louisiana Construction Materials Co., 465 F.2d at 1164-65. To require common ownership or control when seamen work on several vessels but not when they work on a single vessel is inconsistent with the liberal construction of the Jones Act that has characterized it from the beginning and is inconsistent with its purposes. Accord Robison, 266 F.2d at 780.

In Braniff, we first examined whether to distinguish between seamen that work on a single vessel and those that work on several vessels. We stated that while "[t]he usual thing [was] for a person to have a Jones Act seaman status in relation to a particular vessel, ... there is nothing about this expanding concept to limit it mechanically to a single ship." Braniff, 280 F.2d at 528. Since Braniff, the group of vessels concept has been used to expand coverage under the Jones Act, not restrict it. ¹⁰ "Although this anchor-handling crew was continuously subjected to the perils of the sea like...