Barras v Aberdeen Steam Trawling & Fishing Co Ltd

Lorp WARRINGTON oF CLyFFE. My Lords, this is an
appeal from an interlocutor dated February 5, 1932, whereby
the First Division of the Court of Session by a majority
(Lords Blackburn and Morison, the Lord President
dissenting) allowed an appeal from interlocutors of the
Sheriff and Sheriff-Substitute dated respectively November 17
and July 28, 1931, allowing the claim of the appellant as
pursuer in the action.

The appellant was a seaman on the steam trawler
Strathclova, of which the respondents were the owners, under
the terms of a running agreement dated July 4, 1930, and

(1) L. RB. 5 Ch. 703. (2) (1868) 1 De G. J. & 8. 311.
3 262

435

H. L. (Se.)
1933
BaRRAS
v.
ABERDEEN
STEAM
TRAWLING

Lor
Blanesburgh.

436 HOUSE OF LORDS [1933]

H.L.(Sc.) was by that agreement engaged for a period from July 4,
1933 1930, to December 30, 1930. His claim in the action was
Barras founded on s. 1, sub-s. 1, of the Merchant Shipping (Inter-
Aperpunn national Labour Conventions) Act, 1925, and was for wages
BS ae as provided by that Act. The section in question is as
(1.) Where by reason of the wreck or loss of a

AND follows :
Co. ship on which a seaman is employed his service terminates

ce

FIsHING

Waverton before the date contemplated in the agreement, he shall,
of Clyfe. notwithstanding anything in s. 158 of the Merchant Shipping
5S Act, 1894, but subject to the provisions of this section, be
entitled, in respect of each day on which he is in fact un-
employed during a period of two months from the date of
the termination of the service, to receive wages at the rate

to which he was entitled at that date."

Sub-s. 2 contains provisions restricting the right to wages
under certain conditions not alleged to be applicable to the
present case.

Sect. 158 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, provides
that ''where the service of a seaman terminates before the
date contemplated in the agreement, by reason of the wreck
or loss of the ship, or of "'—an event not applicable in the
present case—'' he shall be entitled to wages up to the time
of such termination, but not for any longer period." Thus
the Act of 1925 gives to the seaman, in the event specified
in both Acts, a claim to wages more extensive than that to
which he would have been entitled under the Act of 1894,
and is in effect an amendment of that Act.

Two questions arise for decision :—

(1.) Whether on the true construction of the Act of 1925
the event of a wreck or loss of the ship has occurred ?

(2.) Whether if so the seaman's service was terminated by
reason of such wreck or loss ?

In considering these questions I need not state the facts in
detail, but will give a short summary only.

The seaman's service in this case was to be on board the
Strathclova, a steam trawler to be employed " fishing trawl
North Sea Shetland West Coast and Faroe" from July 4,
1930, until the last day of December, 1930, or, if the boat

A. C. AND PRIVY COUNCIL.

should be at sea on that date, until the first return to the
United Kingdom thereafter. But it was agreed that subject
to the above stipulation the agreement might be terminated
at any time before that date at the discretion of the owner.
It is common ground that under such an engagement the
parties contemplated a series of short trips to the fishing
ground each ending in a return to the home port followed
in due course by another trip. Before this House counsel
agreed that as a rule the maximum length of a trip would be
fourteen days and the minimum five days, and the normal
interval in the home port would be one day and a half. The
venture was therefore one of practically continuous fishing
for the period of the agreement.

On September 25, 1930, the Strathclova when at a distance
of one mile to one mile and a half from her home port, the
harbour of Aberdeen, came into collision with another steam
trawler and was considerably damaged. She was, however,
able to make the harbour of Aberdeen under her own steam,
was moored near the Fish Quay, and discharged her cargo
there on September 26. She was then dry-docked for the
purpose of effecting the repairs rendered necessary by the
collision. These were completed on October 10, and on
October 11 the appellant was re-engaged and resumed his
employment. The fishing trips were then resumed. In the
meantime, on September 26, the crew including the appellant
were paid off, being told that the ship would be laid up until
the repairs were completed. In the interval the appellant
was unemployed.

On these facts the first question is: Was the accident to
the Strathclova a "wreck" within the meaning of the Act
of 1925 2

In my opinion this question should be answered in the
affirmative, the point being settled by authority.

