Court Opinion

ID: 8637649
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:47:55.174913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:59.072527
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, Circuit Justice.
Taken as a whole, the testimony shows that the libel-lants were shipped by the master, and that he contracted to give them respectively the wages specified in the libel, and that the oral contract was never modified or varied in any respect whatever. Express authority to hire the crew upon wages was fully proved by the master, and the circumstances attending their employment, and the conduct and declarations of the respondent on their arrival at Marblehead, were of a character to satisfy the court that the master’s account of the transaction is correct, without adverting to the subsequent conduct of the respondent, which in many respects goes very far to confirm that view of the case. The proof of express authority having been exhibited, it is unnecessary to consider the second proposition submitted by the respondent, which was that the master had no implied authority to make sucn a contract. But it is insisted by the respondent that the oral contract of the libellants, if made as alleged, was merged in a subsequent wrjs>-ten contract, wherein the libellants agreed to serve during the fishing season for shares of the fish to be caught, in the proportions specified in the written agreement. That proposition is based upon the fact that the libellants at the request of the master signed such an agreement three or four days before the schooner departed on her voyage. She sailed on the 20th of April, 18G1, which was some seven or eight days after the libellants had arrived at Marblehead, and entered upon the performance of the oral contract under which they agreed to ship for the voyage. Three or four days before the vessel sailed, the master, as he stilted, told the crew, including the libellants, that he wanted them to sign the fishing-agreement or paper which he exhibited to them, and he and every one of the crew signed it. Recurring to the paper, it will be seen that it corresponds in all respects with the form of the fishing-agreement usually adopted where the master and crew are shipped to serve for shares of the fish caught during the season or voyage; but the instrument was never read to them, and the facts and circumstances show to the entire satisfaction of the court that the paper was never executed and delivered as an agreement to determine and control the wages either of the master or the crew. Circumstances strongly indicate that it was executed in connection with some purpose, contingent or otherwise, to perpetrate a fraud upon the government, but the evidence fails to disclose any grounds to conclude that the libellants or any of the crew were parties to any such fraudulent purpose. They appear to have acted heedlessly in signing the paper, but without any knowledge of its contents, and without the slightest suspicion that it had any relation to their contract. They made no inquiries in regard to the paper, and no explanations were given, and the whole case shows that the paper was not executed or intended by either party as one to show the terms of the contract of shipment, and was never delivered as such by the libellants, or received as such by the respondent. To hold otherwise would be to sanction a fraud upon the libellants, and to impute a fraudulent purpose to the respondent not warranted by any evidence in the case. He well knew that the libellants had been shipped upon wages, and he also knew that they so understood the contract, and there is no just ground to believe that he caused the paper to be signed with any view to discharge or modify the contract
The decree of the district court is therefore affirmed with costs.