Norden

The plaintiff in error, the plaintiff below, was one of a gang of stevedores employed by the defendant in loading one of its vessels. The vessel was moored to a dock. At about 6 o’clock p. m. the mate gave an order to “haul ship,” which meant to move her forward parallel with the dock. This was done by a windlass aft hauling on the head line, which was attached to a cleat on the dock. In moving the vessel forward the plaintiff was struck by the head line and thrown against the dock, and fell on a fender log, whereby he was injured. He testified that the mate told him to “move that head line”; that in attempting to remove the line from the cleat he found there was not enough slaek, and he called for slaek, but that, instead of giving slaek, the man in charge of the windlass turned on the steam, causing the line to snap tight and throw him up in the air and down into the river.

The action was brought under the Employers’ Liability Act of the State of Oregon (Or. L. § 6785 et seq., as amended by Laws 1921, p. 38), and negligence was charged, in that (1) the method adopted by the mate in hauling the ship was negligent; (2) the windlass man was negligent, in that he drew the head line…