Longmire v. Sea Drilling Corp.

• Decision Date: 06 February 1980
• Docket Number: No. 77-2561,77-2561
• Citation: 610 F.2d 1342
• Parties: Ronnie W. LONGMIRE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SEA DRILLING CORP., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1342

610 F.2d 1342

Ronnie W. LONGMIRE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SEA DRILLING CORP., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 77-2561.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Feb. 6, 1980.

Randy J. Ungar, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Robert M. Contois, Jr., New Orleans, La., for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before TUTTLE, GOLDBERG and RANDALL, Circuit Judges.

RANDALL, Circuit Judge:

This is a suit by Ronnie Longmire (Longmire) against Sea Drilling Corporation (Sea Drilling) under the Jones Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) seeking recovery for injuries sustained aboard a tender anchored adjacent to a fixed drilling platform on which Sea Drilling had been conducting drilling operations. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Sea Drilling. It held that Longmire was not a seaman within the meaning of the Jones Act; and it held that the OCSLA, which in 1953 extended the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA) to certain activities conducted on the Outer Continental Shelf, did not incorporate a 1972 amendment to the LHWCA that created a negligence cause of action against a vessel in favor of an injured covered employee. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.

The underlying facts are not in dispute. Sea Drilling employed Longmire as a floorhand or roughneck on an offshore drilling crew. The drilling platform was located on the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of Louisiana. Before Longmire was injured he had worked two full hitches for Sea Drilling, each hitch consisting of seven days on and seven days off. His accident occurred during his third hitch for Sea Drilling. The drilling installation consisted of a drilling platform permanently affixed to the ocean floor and a tender, a converted LST named the Sea Drilling 7, anchored alongside and connected to the drilling platform by a hinged gangway, known in the industry by the disquieting term "widowmaker." The drilling was conducted entirely on the drilling platform, on which sat a drilling "rig," or derrick, which was installed for the purpose of drilling the well and which was moved to another platform when drilling was completed. The drilling operation was supported by the tender, which provided crew porters, mess facilities, and the pumps, electrical power, and fuel necessary to operate the drill.

Longmire's principal duties were performed on the drilling platform. As part of the roughneck crew, his duties included general labor such as maintenance of the platform and preparation of pipe for drilling. Occasionally Longmire would perform some duties on the tender, such as general maintenance work, moving supplies to or from the drilling platform, unloading and loading supply boats, and fixing the pumps for the drilling operation located on the tender. Longmire's third hitch for Sea Drilling was unusual inasmuch as no drilling occurred. The rig was being dismantled to be moved to another location in the Gulf, and during this hitch Longmire assisted in dismantling the rig and stowing equipment aboard the tender. On the day he was injured, Longmire had spent his entire shift stowing anchor chains aboard the tender as the vessel weighed anchor in preparation for the move. He was injured when he slipped as he tried to leave the room in which the anchor chains were stored.

Longmire's Seaman Status

The Jones Act gives "Any seaman who shall suffer a personal injury in the course of his employment" the right to bring an action for damages against his employer, but does not define the term "seaman." ¹ We have noted in several past decisions how that term and the phrase "master or member of a crew of a vessel," ² although historically distinguishable, have come to be used interchangeably. Noble Drilling Corp. v. Smith, 412 F.2d 952, 955-56 (5th Cir.), Cert. denied, 396 U.S. 906, 90 S.Ct. 221, 24 L.Ed.2d 182 (1969); Boatel, Inc. v. Delamore, 379 F.2d 850, 859 (5th Cir. 1967); Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769, 774 (5th Cir. 1959). In order to avail himself of the liberal terms of the Jones Act, Longmire must show that at the time of his injury he was a seaman on the Sea Drilling 7 tender; if he was not, he is entitled to benefits under the LHWCA, See below.

