PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM and W. EUGENE DAVIS, Circuit Judges:
Carl Bienvenu seeks benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) for injuries sustained on navigable waters during the course of his employment. His petition requires us to enter the unsettled waters of our LHWCA jurisprudence. In deciding that Bienvenu is entitled to LHWCA benefits, we right our wayward precedent and chart a smoother course for future panels to follow.
I.
Bienvenu worked for Texaco, Inc., in the Caillou Island production field as a pumper specialist. By 1987 he had been employed by [903]*903Texaco in this field for about twenty-two years. The Caillou Island production field is a five-mile by twelve-mile area located within three miles of the Louisiana coast and contains approximately 150 to 175 active fixed production platforms. Bienvenu and his fellow employees lived in a base camp on pilings over the water. Bienvenu worked seven days on and seven days off, and on his work days he worked a twelve-hour shift. Bien-venu was responsible for maintaining and calibrating automated equipment located on fixed production platforms. Bienvenu had the almost exclusive use of a vessel, the MISS JACKIE, along with a skipper to transport him around the field to the platforms where he worked. The ALJ found that during an average twelve-hour work day, Bienvenu spent approximately 75% of his time performing his duties while physically located on a fixed production platform; 16.7% of his time in transit as a passenger on the MISS JACKIE; and 8.3% of his time working on equipment on the back of the MISS JACKIE.
Bienvenu was injured twice during the course of his employment while on board the MISS JACKIE in navigable waters.- The first time was while moving his tool box from the dock to the boat, and the second time was while tying the MISS JACKIE to the dock. These injuries forced him to stop working.
Bienvenu claimed benefits under the LHWCA. An ALJ denied Bienvenu relief on the grounds that the LHWCA did not apply to him since he was not engaged in “maritime employment.” The ALJ read this Court’s prior decisions to mean that coverage under the Act was dictated by the “amount of time devoted to specific work activity by a Claimant.” The ALJ ruled that Bienvenu was not a “maritime employee” because he spent the vast majority of his working hours on fixed platforms and was only fortuitously on navigable waters when injured. The extension of the LHWCA to land-based activities did not apply to Bienvenu since his work was not an integral or essential part of loading or unloading a vessel.
Bienvenu timely appealed the ALJ’s decision to the Benefits Review Board (“BRB”). The BRB failed to render a timely decision and was deemed to have affirmed the ALJ’s ruling. See Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321-219. Bienvenu petitioned us for review. A panel of this Court reversed the ALJ’s decision because Fifth Circuit precedent compelled a conclusion that Bienvenu passed the status test since he was on navigable waters when injured. Bienvenu v. Texaco, Inc., 124 F.3d 692, 692-93 (5th Cir.), reh’g en banc granted, 131 F.3d 1135 (5th Cir.1997).
II.
In 1917, the Supreme Court held that state workers’ compensation systems could not reach longshoremen injured seaward of the water’s edge. Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205, 37 S.Ct. 524, 61 L.Ed. 1086 (1917). In response, Congress passed the LHWCA in 1927. See Pub.L. No. 803, 44 Stat. 1429. Technically, there were five requirements for coverage under the LHWCA as originally enacted, as later detailed by the Supreme Court in Director v. Perini North River Associates, 459 U.S. 297, 306-07, 103 S.Ct. 634, 641-42, 74 L.Ed.2d 465 (1983):
(1) The employee could not be a “master or member of a crew of any vessel, nor any person engaged by the master to load or unload or repair any small vessel under 18 tons net.”
(2) The employee must suffer injury during the course of employment.
(3) The employee had to be employed by a statutory “employer,” defined to be “an employer any of whose employees are employed in maritime employment, in whole or in part, upon the navigable waters of the United States.”
(4) The employee had to meet á situs requirement that injury occurred upon navigable waters.
