Pihlag v. The Elsie Fay

The libelant was a seaman on the schooner Elsie Fay. He testified that on the morning of the 27th of January, 1890, before light, as he was placing the pump handle in the small boat -which was lashed on deck athwartships a little aft of the mainmast, the lashing of the boat broke, because of its unfitness and rottenness; and that the libel-ant, in catching hold of the main boom to save himself from being hurt by the boat, had his knee thrown by the boat up and against the boom, so as to injure permanently the knee-pan, and disable him from further duties as a seaman. The testimony is full of…