To qualify as a Jones Act seaman, Longmire must be able to show that he was permanently assigned to or performed a substantial part of his work on the tender, and that the capacity of his employment contributed to the function of the tender, its mission, its operation, or its welfare. Beard v. Shell Oil Co., 606 F.2d 515 at 516 (5th Cir. 1979); Davis v. Hill Engineering, Inc., 549 F.2d 314, 326 (5th Cir. 1977); Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d at 779. Although the question whether an injured employee was a seaman at the time of his injury is normally a question for the trier of fact, that is not necessarily so in every case. In recent years we have emphasized that, with regard to the allocation of the adjudicative function between judge and jury, the question of seaman status is no different from other factual determinations in which the ultimate determination is intimately related to the application of legal principles to specific underlying facts about what the parties did or did not do. ³ Whether the question of seaman status is viewed as an "ultimate" fact ⁴ or a "mixed question of law and fact," ⁵ the answer is always the same: "A court . . . may, in the proper case, hold that there is no reasonable evidentiary basis to support a jury finding that an injured person is a seaman . . . under the Jones Act." Beard v. Shell Oil Co., supra at p. 517. See Holland v. Allied Structural Steel Co., 539 F.2d 476, 479-80 (5th Cir. 1976), Cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1105, 97 S.Ct. 1136, 51 L.Ed.2d 557 (1977); Owens v. Diamond M. Drilling Co., 487 F.2d 74, 76 (5th Cir. 1973) (summary judgment against claimant proper "where the only rational inference to be drawn from the evidence is that the claimant was not a seaman").

In determining whether there is a reasonable evidentiary basis for submitting the issue of seaman status to the jury, the factors to be considered are:

(1) (whether) there is evidence that the injured workman was assigned permanently to a vessel (including special purpose structures not usually employed as a means of transport by water but designed to float on water) Or performed a substantial part of his work on the vessel; And (2) (whether) 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.

Robison, 266 F.2d at 779 (emphasis added). Longmire has clearly met the second part of the test, for the work in which he was engaged at the time of his injury was stowing the anchor chain as the vessel prepared to make weigh. However, we think Longmire has not produced evidence tending to show that he was permanently assigned to the vessel. In so stating we are cognizant of our acknowledgement in Davis v. Hill Engineering, Inc., supra, that "the word 'permanent' has never been given a literal interpretation under the Jones Act." 549 F.2d at 327. By his own admission, however, Longmire has indicated that his primary responsibilities concerned drilling operations on the drilling rig and platform, and that most of his work aboard the tender was only incidental thereto.

Whether Longmire performed a substantial part of his work on the tender is a harder question on the facts of this case. We said in Keener v. Transworld Drilling Co., 468 F.2d 729, 732 (5th Cir. 1972), that "to meet the requirement of Robison that the workman 'performed a substantial part of his work on the vessel' it must be shown that he performed a significant part of his work aboard the ship with at least some degree of regularity and continuity." Thus the question of substantiality comprehends more than a mere quantitative assessment of where the claimant spent the greater part of his working day. As we have already said, though, Longmire's primary responsibilities concerned drilling operations on the platform. Because of the symbiotic relationship between the tender and the drilling platform in this case, Longmire's performance of those duties necessarily carried him onto the tender from time to time. In this regard the vessel was no more than a storeroom or warehouse in relation to the drilling platform, except for the fact that it was afloat rather than affixed to the seabed. Longmire's work on the tender also occasionally involved general maintenance tasks, such as cleaning and painting. These tasks aboard the tender, however, were assigned to Longmire and others on the drilling crew only when there was nothing to do with respect to the drilling operation. Longmire's assignment to those tasks was irregular and fortuitous, entirely dependent upon and subsidiary to the progress of the drilling operation. See Keener, 468 F.2d at 731; Owens, 487 F.2d at 75.

This case involves an additional complexity, however, in that Longmire was injured while actually working aboard the tender. In Keener we specifically reserved the question whether a claimant's work aboard a vessel, which would otherwise be insufficient to vest him with seaman's status, would be "sufficient to afford him seaman's status during the period of his occupation with the tasks aboard the tender." 468 F.2d at 731. We now answer that question in the negative. The issue of an injured worker's status as a seaman should be addressed with reference to the nature and location of his occupation taken as a whole. While it is true that Longmire was injured aboard a vessel while performing a task that would normally be handled by a member of the ship's crew, he was assigned that task when there was...