(5) No federal coverage unless compensation may not validly be provided by state law.1
[904]*904In 1969, the Supreme Court, while recognizing the harshness of the Jensen line, held that the LHWCA did not extend to injuries occurring on a pier attached to land. Nacirema Operating Co. v. Johnson, 396 U.S. 212, 218-20, 90 S.Ct. 347, 351-52, 24 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969). The Court stated that the “invitation to move that line landward must be addressed to Congress, not to this Court.” Id. at 224, 90 S.Ct. at 354. Congress acted on this invitation in 1972 when it amended the LHWCA. See LHWCA Amendments of 1972, Pub.L. No. 92-576, 86 Stat. 1251. The 1972 Amendments extended “coverage to more workers by replacing the single-situs requirement with a two-part situs and status standard.” P.C. Pfeiffer Co. v. Ford, 444 U.S. 69, 73, 100 S.Ct. 328, 332, 62 L.Ed.2d 225 (1979). The situs test now reached shoreward to reach injuries “occurring upon the navigable waters of the United States (including any adjoining pier, wharf, dry dock, terminal, building way, marine railway, or other adjoining area customarily used by an employer in loading, unloading, repairing, dismantling, or building a vessel.)” 33 U.S.C. § 903(a). The status test defined an employee as “any person engaged in maritime employment, including any longshoreman or other person engaged in longshoring operations, and any harborworker including a ship repairman, shipbuilder, and ship-breaker.” Id. § 902(3).
In Northeast Marine Terminal Co. v. Caputo, 432 U.S. 249, 97 S.Ct. 2348, 53 L.Ed.2d 320 (1977), the Supreme Court first expounded on the status test. The workers in that ease were Blundo and Caputo. Blundo was injured when he fell while checking cargo as it was removed from a container. Caputo moved cargo from the hold of the vessel onto shore and was hurt when rolling a dolly into a truck. Though the 1972 Act did not expressly state that workers in their positions were covered, the Court held that both Blun-do and Caputo were entitled to benefits. Blundo was covered because “[o]ne of the reasons Congress expanded coverage in 1972 was that containerization permits loading and unloading tasks traditionally conducted aboard ship to be performed on the land.” Pfeiffer, 444 U.S. at 74, 100 S.Ct. at 333. Caputo fell under the LHWCA because he spent some of his time in “indisputably long-shoring operations,’’Caputo, 432 U.S. at 273, 97 S.Ct. at 2362, and Congress had intended “to ensure that a worker who could have been covered part of the time by the pre-1972 Act would be completely covered by the 1972 Act.” Pfeiffer, 444 U.S. at 75, 100 S.Ct. at 333.
In Pfeiffer, the Supreme Court further elaborated on the difference between the si-tus and status tests by noting that the situs test limits the geographic coverage of the LHWCA, while the status test is an occupational concept that focuses on the nature of the worker’s activities. Id. at 78, 100 S.Ct. at 334-35. The “crucial factor” in determining the scope of maritime employment “is the nature of the activity to which a worker may be assigned.” Id. at 82, 100 S.Ct. at 337. Though the 1972 Amendments extend coverage, they do not provide benefits to all workers in the situs area, such as truck drivers who pick up goods for further trans-shipment. Id. at 83, 100 S.Ct. at 337.
Four years after Pfeiffer, the Supreme Court returned to this issue in Perini. In that case, a workman, Churchill, was employed in the construction of a sewage treatment plant that extended over the Hudson River. He was injured on the deck of a cargo barge where he was supervising operations. The Court found no congressional intent in the 1972 Amendments to withdraw LHWCA coverage from workmen covered by the Act before 1972. The Court held that when a worker is injured on the actual navigable waters in the course of his employment on these waters, he satisfies the status requirement, assuming that the other requirements of the LHWCA are met. 459 U.S. at 324 & n. 33, 103 S.Ct. at 651 & n. 33. The Court expressed no opinion on whether LHWCA coverage extends to a worker “injured while transiently or fortuitously upon actual navigable waters or to a land-based worker injured on land who then falls into [905]*905actual navigable waters.” Id. at 324 n. 34, 103 S.Ct. at 651 n. 34.
The Perini Court discussed three of its pre-1972 cases to illustrate the scope of the Act’s coverage before the amendments were adopted. See id. at 307-12, 103 S.Ct. at 642-45 (discussing Davis v. Department of Labor, 317 U.S. 249, 63 S.Ct. 225, 87 L.Ed. 246 (1942); Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. 244, 62 S.Ct. 221, 86 L.Ed. 184 (1941); and Calbeck v. Travelers Ins. Co., 370 U.S. 114, 82 S.Ct. 1196, 8 L.Ed.2d 368 (1962)). Parker is the case most relevant to our decision.2
In Parker, Mr. Armistead, a janitor employed by a retailer of pleasure craft, was directed to assist a salesman place outboard motors on a boat. Mr. Cooper, the salesman, then allowed Mr. Armistead to accompany him as he demonstrated the motor on the customer’s boat. During the demonstration run, the vessel capsized and Armistead was killed. The Court first reviewed the evidence to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to support the deputy commissioner’s finding that Armistead was acting within the course of his employment. The Court found the following portions of the record pertinent to this inquiry:
that on the morning of the accident Armi-stead was sent to the river with specific instructions to help Cooper in placing the outboard motors on the boat; that there were no specific instructions as to whether or not Armistead was to stay out of the boat; that either Armistead or Cooper was told that Armistead was “to go and help” Cooper; that Cooper, the superior of the two employees, at least acquiesced in Armistead’s remaining in the boat to “keep a lookout” for hidden objects in the muddy water; that Cooper regarded Ar-mistead’s acting as look out as “helpful”; that employees of the respondent would sometimes make trips in boats for testing purposes, in furtherance of respondent’s business; and that in one such instance an employee had taken a boat on a trip of at least fifty miles in respondent’s behalf.3
