In the case of Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., 1959, an employee was injured while working on a fishing vessel and sued his employer for negligence under the Jones Act. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the employee, stating that seaworthiness is an absolute duty owed by ship owners to their crew members. This means that if any part of a ship or its equipment is not fit for its intended use and causes injury to a crew member, then it can be considered unseaworthy regardless of whether or not there was negligence involved from the owner's side. The court also held that contributory negligence (the fact that the worker may have contributed to his own injury) does not bar recovery under this act but only diminishes it in proportion to such fault.

In the dissenting opinion for Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc., Justice Whittaker argued that the majority had misinterpreted and misapplied the doctrine of unseaworthiness. He contended that a ship's seaworthiness should be determined at the commencement of a voyage and not in retrospect after an accident has occurred. According to him, if a vessel is deemed fit for sea when it sets sail but later encounters conditions which cause equipment failure or other issues leading to injury, this does not retroactively render the ship unseaworthy from its outset. In his view, such reasoning would unfairly burden ship owners with absolute liability for all injuries occurring on board regardless of their ability to foresee or prevent them.