Montoya v. Tide Water Associated Oil Co.

46 U.S.C.A. § 565, enacted in 1872, provides that the articles “shall be signed * * * in the presence of a shipping commissioner” whose duty it is to see that the seaman is “made acquainted with the conditions thereof, and understood the same.”1 A statute along those lines had been proposed twelve years earlier in Dooley v. The Neptune’s Car, 1860, Fed.Cas.No.3,997, to prevent the not uncommon practice of signing up seamen.who were illiterate, or “unable to read the articles,” and to whom they were not explained. The statute was patently intended to do away with that evil. Obviously, the…