In the case of The Olympic (1) it was decided by a majority
in the Court of Appeal (Vaughan Williams and Buckley L.JJ. ;
Kennedy L.J. dissenting) that the "wreck or loss" of the
ship referred to in s. 158 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894,

(1) [1913] P. 92.

437

H. L. (8c.)
1933

_—
BARRAS
v.
ABERDEEN

Lord
Warrington
of Clyffe.

438

H. L. (Sc.)

Warrington
of Clyffe.

HOUSE OF LORDS [1933]

includes any accident occasioned by a peril of the sea which
renders the ship unfit or unable to proceed on the voyage.
It was further decided on the facts of that case that the
mercantile venture on which the ship was then engaged was
frustrated by reason of the wreck, and the services of the
seamen were accordingly terminated. But on this point it
may be, and the Court of Session have so decided, that on
the facts this case should be decided the other way. This is
of course the second question I have put to myself.

To return to the first question, the case of The Olympic (1)
clearly decided the point. It is, however, a decision of the
Court of Appeal, and would prima facie be open to review
in this House. For myself I should not, I think, differ from
the view of the Court of Appeal even if I thought myself
at liberty to decide the other way, but this is immaterial if
it be true that this House is not now at liberty to overrule
their decision.

The present case is in my opinion covered by the judgment
of James L.J. in Hx parte Campbell; In re Cathcart.(2) The
question there was whether under s. 216 of the Bankruptcy
Act, 1861, a particular interrogatory was covered by the words
of the section and was therefore one which the witness was
bound to answer. 'The point had been decided against a
witness in a case of Hx parte Vogel (3), under a previous Act
of Parliament containing practically the same words as those
afterwards employed in the Act of 1861. The learned Lord
Justice said this (4): '' Where once certain words in an Act
of Parliament have received a judicial construction in one
of the Superior Courts, and the Legislature has repeated
them without any alteration in a subsequent statute, I
conceive that the Legislature must be taken to have used
them according to the meaning which a Court of competent
jurisdiction has given to them."

Counsel were unable to refer us to any case in which the
view of James L.J. had been questioned. It is particularly
applicable in the present case, because in the Act of 1925,

(1) [1913] P. 92. (3) (1818) 2B. & Ald. 219.
(2) L. R. 5 Ch. 703. (4) L. B. 5 Ch. 706.

A. C. AND PRIVY OOUNCIL.

which professed to give effect to an International Convention
in which the words "loss or foundering" in a similar context
were used, the Legislature have used the words " wreck or

439

H. L. (Sc.)

1933
—~
BARRAS

loss"? appearing in the Act of 1894 which had previously apsnprnn

received the interpretation in question. For these reasons
therefore I think the first question must be answered in the
affrmative—namely, that the accident to the Strathclova
was a wreck within the meaning of the statute.

There then arises the second question—namely, was the
service of the seaman terminated by reason of the wreck ?
This question was answered in the affirmative by the majority
of the Court in The Olympic (1) on the ground that the whole
mercantile adventure was frustrated by the wreck. Vaughan
Williams L.J. expresses the ground of his conclusion in the
following terms (2): "such damage," (namely, the damage
occasioned by the wreck) " although repairable, would make
the ship unseaworthy for so long a time as to make the
continuance of the voyage useless as a commercial venture."
Buckley L.J. says (3): 'The wreck of the ship in this
context, I think, is anything happening to the ship which
renders her incapable of carrying out the maritime adventure
in respect of which the seaman's contract was entered into."

In the present case the mercantile adventure in respect
of which the seaman's contract was entered into was not
merely for a single voyage. It was for a series of fishing
trips, each of short duration, extending over several months.
The repairs took fourteen days only to complete, and on this
being done the ship resumed her fishing trips and continued
them until the time fixed by the contract. Under these
circumstances I agree with Lord Blackburn and Lord Morison
that the service of the seaman was not terminated by reason
of the wreck, and accordingly the seaman was not entitled
to the benefit of the Act of 1925.

The third plea in law originally set up by the respondents,
founded on the averment that the seaman's service was
terminated in terms of his contract, was withdrawn, and
in my opinion rightly withdrawn. It is true that the

(1) [1913] P. 92. (2) Ibid. 103. (3) Ibid. 107.

