O'Bryant

Appellant brought this suit mainly for the purpose of recovering damages on aeeount of personal injuries sustained by him about 10 o’clock at night on October 4,1928, at which time he held the position of second assistant engineer on the steamship Pennsylvania, then 3 or 4 days out from Hong Kong on her return voyage to San Francisco, after carrying a cargo of lumber from Portland to the Orient. By one of his shipmates he was at that hour discovered lying on the main deck, about 20 or 30 minutes after he had been ordered to the engineers’ quarters on the main deek, from the men’s quarters aft on the lower deek, where he was, admittedly in defiance of express orders, and where, some of the witnesses testified, he was drinking and in an intoxicated condition. When so found, there were wounds and bruises upon his head and other parts of his body, and he was apparently in a semiconscious state. He testified that in obedience to the orders of the master he went to his room, and, after sitting there a short time, he recalled that he had some clothes he desired to wash. Whereupon he got the clothes with a bucket from the bathroom, and started down a nearby ladder to the lower deek. One…