The article reviews the recent Court of Appeals decision in a case that could have important implications for the exposure of insurers to seamen under the Jones Act. This federal law gives seamen who were injured in the course of their employment the right to sue their employer for personal injury damages in the absence of redress under workers’ compensation rights for land-based workers.
Update: After this article was submitted to the editors at The Marine Insurer, the Fifth Circuit issued its en banc decision. The Fifth Circuit found that the plaintiff, a landbased welder directed by its employer to work on two discrete short-term transient repair jobs on two vessels, was not a seaman because he was not engaged in sea-based work that satisfied the requirement that he be substantially connected to a fleet of vessels in terms of the nature of his work.
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