Case ID: f_84/html/0503-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "HE HAVEN\", District Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE JOHN AND WINTHROP. KRUEGER et al. v. THE JOHN AND WINTHROP.
    (District Court, N. D. California.
    December 29, 1897.)
    No. 11,402.
    Seamen’s Wages — Defenses.
    In a suit for seamen’.-, wages, where the defense is that libelants were suspended from duty and imprisoned by the master, on suspicion of am attempt to burn the vessel, it is not sufficient that the master acted in good faith, and under the belief that libelants were guilty, if, in fact, they were not guilty of such a purpose.
    This was a libel by E. A. Krueger and others against the American bark John and Winthrop to recover seamen’s wages.
    The defense to the action was that the libelants had shipped for an entire whaling voyage on the bark John and Winthrop, and while on such voyage attempted to burn and destroy the vessel, and Cor that offense the captain, after such investigation as he thought sufficient, suspended the libelants from duty and imprisoned them on board of the vessel. Upon the trial the captain testified that such action was, in his judgment, necessary for the safety of the vessel. The captain did not, however, of his own knowledge, know that the libelants were in 1'act guilty of the offense charged against them.
    H. W. Hutton, for libelants.
    Geo. W. Towle, Jr., for respondent.
   HE HAVEN", District Judge.

The evidence in this case is not such as would warrant the court in finding that the libelants, or either of them, attempted to burn and destroy said bark John and Winthrop, and thus to break up the voyage for which they shipped as seamen on hoard of said vessel. The fact, if it be a fact, that the captain, in suspending the libelants from duty and imprisoning them on board the ship, acted in good faith, under the belief that they were guilty of attempting to destroy the vessel, is not of itself sufficient to defeat the claims of the libelants in this action. The good faith of the master in that matter would be important, if the libelants were seeking to recover damages for assault or false imprisonment; but in this action, based on the contract set out in the shipping articles, the libelants are entitled to recover if they are not in fact guilty of the charge of attempting to set fire to the vessel. There will be a decree for the libelants.