Delpy

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing, without leave to amend, a tug-master’s amended libel in personam against the tug’s owner. The libel alleges that he was the master of a tugboat of the Tugboat Company on the Bay of San Francisco, during the several years of his employment thereon and up to his discharge by the Company. It further alleges that the master was injured in the use of a ladder supplied the ship by the owner, which had a missing lower rung which it was claimed made the ship unseaworthy in that regard. The injury alleged arose from a fall due to the absence of the rung, causing a bruise in the master’s left leg which made it open to infection which, in turn, caused a permanent stiffening of the leg and continued pain.

The master also alleges that the deck crew of the tug consisted of himself and a watchman, and that in the course of his employment in towing a lighter astern, attached to the tug by a cable, the watchman was required to leave the tug and serve on the lighter; that an additional member of deck crew should have been on his tug, and that had the watchman or some other sailor been present it would have been his duty to assist the master in descending…