Shanghai, 4th August.
Before F. S. A. Bourne, Esy., Acting Chief Justice PEDERSEN v. ROWELL, Judgment was given in this ease in which the plaintiff claimed damages for breach of contract. Mr. J. C. Hanson (Messrs. Dowdall, Hanson, and McNeill) appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. W. A. C. Platt (Messrs. Stokes and Platt) for the defendant.
His Lords! said—According to the evidence the defendant, a British Master Mariner, engaged the plaintiff, a Norwegian seaman, at South Shields, Eng-Jand, to serve as boatswain on the Chinese s. Girin ona voyage to China. The reement was drawn up on the British fame-Trade Form and was signed by the: plaintiff in the presence of the defendant and of a boarding-house keeper. his agreement says: - - hereby agree to serve_on.a voyage from the Tyne to Port Arthug and fo trade to any Ports in China and, Japan for a period of six mouths but the plaintiff denies that this was explained to him and says that he the Bishop of Minnesota (who de- shipped on the understanding that he was the British Consul at Suez was, the defen. to return to Europe in the Girin. Between South Shields and Port Said—the first j place at which the ship touched—the crew eard that the captain claimed the right to discharge them at Port Arthur or at any fother place in China or Japan on the expiration of the contract period. On reach-[ing Port Said the plainti and the rest of the crew refused to proceed on these terms and appealed to the British Consul, the defendant meantime attempting without result to get the help of the Russian Consul. Then the defendant entered into a contract under seal, drawn up by, and executed before the British Consul by which he engaged to discharge the crew at Port Arthur and t" pay their passage home to the United Kingdom, their wages to run until the date of their arrival in England. There was no dispute until the! ship. reached Port Arthur when thi crew claimed that the Port Said agree ment should be carried out, refusing to work unless it were, the defendant stopping their food in consequence. The plaintiff states that the crew now appealed to the Agents on shore,—the Russo-Chinese Bank—where they were threatened with j Siberia. In the end the Russian Admiral intervened; ko advised the defendant to pay the crew off and provide them with a passage to Shanghai. This the defendant did, taking from each a receipt in Eng lish which purported to bee full discharge in favour of the ship her owners and master. The plaintiff now sues the defendant for the cost of a passage from Shangh England and for his wages while on the way.
'The s.s. Girin having been under the Chinese flag and the plaintiff' being a Norwegian subject, it might well be that Norwegian or Chinese law might have to! be imported in regard to the form or interpretation of the three contracts—signed at South Shields, Port Said, an Port Arthur respeetively—on which this suit depends; but for different reasons, which it would take too long to detail, I hold that English law alone rules the form, the interpretation and the oblig tion of these contracts. In regard to the South Shields contract I bell the plaintiff did not intend t that—to use his counsel's "he might be dumped doy in China or Japan the defendant ch find his own until the Port Said contract had been signed was there the consensus ad idem necessary to a binding agreement. The South Shields contract infringes the British Shipping Law, which all seamen seeking employment in England must be taken to contemplate, in two important respects: (2) in giving an unconditional right to discharge the seamen abroad, and (2) in not being witnessed by a public authority whose duty it would have been to ascertain that the seamen fully understood its terms. Both these provisions are for the protection of seamen, and the latter, at all events, is so general in Western States as almost' to have the authority of international custom. An experienced master aviner like the defendant who debt rely disregards this custom and enti an agreement with seamen ina boardinghouse with the boarding-house as the only witness cannot complain an agreement is viewed with grave suspicion, and if any presumption of fact that has to be made by a Court of Justice is against him. However, it seems to me that the conduct of the master and crew at Port Said, and before reaching and after leaving that place, goes strongly to show that the crew had not agreed to be discharged in China or Japan. f find therefore that the plaintiff did not know what he was signing at South Shields: the contract is therefore void for mistake (Foster r.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.