Stanley Forman Reed

“ Our holding there that the determination of whether an injured person was a 'member of a crew' is to be left to the finder of fact meant that juries have the same discretion they have in finding negligence or any other fact. The essence of this discretion is that a jury's decision is final if it has a reasonable basis, whether or not the appellate court agrees with the jury's estimate. ”

“ Not only did Senko have nothing to do with navigation, but he did not 'aid' navigation in the sense of helping to maintain the vessel or its crew in a condition to navigate. [9] He was simply a handy-man and assistant for a crew of men operating an earth-removing machine which happened to be afloat and which, occasionally and always in Senko's absence, was pushed from place to place.
The fact that it was a jury that found Senko to be 'a member of a crew' does not relieve us of the responsibility for seeing to it that what is in effect a jurisdictional requirement of the Jones Act is obeyed. ”

“ Petitioner's relationship to this dredge met none of these requirements. He was simply an ordinary laborer, a member of the Common Laborers' Union. Temporarily unemployed, he applied to his union, which sent him to respondent as a laborer. Respondent was a contractor on the canal-digging project, and employed a construction gang on shore under the supervision of a foreman. This foreman assigned Senko to take the job of 'deckhand' or 'laborer' on respondent's dredge, the James Wilkinson, a craft which, though afloat, served as a stationary earth-removing machine. ”