STEAM
TRAWLING

440 HOUSE OF LORDS [1983]

H.L. (So.) contract contained a provision that it might be terminated
1933 at any time at the discretion of the owner. But I think it
Barras is plain that in paying off the men on September 26, 1930,

Anenpenn the owner did not purport to act on this provision, for the

T Lene Sheriff-Substitute finds as a fact (No. 8) that the crew were
AND told at the time of paying off that the ship would be laid
FISHING ;
Co. up until the repairs were completed, and we know that on

Lord this being done the fishing trips were renewed.
Warrington

of Clyiie. On the whole I am of opinion that the interlocutor
appealed from should be affirmed and this appeal dismissed
with costs.

Lorp RvussELL oF Kittowen. My Lords, the case of
The Olympic (1) decided, in reference to the words '"' wreck
or loss"? which occur in s. 158 of the Merchant Shipping
Act, 1894, that the word "' wreck " meant something different
from and less than "' loss,'' and that in that section the wreck
of the ship meant anything happening to the ship which
rendered her incapable of carrying out the maritime adven-
ture in respect of which the seaman's contract had been
made.

Some twelve years later, The Olympic decision (1) having
in the meantime governed the construction of the section,
the Legislature enacted the Merchant Shipping (International
Labour Conventions) Act, 1925. That Act shows by its
full title and by its preamble that its object is to give effect
to certain draft conventions which had been adopted by the
International Labour Conference relating to (among other
things) ''an unemployment indemnity for seamen in case
of loss or foundering of their ship."' The draft conventions
referred to are set out in the First Schedule to the Act.
Sects. 1 and 7 of the Act run thus :—

Sect. 1, sub-s. 1: '' Where by reason of the wreck or loss
of a ship on which a seaman is employed his service
terminates before the date contemplated in the agreement,
he shall, notwithstanding anything in section one hundred
and fifty-eight of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, but

(1) [1913] P. 92.

A. C. AND PRIVY COUNCIL.

subject to the provisions of this section, be entitled, in
respect of each day on which he is in fact unemployed during
a period of two months from the date of the termination
of the service, to receive wages at the rate to which he was
entitled at that date."

Sub-sect. 2: "' A seaman shall not be entitled to receive
wages under this section if the owner shows that the un-
employment was not due to the wreck or loss of the ship
and shall not be entitled to receive wages under this section
in respect of any day if the owner shows that the seaman
was able to obtain suitable employment on that day."

Sub-sect. 3: "'In this section the expression 'seaman'
includes every person employed or engaged in any capacity
on board any ship, but, in the case of a ship which is a
fishing-boat, does not include any person who is entitled to
be remunerated only by a share in the profits or the gross
earnings of the working of the boat."

Sect. 7: "' This Act may be cited as the Merchant Shipping
(International Labour Conventions) Act, 1925, and shall be
construed as one with the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to
1923, and those Acts and this Act may be cited together as
the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1894 to 1925."

The effect of s. 7 has been succinctly stated by one of
your Lordships in the Ellerman Lines v. Murray case (1),
where he uses the following language: 'The Act ... . of
1925 thus becomes a constituent part of a statutory code
with special meanings attached to some of its terms by
definition and to others by accepted usage or judicial
decision. The result of course is that a meaning may
necessarily be attributable to its provisions very different
from that which would attach to the very same words in an
independent enactment."

On looking at s. 1, we find that Parliament, in legislating
for the purpose of carrying out the draft convention, has
used in the first three lines of s. 1 words which are for all
relevant purposes the same as those in s. 158 of the Act of
1894, although the order in which they occur is somewhat

(1) [1931] A. C. 126, 133.

441

H. L. (Sc.)
1933

Res
BARRAS
vw.
ABERDEEN
STEAM

Lord Russell
of Killowen.

442

H. L. (Sc.)
1933
~~

Barras
Vv.
ABERDEEN

Lord Russell
of Killowen.