314 U.S. at 246, 62 S.Ct. at 223.
The Court concluded that, based on the above evidence, the deputy commissioner and the district court correctly found that Armi-stead was covered under the LHWCA. The Court stated that coverage would not be denied because
habitual performance of other and different duties on land cannot alter the fact that at the time of the accident he was riding in a boat on a navigable river, and it is in connection with that clearly maritime activity that the award was here made. Moreover, § 2(4) of the Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 902(4), expressly provides for its application to “employees (who) are employed ... in whole or in part upon the navigable waters of the United States.”
Id. at 247, 62 S.Ct. at 223 (footnote and citations omitted) (alterations in original).
The Perini Court cited with approval Pennsylvania R. Co. v. ORourke, 344 U.S. 334, 73 S.Ct. 302, 97 L.Ed. 367 (1953), which considered whether a railroad worker injured on navigable water was covered by the LHWCA. The claimant’s five-man train crew had duties that included work on the railroad company’s car floats, which moved freight and passengers to and from the yard by water. At the time of the accident, the crew was removing boxcars from floats. O’Rourke climbed up on a boxcar to release a brake and fell. The question presented was whether O’Rourke could bring a damage action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) or was relegated to a compensation remedy under the LHWCA. The Court [906]*906of Appeals held that the claimant was not covered under the LHWCA because he was a railroad worker and was not engaged in maritime employment. O’Rourke v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 194 F.2d 612, 615 (2d Cir.1952), rev’d, 344 U.S. 334, 73 S.Ct. 302, 97 L.Ed. 367 (1953).
In reversing the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court stated:
We are clear, however, that the emphasis on the nature of respondent’s duties here misses the mark. The statute applies, by its own terms, to accidents on navigable waters when the employer has any employees engaged in maritime service.... The Court of Appeals, we think, is in error in holding that the statute requires as to the employee, both injury on navigable water and maritime employment as a ground for coverage by the Compensation Act. An injured worker’s particular activity at the time of injury determines of course whether he was injured in the course of his employment within § 902(2), and whether he was a member of the crew of the vessel within the exceptions of §§ 902(3) and 903(a)(1). This explains the emphasis on the factor of the individual’s job in Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, Inc.....
344 U.S. at 339-40, 73 S.Ct. at 305.
The Court had the following to say about Parker.
The result in Parker, as well, is totally inconsistent with any “duties test.” Armi-stead, the employee there, was a janitor with the motor boat company. He had been ordered to ride in one of the boats during a test trip in order to keep a lookout for hidden objects. Compensation under the Harbor Workers Act could not have been paid in connection with his death if we were to test its applicability by the nature of his regular work.
Id. at 341, 73 S.Ct. at 306 (citation omitted).
In 1985,' the Supreme Court considered whether a welder employed on a platform in Louisiana waters was covered under the LHWCA. Herb’s Welding, Inc. v. Gray, 470 U.S. 414, 105 S.Ct. 1421, 84 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985). The Court held that because Gray, the welder, was not injured on navigable waters he could attain coverage only by qualifying for the 1972 Amendments’ expanded coverage for shore side workers. The court concluded that Gray did not qualify for this expanded coverage because he was not engaged in “maritime employment.” This employment was limited to longshoring, shipbuilding and ship repairing. Gray’s welding work on stationary platforms did not fit within this definition. See id. at 424-26, 105 S.Ct. at 1427-29.
The Court made clear, however, that this definition of maritime employment did not apply to workers injured on navigable waters: “This view of ‘maritime employment’ does not preclude benefits for those whose injury would have been covered before 1972 because it occurred ‘on navigable waters.’ ” Id. at 424 n. 10, 105 S.Ct. at 1428 n. 1Ó.
