The Rolph

• Decision Date: 28 June 1923
• Docket Number: 17319.
• Citation: 293 F. 269
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: THE ROLPH. v. ROLPH NAVIGATION & COAL CO. KOHILAS

293 F. 269

THE ROLPH.

KOHILAS v. ROLPH NAVIGATION & COAL CO.

No. 17319.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

June 28, 1923

H. W Hutton, of San Francisco, Cal., for libelant.

Sullivan & Sullivan and Theo. J. Roche, of San Francisco, Cal., for respondent.

PARTRIDGE District Judge.

The case of Kohilas v. Barkentine Rolph is before the court upon final submission. The libel is for personal injuries sustained by Kohilas, a sailor, alleged to have been received at the hands of the first mate of the respondent. There were filed intervening libels by one Kapstein, who claims that his hearing was destroyed by the assaults of the first mate, and also by two other sailors named Arnesen and Seppinnen, who claimed assaults, but did not claim any personal injury.

The libels and the evidence in the case have developed a most amazing and dramatic situation. The mate, now admittedly a convict for the brutal treatment of seamen, is described as a giant, weighing in the neighborhood of 285 pounds, all bone and muscle, and with a reputation for ferocity as wide as the seven seas. His treatment of the sailors on various ships on which he was mate was known and discussed wherever seafaring men resort, at least in the Pacific Ocean.

The Rolph commenced her voyage from the port of Vancouver. Hansen, the first mate, signed his shipping articles about three weeks before the vessel sailed, and was on her practically all the time she lay in the harbor of Vancouver. While the ship was in the Harbor, Hansen was arrested for a drunken assault upon a number of stevedores, and it appeared by the evidence that his strength was so great that he overcame and put to flight the whole crew of stevedores that was engaged in loading the vessel. The first leg of the voyage was from Vancouver to Melbourne and the evidence shows that during that trip Hansen assaulted a number of sailors, and beat them to such an extent that upon the arrival of the vessel at Melbourne the crew went to the American consul and secured their release, on the ground of the cruelty of the first mate. I say 'the crew,' at least the majority of the crew. At Melbourne the master shipped a new crew. That crew was with the vessel until her arrival at Newcastle, and there the crew again left the ship although this time it does not appear that it was through the cruelty of the mate. A strike was on, and the master shipped almost an entirely new crew at Newcastle, including the libelant and the intervening libelants. The Rolph scarcely cleared the port of Newcastle when the mate commenced his cruel treatment of the seamen. The evidence shows, at least so far as Kohilas and Kapstein were concerned, that the mate was continually beating them with his fist; he struck them on numerous occasions with belaying pins, pieces of scantling, and, on one occasion, he struck Kohilas across the mouth with a bucket and split his lip open. All of these assaults, however, were merely incidental to his main activities, which seem to have been beating the sailors across the head and shoulders with a piece of rope on the end of which was a knot.

As to Kohilas, it appears that finally the mate one evening struck him across the eyes with a knot in a rope, and when he fell to the deck, he continued to rain blows upon his upturned face, and particularly upon his eyes. Kohilas, after the assault, being practically blinded, for the time being at least, went to the master and requested that he be furnished with some kind of medical attention. The evidence shows that in place of receiving treatment, he was driven away with curses and words of vituperation; he was compelled to go ahead with his work, although he was practically nearly blind, and when he was unable to do his work the first mate tied him up by the arm to the wheel of the bilge pump, and if he had not been held up by the other sailors, his arm would certainly have been broken, or probably torn out of the socket.

Upon arrival at Antofagasta, Chile, the sailors all...