HOUSE OF LORDS [1933]

altered. The words in s. 158, " by reason of the wreck or
loss of the ship,' become in s. 1 " by reason of the wreck
or loss of a ship on which a seaman is employed." There is
not, in my opinion, any room for doubt that whatever they
mean, the words " wreck or loss'? must mean the same in
both sections. Nor, in my opinion, can your Lordships
in the present case avoid attributing to the Legislature when
it used in s. 1 of the Act of 1925 the identical words "' wreck
or loss' which had in 1913 been judicially construed by the
Court of Appeal, and used them in reference to the same
subject matter, an intention to use the words in the sense
in which they had been so judicially construed. The
authorities in support of a presumption of such intention
are numerous and weighty. Some are referred to in the
opinions of your Lordships and I need not repeat them. I
may, however, call attention to two others. In Barlow v.
Teal (1) Lord Coleridge C.J. said: '' Where cases have been
decided on particular forms of words, in Courts, and Acts
of Parliament use those forms of words which have received
judicial construction, in the absence of anything in the Acts
shewing that the Legislature did not mean to use the words
in the sense attributed to them by the Courts, the presump-
tion is that Parliament did so use them." In this House
Lord Loreburn, in giving his opinion in North British Ry.
Co. v. Budhill Coal and Sandstone Co. (2), stated that
"When an Act of Parliament uses a word which has received
a judicial construction it presumably uses it in the same
sense."

Is there anything in the Act of 1925 which would justify
us in rebutting this presumption ? For myself I find nothing,
but I find much to compel us to act upon it. For, be it
observed, full effect could have been given to the draft
conventions by legislating strictly in the language thereof
and adhering to the words "loss or foundering.' Instead
of following this course the Legislature has, as it appears to
me, elected not to do so, but to legislate by reference to a
section of an existing Act of Parliament the words of which

(1) (1885) 15 Q. B. D. 403, 405. (2) [1910] A. C. 116, 127.

A. C. AND PRIVY COUNCIL.

by virtue of a judicial construction which had stood un-
challenged for years, covered many occurrences other than
loss or foundering. In these circumstances I feel bound to
hold that the word '"' wreck" in s. 158 of the Act of 1925
bears the meaning attributed to it by the Court of Appeal in
The Olympic (1) decision.

There remains the question whether the facts of this case
bring it within that decision. Did that which happened to
the ship render her incapable of carrying out the maritime
adventure in respect of which the seaman's contract was
made ? Was the ship unseaworthy for so long a time as to
frustrate that adventure ¢ In my opinion the answer should
be "No." The venture was a contract for a series of
practically continuous fishing trips extending over a period
of about six months. The ship was laid up for some fourteen
days. While the accident to the ship no doubt caused an
interruption of and an interference with the maritime adven-
ture, I cannot hold that there was such an interruption or
interference as to cause a frustration of that adventure. I
agree with the judgments of Lord Blackburn and Lord
Morison upon this point.

I think that the interlocutor should be affirmed and the
appeal dismissed.

Lorp Macmittan. My Lords, the Sheriff-Substitute in
his findings of fact has furnished a full and accurate account
of what befell the steam trawler Strathclova on September 25,
1930. It is not contested that by reason of the occurrence
so described the service of the appellant, who was a seaman
(in point of fact the chief engineer) employed on the Strath-
clova, was terminated before the date contemplated in his
agreement with the respondents, the owners of the vessel.
The question is whether in the circumstances his service can
properly be said to have been terminated by reason of the
'""wreck'"' of the Strathclova, within the meaning of s. 1,
sub-s. 1, of the Merchant Shipping (International Labour
Conventions) Act, 1925, so as to give the appellant the

benefit of that section.
(1) [1913] P. 92.

443

H. L. (Se.)
1933

—_——
BARRAS
v
ABERDEEN
STEAM
TRAWLING
AND
FISHING
Co.
Lord Russell
of Killowen,

Aad

H. L. (Sc.)
1933

FIsHING
Co.

Lord Macmillan.

HOUSE OF LORDS [1983]

The legislation under consideration is the most recent
step in the progressive mitigation of the harsh rule of the
common law that freight is the mother of wages, which
deprived the seaman of any right to remuneration for his
services unless the enterprise of maritime transport in which
he was employed was duly completed. By s. 157, sub-s. 1,
of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, it is roundly declared
that "'the right to wages shall not depend on the earning
of freight,' and in s. 158, where the seaman's service is
prematurely terminated by reason of '"' the wreck or loss of
the ship " he is given a right to his wages up to the time of
such termination. Finally, by the section of the Act of 1925
now before your Lordships, the lot of the seaman whose
service has suffered untimely termination "' by reason of the
wreck or loss"' of his ship is further alleviated by entitling
him to continue receiving his wages for a period of two
months after such termination of his service, if he remains
so long in fact unemployed.

