ENTITLED TO DISCHARGE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10287, 23 May 1919, Page 5

ENTITLED TO DISCHARGE

uA3: OF LAUREL WHALEN

INTERESTING SUPREME COURT DECISION'. Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 22. delivered by Air Justice. Cooper, at the Supreme Court, in a cr.sc in which certain officers and men of the ship Laurel Whalen proio:<lbd against the vessel for the pur- . ,>te o; determining whether they wore *..:tlv!ed to their discharges. The i: inliils were Matthew Hall Smite, 1...C1 engineer, representing the case os tiie officers and those members ot .as crew who shipped at Vancouver, and John Shotskoo, representing the c..sc of several of the crew who shipped at Honolulu. Tho Laurel "ii fiaun has been lying in Auckland harbour Since January 2nd last, while repairs were being made to the. enE lii the course of his Judgment in tho cs.se brought by Smith, His Honour said that, in his opinion, the master was, justified in the course he took in making for New Zealand and Auckland. 'His ship had lost her auxiliary power, and it was necessary to restore it. Counsel fox plaintiffs had very fairly stated that they did not sug- ■ gest any impropriety in the course adopted by the master, and they did not contend that ho was not justified in coming to Auckland. Repairs which had taken a long time were being carried out under the supervision ot Lloyd’s surveyor, and repairs require ed by him will not be completed for at least three weeks from now. The master had declined t<* 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 uneeaiworthy 'Until repairs had been carried out. The master could have justifiably discharged the crew as soon as he found that a long delay was likely. The time-limit for which the men agreed to serve had now expired, and » was impossible to say when the ■hip would leave Auckland Vancouver. If the master had a right to discharge the men, hut ; ..declined to exercise the right, the'mom had surely a correlative right, to Haim, if they desired to do so, their discharge. His Honour held that the plaintiffs were entitled to a decree to this effect, and to the payment of wages up to the time that their time of agreed service had expired on April 3rd." In the case .brought by, Shotskoo, who, is of Russian nationality,...His Honour the result of an inquiry that is being made by the authorities as to whether the Russians can- be discharged at this port.