A SEAMAN'S ILLNESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 170, 19 July 1924, Page 7

A SEAMAN'S ILLNESS.

■ SHIPPING COMPANY NOT LIABLE, j A negative answer to the question of whether shipping companies are liable under all • circumstances to pay the wages, hospital expenses, and costs of funerals of seamen who die after being put ashore ill was contained in a reserved judgment delivered by Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court at Wellington on Wednesday. The claim was by the Seamen's Union for a penalty against Johnston and Co., shipping agents, for an alleged breach of award in respect of the death of a seaman on the coastal steamer Invercargill. Hi 9 Worship remarked that the defence was that the liability of the owner was, in terms of the award, restricted to those cases where the illness was contracted in the service of the ship during the particular period of service which terminated in the illness, and that the evidence in the case before the Court showed that the disease, degeneration of ,the heart, had commenced prior to the deceased joining the vessel on the last occasion, and was not contracted in the service of the ship. He held that ther* had been no breach of the award, since, in his opinion, the award referred only to illness contracted in the service of the ship during the last period of employment. Plaintiff was accordingly nonsuited, with costs. * |