My Lords, the question of the circumstances in which a
seaman's service could properly be said to have been
terminated by reason of the "wreck" of his vessel came
before the Courts in the well known case of The Olympic. (1)
It was there held by a majority of the Court of Appeal,
affirming the judgment of Bargrave Deane J., that if the
service of a seaman was terminated in consequence of a
physical casualty befalling his ship, whereby she was rendered
"incapable of carrying out the maritime adventure in respect
of which the seaman's contract was entered into" (per
Buckley L.J. (2)), then it could properly be said that the
seaman's service had terminated by reason of the '"' wreck "'
of his ship within the statutory meaning. The criterion is
thus seen to lie in the consequences of the casualty. '' The
frustration of the voyage,' to quote Earl Loreburn L.C.
in Horlock v. Beal (3), affords "' a test by which to determine
whether or not the physical injury inflicted amounted to
* wreck,' ""

(1) [1913] P. 92. (2) Ibid. 107.
(3) [1916] 1 A. C. 486, 493.

A. C. AND PRIVY COUNCIL.

In my opinion this interpretation has much to commend
it. The word "wreck" is obviously a word of the most
vague and general connotation. In the language of the
literature of adventure, and possibly also for some legal
purposes, it may well be that the wreck of a vessel means, as
Kennedy L.J. said in his dissenting judgment in The
Olympic (1), "such disaster caused by collision with some
external object, be it stationary, such as a rock, or moving,
as, e.g., another ship or some substance floating in the waves,
as destroys her character as a ship, and reduces her practically
to the condition which, speaking from memory, I think
has been judicially described in the case of a wooden ship
as a ' congeries of planks.'"' But I do not think that it was
intended that the enactment now under consideration should
operate only on the occurrence of so dramatic and catastrophic
a casualty. Suppose a ship at spring tide runs on a sand-
bank in some remote part of the world and remains fast so
that she cannot be refloated for a long period or at all and the
crew are consequently discharged. I should hesitate to say
that in such a case there had been no wreck of the vessel
within the meaning of the Act, although she in fact remained
intact. It is well to bear in mind what Buckley L.J. points
out in The Olympic (2), that for the present purpose we have
not "to inquire whether the ship was a wreck, that is to say,
whether she had become a certain physical thing, but....
whether she had been so injured and damaged that she
ceased to be a ship of service for the purposes of the adventure,
the subject of the seaman's contract."'

On the best consideration I have been able to give to the
matter I have come to the conclusion that the view of the
majority in The Olympic (3), which your Lordships are
invited to overrule, was well founded and should be followed.
In so holding I am not uninfluenced by the fact that the
decision in T'he Olympic (3) was pronounced twenty years
ago and until now has not been called in question. For this
long period it has doubtless regulated the practice of ship-
owners and marine insurers. Indeed, so far from being in

(1) [1913] P. 115. (2) [1913] P. 106. (3) [1913] P. 92.

445

H. L. (Sc.)
1933

———

BARRAS
Vv.
ABERDEEN
STEAM
TRAWLING

Lord Macmillan.

446

H. L. (Sc.)
1933

—s
BARRAS
v.
ABERDEEN
STEAM
TRAWLING

Lord Macmillan.

HOUSE OF LORDS [1933]

any way questioned, the decision in The Olympic (1) was
discussed and expounded in this House in the subsequent
case of Horlock v. Beal(2) without any indication of
disapproval but rather with every indication that the noble
and learned Lords who referred to it accepted its doctrine
as sound.

I am accordingly of opinion that, in deciding whether the
occurrence which befell the Strathclova on the occasion in
question brought the appellant's case within the operation
of s. 1, sub-s. 1, of the Act of 1925, which in terms is merely
an amending extension of s. 158 of the Act of 1894, the
interpretation adopted in The Olympic (1) should be applied
by your Lordships. I reach this conclusion without the
necessity of invoking the rule of construction enunciated by
James L.J. in Hx parte Campbell (3), wpon which some of
your Lordships have specially relied, though I am far from
desiring to depreciate the value of the aid afforded by that
rule in the interpretation of statutes. The principle of the
rule is that where the language of a statute has received
judicial interpretation, and Parliament again employs the
same language in a subsequent statute dealing with the same
subject matter, there is a presumption that Parliament
intended that the language so used by it in the subsequent
statute should be given the meaning which meantime has been
judicially attributed to it. Parliament, in short, is to be
presumed to have given statutory effect to the judicial inter-
pretation so as to render it as binding on the Courts as if it
had been expressly enacted in an interpretation section. If
this rule were to be treated as a canon of construction of
absolute obligation I can see that it might have very far-
reaching and possibly undesirable consequences. I hope I
am always ready and willing to obey the voice of Parliament
and I fully recognize that, as Lord Esher once said, '' The
Legislature has the power to make you read English in a
way in which you would not read it except by command " :
Stevens v. Bishop (4)—the phrase does not occur in the report

