Prendergast

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding damages to appellee for personal injuries suffered by him as the result of his falling into an open hatch on the appellant’s steamship Silverado while she was lying at the port of Seattle. The vessel was operated solely as a carrier of cargo and was adapted to no other purpose. The appellee was a resident of Seattle, where he was engaged in the transfer business, and on the evening of January 1, 1925, at the invitation of a man by the name of Ericson, Hengst, the Silverado’s master, attended a party given at appellee’s home by some of his friends. Upon the close of the party, about 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, at the suggestion of Hengst, appellee, his wife, and a few others went with him to the Silverado with the intention of accompanying him as his guests on a trip to Everett that day. The vessel was then lying alongside the dock with her main deck about a foot above the floor of the dock, and the party went on board at a point abreast of hatch No. 3, which was open but was protected by a coaming about 30 inches high. Lying on the deck along and close to the shoreward coaming was a massive timber about 30 inches square, the upper…