14 F. 742 | U.S. Cir. Ct. | 1883
This was a libel filed in the district court to recover of the owners of the schooner, Winnie Wing compensation for services rendered by one of the libelants, as mate, and the other as seaman, on board of the schooner. The libelants shipped on the schooner for a round trip from Chicago to Pentwater, Michigan, and back to Chicago in' November, 1880. The seaman was to receive $20 for the round trip, but the mate, as the preponderance of the evidence shows, was to be paid by the day. The district court found there was due from the defendants to the mate the sum of $82.75, and to the seaman the sum of $58.50, for which a decree
It could hardly be expected, I think, that the libelants, in order to complete the contract as claimed by the schooner, should remain until the schooner had made the round trip in the following spring. It seems clear, under the circumstances, that so far as the round trip was concerned, at any rate, the voyage was broken up on both grounds: in the first place, because the schooner was dismasted and thereby became incapable of making the round trip; and in the second place, the schooner was obliged to remain at Pentwater during the winter. Under these circumstances, the question is whether the libelants were not entitled to a reasonable per diem compensation for the time during which they rendered service. I think they were. The contract implied between the captain and the seamen at South Haven, in consequence of which the latter proceeded to Pentwater on the schooner, was one independent entirely of that which was made at Chicago. It may he true that the collision was not the fault of the schooner, and there is certainly nothing to indicate that it was the