The Court also discussed the Court of Appeals’ position that because Gray would be covered while traveling by boat to work on the platform, a finding of no coverage while Gray was on the platform created a “curious hole” in coverage.
Gray traveled between platforms by boat and might have been covered, before or after 1972, had he been injured while in transit. See Director, OWCP v. Perini North River Assoc., 459 U.S. at 324, 103 S.Ct. at 651. But see id., at 324, n. 34, 103 S.Ct. at 651, n. 34. (“We express no opinion whether such coverage extends to a worker injured while transiently or fortuitously upon actual navigable waters.”).... Any coverage attributable to the LHWCA itself was de minimis. We also note in passing a substantial difference between a worker performing a set of tasks requiring him to be both on and off navigable waters, and a worker whose job is entirely land-based but who takes a boat to work.
Id. at 427 n. 13, 105 S.Ct. at 1429 n. 13.
With this general background, we now ton to the arguments of the parties in this case.
III.
A.
In- light of Bienvenu’s injury on navigable waters, Texaco acknowledges, as it [907]*907must, that Bienvenu need not establish that he was engaged in maritime employment as that term is used in § 2(3) of the Act. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Perini and Herb’s Welding foreclose this argument. Those cases recognize that the 1972 Amendments were not intended to alter the scope of coverage for workmen injured on navigable waters. As our discussion above demonstrates, before 1972, any workman injured in the course of his employment actually engaged in the performance of his assigned duties on navigable waters enjoyed coverage under the LHWCA. He was not required to perform the traditional maritime work described in § 2(3) of the Act.
Belying on language in Perini, Texaco argues that workers like Bienvenu who are injured on navigable waters must establish that they were “required to' perform their employment duties on navigable waters.”
Texaco argues that the one hour per day Bienvenu spent on the deck of the MISS JACKIE, working on compressors and other platform equipment, could have been performed on the platform had Bienvenu chosen to do so and therefore that this work does not bring him within the LHWCA coverage. We disagree with this reading of Perini. The Perini Court, in discussing the pre-1972 law relative to coverage under the Act, stated: “It becomes clear from this discussion that the 1927 Act, as interpreted by Parker, Davis, and. Calbeck, provided coverage to those employees of statutory ‘employers,’ injured while working upon navigable waters in the course of their employment.” 459 U.S. at 311, 103 S.Ct. at 644. In the very same paragraph the Court cites with approval the following' quote from Gilmore and Black: “Any worker injured upon navigable waters in the course of employment was ‘covered’ ... without any inquiry into what he was doing (or supposed to be doing) at the time of his injury.” Id. at 311, 103 S.Ct. at 644 (citation omitted) (alteration in original).
Immediately following this discussion the Court uses the language upon which Texaco relies: “As a marine construction worker required to work upon navigable waters, and injured while performing his duties on navigable waters, there can be no doubt that Churchill would have been covered under the 1927 LHWCA.” Id. at 311-12, 103 S.Ct. at 644-45.
We cannot read the above sentence as demanding that a worker demonstrate that the duties he was performing aboard the vessel were in response to a direct order from his superior. We believe that all Perini requires is that the claimant show that he was injured on navigable waters while in the course of his employment.4
In this case, the ALJ found that Bien-venu spent one hour out of a twelve-hour workday, or approximately 8.3% of his work time, actually performing job responsibilities on navigable waters. From the record, it is clear that Bienvenu had been performing the same work from the MISS JACKIE for about eleven years. Surely if Texaco had some objections to Bienvenu’s working on platform equipment aboard the MISS JACKIE over this extended period of time it would have made them known. Under these circumstances, Bienvenu was entitled to assume that he had the discretion to perform his repair and maintenance work on production equipment at the location he deemed most efficient, including on the vessel. Bienvenu was in the course of his employment when he performed the above-described work on the MISS JACKIE and Bienvenu is covered under the LHWCA unless Texaco prevails on its argument that Bienvenu was aboard the MISS JACKIE fortuitously or transiently [908]*908and for that reason has no coverage. We now turn to this argument.
B.
As we discussed above, the Supreme Court in Peñni reserved the question of whether a workman aboard a vessel “transiently or fortuitously” enjoyed coverage under the LHWCA. The Court in Herb’s Welding reiterated this reservation. 470 U.S. at 427 n. 13, 105 S.Ct. at 1429 n. 13.