(1) [1913] P. 92. (3) L. R. 5 Ch. 703, 706.
(2) [1916] 1A. C. 486, (4) (1888) 2 Tax Cas. 249, 254.

A. C. AND PRIVY COUNCIL.

in the Law Reports. (1) But I must be satisfied that it is the
authentic voice and the authentic command of Parliament,
and I find it rather a strain to have to believe that the
reputed omniscience of Parliament extends to every decision
of the Courts. What if the interpretative decision has never
been reported? And what if Parliament has repeated
language which has been construed in contrary senses by
Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction in England and Scotland ?
In my view the rule of interpretation which I am discussing
affords only a valuable presumption as to the meaning of
the language employed in a statute. Where a judicial
interpretation is well settled and well recognized the rule
ought doubtless to receive effect, but it must, I think, be a
question of circumstances whether Parliament is to be
presumed to have tacitly given statutory authority, say, to
a single judgment of a competent Court so as to render that
judgment, however obviously wrong, unexaminable in this
House. After all, there is another rule of statutory inter-
pretation of not less, if not indeed of higher authority,
of which Parliament must be equally taken to be aware
—namely, Lord Wensleydale's "golden rule" (2) that
in construing statutes the grammatical and ordinary
sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless it leads to
some absurdity, repugnance or inconsistency. For myself,
I prefer the later form in which James L.J. himself restated
his rule in the case of Greaves v. Tofield (3) as follows: "If
an Act of Parliament uses the same language which was
used in a former Act of Parliament referring to the same
subject, and passed with the same purpose, and for the same
object, the safe and well-known rule of construction is to
assume that the Legislature when using well-known words
upon which there have been well-known decisions uses those
words in the sense which the decisions have attached to
them." To the rule as so stated I am prepared whole-
heartedly to subscribe.

(1) (1888) 20 Q. B. D. 442. British Ry. Co, (1881) 6 App. Cas.

(2) Grey v. Pearson (1857)6 H.L.C. 114, 131.
61, 106; Caledonian Ry. Co. v. North (3) (1880) 14 Ch. D. 563, 571.

447

H. L. (Se.)
1933
Bangas
v.
ABERDEEN
STEAM
TRAWLING
AND

FIsHING
Co.

Lord Macmillan.

448 HOUSE OF LORDS [1933]

H.L.(Sc.) It now only remains to consider whether the particular
1933 circumstances of the casualty to the Sérathclova entitle the
Barras appellant to say that his service was terminated by reason
Aperperen Of the wreck of his ship, within the meaning attributed to
that expression in The Olympic. (1) The appellant was on
and = July 4, 1930, engaged to serve on board the Strathclova,
Co. "which is to be employed Fishing Trawl North Sea, Shet-
Lord Macmillan. land, West Coast and Faroe until the last day of December,"'
im 1930. When so employed the vessel was regularly engaged
in plying her trade on the fishing grounds, returning to port
from time to time to discharge her catch and then putting
to sea again after a day or two occupied in unloading,
bunkering and other ordinary incidents. In consequence of
the casualty of September 25, 1930, the vessel had to be
laid off work for a fortnight and placed in dry-dock, where
repairs costing 265]. were effected, the crew, including the
appellant, having meantime been paid off. In my opinion
the fact that for this relatively short period of time the vessel
was off work in consequence of the casualty which had
befallen her, did not render her "incapable of carrying out
the maritime adventure in respect of which the seaman's
contract was entered into,' so as to entitle the appellant
to claim that the premature termination of his service was
by reason of the wreck of his ship within the statutory

meaning.
I am accordingly of opinion that the interlocutor appealed
from should be affirmed and the appeal dismissed with costs.

Interlocutor of the First Division of the Court
of Session in Scotland affirmed and appeal
dismissed.

Lords' Journals, March 17, 1933.