{ "id": 3156040, "name": "Nessen Transportation Company, Appellant, v. J. L. Larsen. Gartland Steamship Company et al., Appellees", "name_abbreviation": "Nessen Transportation Co. v. Larsen", "decision_date": "1937-04-19", "docket_number": "Gen. No. 39,239", "first_page": "22", "last_page": "27", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "290 Ill. App. 22" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "293 U. S. 155", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 3931046 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/293/0155-01" ] }, { "cite": "282 U. S. 234", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6931975 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/282/0234-01" ] }, { "cite": "272 U. S. 50", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1501289 ], "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "52" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/272/0050-01" ] }, { "cite": "10 F. (2d) 408", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 1653481 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/10/0408-01" ] }, { "cite": "29 F. (2d) 855", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 1740067 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/29/0855-01" ] }, { "cite": "250 Fed. 647", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.", "case_ids": [ 6741054 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f/250/0647-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 504, "char_count": 8715, "ocr_confidence": 0.511, "pagerank": { "raw": 4.03580807328026e-08, "percentile": 0.08914361416437792 }, "sha256": "6a3b9c3e81e719804060e78204a701766615d9974e1d5bc90e0da3f8e24fc3b0", "simhash": "1:cbcf08dcf093e4d0", "word_count": 1510 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:33:47.144249+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Nessen Transportation Company, Appellant, v. J. L. Larsen. Gartland Steamship Company et al., Appellees." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. Justice O\u2019Connor\ndelivered the opinion of the court.\nThe Nessen Transportation Co., a corporation, brought an action of attachment against J. L. Larsen to recover $4,732.11 claimed as damages sustained by plaintiff on account of Larsen\u2019s breach of contract. Larsen was not served and did not appear. The Gartland Steamship Co. and Arthur Sullivan and Harry J. Sullivan, copartners, doing business as D. Sullivan & Co., were served as garnishees. The Steamship Company answered that it owed Larsen $400 for wages bnt claimed a set-off for this amount. Sullivan & Co. answered that they had no funds or property belonging to Larsen. The case was tried before the court without a jury, the facts being\u2019 stipulated. At the conclusion of the hearing the court, on its own motion, dismissed the cause for want of jurisdiction and plaintiff appeals.\nPlaintiff contends that the municipal court erred in dismissing its suit on the ground of want of jurisdiction, and counsel for the Steamship Company seem to concede that the municipal court had jurisdiction. We think it obvious that the court erred in holding it had no jurisdiction.\nThe facts as stipulated, so far as necessary to state them for the purpose of this opinion, are that the Steamship Company operated a motorship in the Great Lakes and employed Larsen as master, and that at the time of the service of the garnishee summons on the Steamship Company it owed Larsen $400 for September wages earned by him as master of the ship. The wages of Larsen and of the crew of the ship were payable at the end of each month, and on October 1, 1935, the Steamship Company wrote to Larsen, who was then in charge of the ship at Duluth, Minnesota, inclosing check for $850, with directions that he pay the crew this money for their September salaries, and advising him that they were holding his check for $400, his September wages, pending the outcome of the garnishment suit. Larsen cashed the check, took out $400 for himself and paid the crew $450, leaving a balance due the crew on that date of $400. Upon arrival of the boat at Chicago on October 8, the Steamship Company paid the $400 to the crew, being\u2019 the balance of their September wages. The Steamship Company had no knowledge until October 8 that Larsen had taken the $400 and applied it on his Wag\u2019es, and his action in this regard was unwarranted.\nThe chief controversy between counsel is whether the wages of Larsen, who was master of the boat, were exempt from garnishment under the provisions of sections 601 and 713, Title 46 U. S. C. A. (chap. 18).\nPlaintiff takes the position that the wag\u2019es were not exempt. Section 601 provides: \u201cNo wages due or accruing to any seaman or apprentice shall be subject, to attachment or arrestment from any court, and every payment of wages to a seaman or apprentice shall be valid in law, notwithstanding any previous sale or assignment of wages or of any attachment, encumbrance, or arrestment thereon; and no assignment or sale of wag\u2019es or of salvage made prior to the accruing thereof shall bind the party making the same, except such allotments as are authorized by this chapter. This section shall apply to fishermen employed on fishing vessels as well as to seamen.\u201d\nSection 713, which is entitled \u201cDefinitions, schedule, and tables,\u201d provides: \u201cIn the construction of this chapter, every person having the command of any vessel belonging to any citizen of the United States shall be deemed to be the \u2018master\u2019 thereof.; and every person (apprentices excepted) who shall be employed or engaged to serve in any capacity on board the same shall be deemed and taken to be a \u2018 seaman. \u2019 \u2019 \u2019\nPlaintiff\u2019s position is that under the provisions of the above sections the \u201cwages\u201d of the \u201cseamen\u201d of a vessel are exempt from garnishment but not the wages of the \u201cmaster.