Fowden

On May 15, 1898, Mark Fowden, while a passenger on defendant corporation’s steamer, Santa Rosa, bound from Port Angeles, Los Angeles County, to the city and county of San Francisco, and while such steamer was docking at Santa Barbara, was severely injured by reason of the parting of a thirteen-inch hawser used in said docking, which had been attached to a pile on the wharf, and which parted under the strain to which it was subjected, one end thereof recoiling and striking Fowden upon his face and head. Fowden instituted this action for damages resulting from the injuries thus received, against both the steamship company and Ezekiel Alexander, the captain commanding said steamer at the time of the accident, alleging that the hawser was broken by reason of the excessive strain to which it was subjected through the negligence of defendants in operating the steamer, and also that said hawser was worn, weak, and defective, and wholly incapable of bearing the strain to which it was subjected in the.work for which it was used, and that this defective condition was known to defendants. The case was tried by a jury, and a verdict was rendered in favor of plaintiff against both defendants…