The Director argues that while the Supreme Court reserved this question in Peri-ni, the cases it cited as representative of the pre-1972 law on coverage indicate that the Court would reject any such hole in coverage. While it is not free from doubt, we believe that the signals from the Supreme Court in Peñni and again in Herb’s Welding indicate that the Supreme Court would hold that a workman who is aboard a vessel simply transiently or fortuitously, even though technically in the course of his employment, does not enjoy coverage under the LHWCA. We join the Eleventh Circuit in reaching this conclusion. See Brockington v. Certified Elec., Inc., 903 F.2d 1523, 1528 (11th Cir.1990); see also Zapata Haynie Corp. v. Barnard, 933 F.2d 256, 260 (4th Cir.1991) (noting that the plaintiff was “not merely fortuitously over water when his injury occurred”).
We therefore hold that a worker injured in the course of his employment on navigable waters is engaged in maritime employment and meets the status test5 only if his presence on the water at the time of injury was neither transient or fortuitous. The presence, however, of a worker injured on the water and who performs a “not insubstantial” amount of his work on navigable waters is neither transient nor fortuitous. Though we decline to set today the exact amount of work performance on navigable waters sufficient to trigger LHWCA coverage, instead leaving that task to the case-by-case development for which the common law is so well-suited, see Barrett v. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc., 781 F.2d 1067, 1073 (5th Cir.1986) (en banc) (adopting case-by-case review to determine coverage under the Jones Act), we will provide some guiding thoughts on the matter.
First, the threshold amount must be greater than a modicum of activity in order to preclude coverage to those employees who are merely commuting from shore to work by boat. Also, the routine activity of assisting in tying the vessel to the dock and loading or unloading one’s tools and personal gear onto the vessel do not count as meaningful job responsibilities. Moreover, we agree with the Supreme Court in Herb’s Welding that there is a substantial difference between a worker “performing a set of tasks requiring him to be both on and off navigable waters, and a worker whose job is entirely land based but who takes a boat to work.” 470 U.S. at 427 n. 13, 105 S.Ct. at 1429 n. 13. The time Bienvenu actually worked on production equipment aboard the MISS JACKIE constituted 8.3% of his time at work. This is not an insubstantial amount of Bien-venu’s work time and is sufficient to trigger LHWCA coverage.6
Our conclusion today that the Supreme Court would deny LHWCA coverage to a worker injured on a vessel that he is aboard transiently or fortuitously permits us to clarify our case law on this subject.7
In Fontenot v. AWI, Inc., 923 F.2d 1127 (5th Cir.1991), we held that a worker who spent 40% of his worktime on shore, 30% on fixed platforms and 30% on oil exploration [909]*909and production vessels, was engaged in maritime employment because he “was injured while on actual navigable waters, in the course of his employment.” Id. at 1130. Our holding today is entirely consistent with our holding in Fontenot given the substantial duties Fontenot had on navigable waters.
In Randall v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 13 F.3d 888 (5th Cir.1994), the petitioner’s husband was killed while attempting to transfer by swing rope from a fixed platform to a vessel. Mr. Randall was a mechanic who performed all of his work duties on a fixed platform and had no assigned duties on navigable waters. He was simply transported to and from his workstation — a stationary platform — by boat.
The Randall panel read Fontenot to base coverage under the LHWCA solely upon Fontenot’s injury on navigable waters without regard to the extent of his duties on navigable waters. It therefore concluded that Fontenot had decided that workers injured while transiently or fortuitously upon navigable waters are covered by the LHWCA. See id. at 897. Because the Randall panel found itself bound by what it perceived as this holding in Fontenot, the Randall panel concluded that the claimant was covered by the LHWCA. This court, sitting en banc, of course is not bound by either Fontenot or Randall. As our discussion above indicates, our conclusion that workmen who are aboard vessels transiently or fortuitously when they sustain injury are not covered by the LHWCA is inconsistent with Randall’s holding. Randall is therefore overruled.
IV.
Judge DeMoss, in his dissent, argues that we ignored the 1984 Amendments to the LHWCA. We did not deal with the amendments, codified at 33 U.S.C. § 902(3)(A)-(F), for a reason: They have nothing to do with this case. The amendments exclude from coverage under the Act persons engaged in six separate, narrowly defined types of employment. These include: clerical workers (Section 902(3)(A)); workers at camps, restaurants, or retail outlets (Section 902(3)(B)); marina workers (Section 902(3)(C)); workers employed by vendors or suppliers (Section 902(3)(D)); aquaculture workers (Section 902(3)(E)); and builders or repairers of recreational vessels (Section 902(3)(F)). If a person who would otherwise be covered under the LHWCA does the type of work enumerated by one of these amendments and is covered by a state workman’s compensation act, he is not covered by the LHWCA. But Bienvenu’s employment as a pumper/gauger does not fit within any of the job descriptions listed in the amendments.
