[DOWNLOAD] "Lykes Bros. S. S. Co. v. Grubaugh." by United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lykes Bros. S. S. Co. v. Grubaugh.
- Author : United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- Release Date : January 25, 1942
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 62 KB
Description
Brought by the steward of Lykes Bros. Steamship "Hybert", the suit was under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. 688, for damages for injuries inflicted on him by the negligence of the chief engineer and an assistant engineer. The claim was that while the vessel was moored to the dock in Brooklyn, the plaintiff was unlawfully assaulted by the chief engineer and the first assistant engineer, acting in the scope of their authority as officers of the ship over plaintiff, that he sustained damages as the result thereof, and that he is entitled to recover his actual damages and maintenance and cure. This was the case in substance as pleaded: that he was unlawfully assaulted and that at all times while unlawfully and flagrantly assaulting him these two were telling him that they were the real authority on the vessel and that they were disciplining plaintiff without advising him of the cause for such unusual and unlawful punishment. There was a further allegation; that he was notified that the chief engineer wished to see him; that he went to the chief engineers door and the chief, without addressing him, opened the door and said, "I will show you who has authority aboard this vessel", and then began beating plaintiff over the head and face; that when the chief engineer approached plaintiff he realized that the chief engineer was grossly intoxicated, that he tried to escape but the assistant engineer held plaintiff while the chief struck him. There was a motion to dismiss because the complaint failed to state a cause of action, defenses that plaintiff had been making libelous and defamatory statements concerning the chief engineer; that the quarrel or dispute had no relation to business of defendant but was over these slanderous statements; that the participants in the quarrel acted in their individual capacities and not in their official capacities; that the quarrel was outside the line of duty of the officers engaged in it; and that because the fight was not at all an official but a purely personal matter, defendant was without fault. The case came on for trial to a jury, and the defendant moved for a continuance in order to obtain the testimony of its witnesses. The court, allowing defendant to offer statements defendant had taken as though they were depositions of the witnesses, denied the motion. The case then proceeding to trial, it appeared without dispute from the whole of the evidence that the moving cause of the fight was the resentment of the intoxicated chief engineer over the fact that plaintiff had, or the engineer believed he had, been circulating defamatory statements about him. This evidence, in addition to the testimony of defendants witnesses consisted of a written statement of the occurrence made by the plaintiff in the office of defendant in New York just after the incident had occurred. Notwithstanding this state of the evidence, the court, on the following testimony of the plaintiff set out in the margin, submitted to the jury the issue of whether or not the occurrence was a purely personal row or grew out of, and occurred in, the conduct of the business of defendant.