\u201d We think the contention cannot be sustained. Section 601 exempts the wages of any \u201cseaman\u201d from garnishment, and section 713 provides that every person having command of any vessel shall be deemed to be the master and that every person \u201cemployed or engaged to serve in any capacity on board the same shall be deemed and taken to be a \u2018seaman.\u2019 \u201d The \u201cmaster\u201d certainly is employed and engaged to serve on board the vessel and therefore comes within the definition of a \u201cseaman.\u201d\nIn In re Scott, 250 Fed. 647, in construing a statute which provided that a \u2018 \u2018 seaman, \u2019 \u2019 a foreigner who had declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the United States, may be naturalized, it was held that the term \u201cseaman\u201d included the master of a vessel.\nIn The Burns Bros. No. 31, 29 F. (2d) 855, the court was called upon to construe the word \u201cseaman\u201d in a United States statute, and it was held that it included the master of a tug.\nIn The Balsa, Cummins v. Wry, 10 F. (2d) 408, again the word \u201cseaman\u201d was held to extend to the master of a vessel.\nIn International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50, plaintiff, a stevedore, was engaged in storing freight in the hold of a vessel, and he was held to be a \u201cseaman\u201d within the provisions of the U. S. statute which provided that \u201cany seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may . . . maintain an action for damagus at law, . . .\n\u201cIt is true that for most purposes, as the word is commonly used, stevedores are not \u2018 seamen. \u2019 But the words are flexible. . . . We cannot believe that Congress willingly would have allowed the protection to men engaged upon the same maritime duties to vary with the accident of their being employed by a stevedore rather than by the ship.\u201d\nAnd again the Supreme Court of the United States held that the term \u201cseaman\u201d includes a stevedore working in the loading of a foreign vessel. Uravic v. Jarka Co., 282 U. S. 234.\nIn Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S. 155, the court held that the \u201cmaster\u201d of a tug boat was a \u201cseaman\u201d within the meaning of the statute. The court there said: \u201c \u2018It is true that for most purposes as the Word is commonly used, stevedores are not \u201cseaman.\u201d \u2019 Int. Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50, 52. None the less, verbal niceties were bent to the overmastering purpose of the act, to give protection to the workers injured upon ships. \u2018Words,\u2019 we said, \u2018are flexible\u2019 . . . In a narrow sense the term is limited to one who is an ordinary seaman and nothing more. A seaman, as opposed to the master or an officer. One can find a like range of variation in the use of the word \u2018crew.\u2019 \u2018It is sometimes used to comprehend all persons composing the ship\u2019s company, including the master; sometimes to comprehend the officers and common seamen, excluding the master; and sometimes to comprehend the common seaman only, excluding the master and officers.\u2019 . . . What concerns us here and now is not the scope of the class of seamen at other times and in other contexts. Our concern is to define the meaning for the purpose of a particular statute which must be read in the light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained. Congress knew that men employed upon a ship were without a remedy in damages for negligence beyond their care and maintenance, unless the injury was a consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship or a defect in her equipment. \u2019 \u2019\nFrom the foregoing authorities and others which we have not referred to, it is apparent that the word \u201cseaman\u201d has been given different meanings, as that term has been used in different statutes. Obviously the term \u201cseaman\u201d may not have the same meaning in all statutes. The general tendency of the acts of Congress and the decisions of the courts has been \u201cdirected to extension, not to restriction,\u201d of the term \u201cseaman\u201d and the master of a vessel has not been specifically excluded in the definitions found in section 713. We therefore hold the master to be a seaman within the meaning of that section, and his wages, under section 601, are not subject to garnishment.\nWhile it is unnecessary to pass on the question of the Steamship Company\u2019s set-off because that matter has not been argued, yet we might observe, since the facts are stipulated, that we are unable to see why the set-off should not be allowed, in which case, obviously, plaintiff could not recover.\nThe judgment of the municipal court of Chicago is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.\nHatchett, P. J., and HcSurely, J., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. Justice O\u2019Connor" } ], "attorneys": [ "Kremer, Branand & Hayes, of Chicago, for appellant ; Harvey Wienke, of Chicago, of counsel.", "Pope & Ballard, of Chicago, for appellees; Beverly B. Vedder, Ferris E. Hurd and John F. Manierre, all of Chicago, of counsel." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Nessen Transportation Company, Appellant, v. J. L. Larsen. Gartland Steamship Company et al., Appellees.\nGen. No. 39,239.\nOpinion filed April 19, 1937.\nRehearing denied May 3, 1937.\nKremer, Branand & Hayes, of Chicago, for appellant ; Harvey Wienke, of Chicago, of counsel.\nPope & Ballard, of Chicago, for appellees; Beverly B. Vedder, Ferris E. Hurd and John F. Manierre, all of Chicago, of counsel." }, "file_name": "0022-01", "first_page_order": 52, "last_page_order": 57 }