In the case of Edmonds v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 1978, the U.S Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether a stevedoring company could be held liable for injuries sustained by one of its longshoremen while working on a ship owned by another party. The plaintiff, James Edmonds, had been injured due to an alleged defect in the ship's equipment and sought compensation from both his employer and the ship owner under provisions of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA). The court ruled that under Section 905(b) of LHWCA, a vessel owner is not immune from third-party liability when negligence can be proven. However, it also clarified that if an injury occurred due to "the carelessness" of employees other than those involved in providing stevedoring services at time of accident then no liability would attach to their employer as per Section 933(i). This decision marked significant clarification regarding how responsibility for workplace accidents should be apportioned between employers and third parties.

In the dissenting opinion for Edmonds v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, Justice Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's interpretation of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA). He argued that a seaman injured while working on a vessel in navigable waters should be considered as 'employed upon navigable waters of United States,' regardless of whether his employment was also partially land-based. According to him, such an interpretation would align more closely with Congress’s intent when it enacted LHWCA - to cover injuries occurring on navigable waters or adjoining areas used in loading/unloading vessels. Furthermore, he criticized the majority for creating unnecessary confusion by introducing new criteria like "significant relationship" between worker's injury and his employer’s shipbuilding operations. This approach, according to him, deviated from previous court decisions which focused solely on location of injury rather than nature or connection of work performed at time of accident.