Simmons

This is an appeal from a decree in admiralty of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California dismissing an action brought by appellants, seventeen seamen shipped on the United States owned naval tanker Tomahawk, to recover one month’s wages for the appellants’ alleged discharge before they earned a month’s wages. The statute relied upon is 46 U.S.C.A. § 594 , providing:

The facts, so far as pertinent, are that on March'2, 1951, appellants signed shipping articles which had typed therein the following respecting the voyage of the Tomahawk as

The Tomahawk delivered oil to Pearl Harbor and. then returned to Los Angeles on March 19, 1951. The seventeen appellants thereupon asked to be released and were released, receiving wages only for the seventeen days of service. On these facts the court below dismissed the action for a month’s penalty wages of 46 U.S.C.A. § 594 .

The contention of the seamen is that the above shipping articles were for a foreign voyage and that the appellee violated them by returning to the Port of Los Angeles from Pearl Harbor. The appellee contends that the articles are not for a foreign voyage, but were made under a war-time…