Bathan v. United States

PARKER, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing a libel in admiralty instituted to recover against the United States as insurer on a . crew life insurance policy. The appellant is Gladys Bathan, who claims to be the beneficiary named by one Simon Salde, a seaman on the S. S. Steel Navigator, who lost his life when that vessel was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic on October 19, 1942.

The facts are that Salde was a Filipino who with his cousin, one Bernabe Bathan, who also lost his life when the vessel was sunk, signed on the Steel Navigator before a Shipping Commissioner…