DISCHARGES OF SEAMEN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1919, Page 4

DISCHARGES OF SEAMEN

AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. AUCKLAND. May 22. Judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Cooper at the Supreme Court in the ca~,e in which certain officers and men of the ship Laurel Whalen proceeded against the vessel for the purpose of determining whether they were entitledto their discharges. The plaintiffs were Matthew Hall Smith, chief engineer, representing the case of the officers and those members of the crew who shipped at Vancouver, and John fihotskoo, representing that of several of the crew who shipped at Honolulu. The; Laurel Whalen has been lying in Auckland Harbour since 2nd January last, 1 while repairs were being made to the engines. ■— In the course of his judgment in the case brought by Smith, His Honour said that in hisr opinion the master was justified in the course’ he took in making for New Zealand and far Auckland. His ship had lost her auxiliary power, and it was necessary to. restore it. Coun -el for the plaintiffs had very fairly stated that they did not suggest any impropriety in the course adopted by the master,, and they did not contend that he was not justified in coming to Auckland. The repairs, which had' taken a long time, were being carried out under the supervision of Lloyd’s surveyor, and the repaid required by. h’m will not be completed for at least three weeks from now. The master had declined to Accede to the request of certain officers and men of the crew for their discharge and passage back to Vancouver, The ship had sustained actual injury, not so great as to amount to actual loss, yet sufficiently serious to render her unseaworthy until repairs had been- carried out. The master could have justifiably discharged the crew M soon ai he found that a long delay was likely. The time limit, lor which: the men had agreed to serve had how) expired, and it was impossible to say: when the ship would leave Auckland or Vancouver. If the master had a right to discharge the men, but declined to exercise that right, the men j had surely the correlative right to claim, if they desired to do so, their discharge. His Honour held that the plaintiffs were entitled to a decree to this effect, and to payment of wages up to the time that their time of agreed service expired, on 3rd April, | In the case brought by Shotskoo, who is of Ruslan nationality. His Honour withheld judgment pending the result of an inquiry that is being made by the authorities as to whether Russians can: be discharged at this port.