Both Judge Jones and Judge DeMoss argue in dissent that unless a worker devotes substantial time to longshore duties (Judge DeMoss suggests 30%), he should not be covered under the LHWCA. Adoption of such a rule would create serious problems. First, such a rale is plainly inconsistent with Perini (worker injured on the navigable water in the course of his employment satisfies the status requirement). Indeed, Judge Jones’s main point is that Perini was wrong.ly decided. Second, imposing such a blanket requirement would overran the detailed provisions of the 1984 amendments. The very detailing of specific job descriptions by Congress belies any speculation that Congress intended by the amendments any such wholesale withdrawal of compensation coverage— recall that the exclusions under the amendments demand coverage under state workers’ compensation. The dissent is silent about workers beyond state territorial waters. Such workers to whom coverage under the LHWCA is not expressly extended by statute (such as the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1331 et seq.) presumably will be left without compensation.
Relatedly, Judge DeMoss argues that our opinion in this case conflicts with this Court’s recent opinion in Green v. Vermilion Corp., 144 F.3d 332 (5th Cir.1998). In Green, we held that a worker in a hunting camp was not covered under the LHWCA. The distinction between the two cases is patent: Green was a “camp” worker expressly excluded from coverage by Section 902(3)(B); Bienvenu does not fall within any of Section 902’s narrowly defined exclusions.
[910]*910Judge DeMoss next takes the position that the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Herb’s Welding, Inc. v. Gray, 470 U.S. 414, 105 S.Ct. 1421, 84 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985), that the oil field welder in that case was not engaged in maritime employment precludes Bienvenu’s recovery under the LHWCA. He refuses to acknowledge the distinction between a worker injured on land and a worker injured on navigable water. The Court made it crystal clear that its denial of coverage to Gray was because he fell outside of the 1972 Amendments’ expanded coverage for shore side workers. The Court expressly held: “This view of ‘maritime employment’ does not preclude benefits for those whose injury would have been covered before 1972 because it occurred ‘on navigable waters.’ ” 470 U.S. at 424 n. 10, 105 S.Ct. at 1428 n. 10.
By arguing that workers injured on navigable water only qualify for LHWCA coverage if they perform longshore duties, Judges Jones and DeMoss fail to recognize the long established principle that persons engaged in work aboard vessels are engaged in maritime employment. See Gilmore & Black, The Law of Admiralty at 429-30. That principle underlies the Perini Court’s conclusion that workers engaged in the course of their employment satisfy the “status” requirement. 459 U.S. at 311, 103 S.Ct. at 644. Imposing-such a duties test also directly conflicts with the Supreme Court’s holding in Penn. R. Co. v. O’Rourke, 344 U.S. 334, 73 S.Ct. 302, 97 L.Ed. 367 (1953) (see discussion in text, supra), which the Court relied on in Perini Also, the Dissents’ proposed holding that oilfield work aboard a vessel is not maritime employment would mean that the hundreds of oilfield workers working on drilling barges are not maritime employees. In The Offshore Co. v. Robison, 266 F.2d 769 (5th Cir.1959), and the hundreds of cases that followed, we held that such workers qualify as seamen and can recover under the Jones Act and the General Maritime law. The Dissenters’ reasoning would lead to the anomalous holding that oilfield work aboard a vessel is not maritime work if the employee spends less than 30% of his time performing that work; yet a worker who performs more than 30% of his work aboard a vessel is a seaman, the highest form of maritime worker. See Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U.S. 85, 66 S.Ct. 872, 90 L.Ed. 1099 (1946) (stevedore elevated to status of seaman for purposes of suing shipowner for unseaworthiness).
The assertion that adopting an inquiry for longshoreman coverage similar to that for seaman status affords a more clear and litigation-dampening standard is both stunning and perverse. It is stunning to those familiar with the huge number of cases spawned in our struggle with that test. It is perverse to place the same hurdle before an injured worker who claims to be a seaman, with the uncapped liability system they enjoy, and an injured worker seeking workers’ compensation as a longshoreman. The “logic” of the Dissents’ equating what is essentially a tort system with a workers’ compensation scheme turns the fundamental purpose of a no-liability, limited-damage compensation scheme upside down. Finally, an en banc court is not the Congress.
For the reasons stated above, the judgments of the BRB and ALJ are REVERSED and the case is REMANDED to the ALJ for further proceedings.