JONES ACT
Enacted in 1920 (46 U.S.C.A. § 688) the Jones Act provides a remedy to sailors for injuries or death resulting from the NEGLIGENCE of an owner, a master, or a fellow sailor of a vessel. The federal Jones Act defines the legal rights of sea-
men who are injured or killed in the course of
maritime service. It entitles them, or their sur-
vivors, to sue their employer in the event that
their fellow workers or shipmasters are negligent
(unreasonably careless), and to receive a trial by
jury. Prior to the law’s passage in 1920, sailors
did not enjoy these rights, largely because of
antiquated legal concepts and court opinions
that tended to protect employers. A milestone in
liability law, the Jones Act was intended to
demolish such barriers in recognition of the
special risks taken by sailors. Interpreting the
law has been a long and difficult challenge for
the federal courts, which have exclusive jurisdic-
tion over Jones Act claims. The crux of the prob-
lem is the Jones Act’s failure to define the term
seaman, which courts have generally, but not
always, construed to mean “a shipmaster or crew
member.”
Until the early twentieth century, the rights
of sailors were limited. If a sailor was injured
through the negligence of another sailor or the
master of the ship, the injured party could not
hope to win a suit against the employer. Nor
could survivors of a sailor who died in the line of
service win such a suit. Under general maritime
law, sailors were entitled to “maintenance and
cure”—a form of contractual compensation
that provided a living allowance for food, lodg-
ing, and medical expenses.Only when a ship was
proved to be unseaworthy could sailors recover
damages from their employer.
The U.S. Supreme Court emphasized these
limitations in 1903 in The Osceola, 189 U.S. 158, 23 S. Ct. 483, 47 L. Ed. 760. In that case the Court ruled that the owner of a ship was not
responsible for a sailor’s injuries simply because
those injuries were caused by the negligent order
of the ship’s master. The decision had its roots in
a common-law doctrine known as the FELLOW-
SERVANT RULE. This now outdated concept
shifted blame partly, and sometimes entirely,
from employers to fellow workers. If sued
because a worker was injured on the job,
employers could avert liability by blaming the
accident on the negligence of fellow employees.
In Osceola the Court based its reasoning on a so-
called fellow-seaman doctrine, thus curtailing
the legal remedies available to an injured sailor.
Several historical developments motivated
Congress to give sailors greater legal rights. The
sinking of the Titanic in 1912 heightened public
awareness of the perils of service at sea, and it
was soon followed by concerns about merchant
marines at the onset of WORLD WAR I. In 1915
Congress enacted safety requirements for vessels
through the Act to Promote the Welfare of
American Seamen in the Merchant Marine of
the United States (Act of March 4, 1915, ch. 153,
38 Stat. 1164). This act overruled the Supreme
Court’s decision in Osceola, explicitly stating
that the fellow-seaman doctrine could not be
used as a defense. But the law had little force. In
1918 the Court ruled that Congress had failed to
provide a remedy for negligent acts, and there-
fore allowed a lower court’s dismissal of a sailor’s
negligence suit to stand (Chelentis v. Luckenbach
Steamship Co., 247 U.S. 372, 38 S. Ct. 501, 62 L.
Ed. 1171). Federal lawmakers viewed the deci-
sion as undermining their will.
Two years later Congress responded by pass-
ing the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (46 App.
U.S.C.A. § 861 et seq.), section 33 of which has
come to be known as the Jones Act. Lawmakers
defined the rights of sailors to sue in explicit lan-
guage:
Any 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. . . . and in
case of the death of any seaman as a result of
any such personal injury the PERSONAL
REPRESENTATIVE of such seaman may
maintain an action for damages at law with
the right of trial by jury.
Though Congress had eliminated the barri-
ers that the Supreme Court had erected, a key
question remained: who qualified as a seaman?
In 1927 Congress provided a partial answer
through the passage of the Longshoremen’s and
Harbor Workers Compensation Act (LHCA) (33
U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq.). The LHCA provided
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION benefits to dock-
hands, who by that time had replaced sailors in
the tasks of loading and unloading ships. But the
LHCA specifically excluded any crew member of
a vessel from its coverage; thus, by extension,
sailors were not eligible for the benefits afforded
dockworkers.
Because Congress did not see a need in 1920
to define seaman, it remained ambiguous who
qualified to bring a suit under the Jones Act.
Nevertheless, the courts had little trouble decid-
ing until 1940, when the Supreme Court ruled
that a crew member was not a seaman if his
duties did not pertain to navigation (South
Chicago Coal & Dock Co. v. Bassett, 309 U.S. 251,
60 S. Ct. 544, 84 L. Ed. 732). Yet, over the next
several decades, some courts liberally construed
both who constituted a sailor and what consti-
tuted a vessel. More confusion followed as a
result of the Supreme Court’s 1955 decision in
Gianfala v. Texas Co., 350 U.S. 879, 76 S. Ct. 141,
100 L. Ed. 775, which reinstated the district
court’s ruling that the determination of a sailor’s
status belonged to the jury. The definition of
seaman came to include workers on dredges and
floating oil drilling platforms. Still, no precise
test existed, and the result was an explosion of
Jones Act litigation. Between 1975 and 1985,
nearly one hundred thousand Jones Act suits
were filed in southern states.
During the 1980s critics of the Jones Act
called for reform. They asked Congress to limit
the act’s scope, and the Supreme Court to define
whom the act covered. Although Congress did
not act, the Court returned a partial answer in
1995 in Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U.S. 347, 115
S. Ct. 2172, 132 L. Ed. 2d 314. The decision
established two elements that must be met by a
plaintiff in order for the plaintiff to qualify as a
sailor: the worker’s duties “must contribute to
the function of the vessel or to the accomplish-
ment 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 both its duration and its nature.” One key
result of the decision was that sailors could now
sue under the Jones Act even if their work
required going ashore. But scholars did not
believe Chandris was a conclusive ruling on all
