## Facts

- Rice and other seamen shipped aboard the brig *Polly & Kitty* under written shipping articles for a voyage under the command of Captain James Eggleston.
- The articles included a clause stating that a 48-hour absence from the vessel during the voyage, without leave, would be treated as “total desertion” resulting in forfeiture of wages.
- During the voyage, particularly while the vessel was in Lisbon, the captain and the mate, Shirtliff, repeatedly beat and abused members of the crew as “discipline.”
- The treatment was so severe that at least one sailor had to be taken ashore at Lisbon and treated by a surgeon for injuries inflicted by the captain and mate.
- The sailors first attempted to address Shirtliff’s conduct by complaining to the captain; instead of correcting the mate, the captain beat the sailors more severely.
- Shirtliff threatened the sailors that he would make them “glad to jump overboard” before returning to America.
- Fearing further violence and threats to their safety, the sailors left the vessel at Lisbon before the voyage was completed.
- Before departing Lisbon, the sailors sought out and met with the captain to obtain their earned wages and their clothes, but they did not receive relief.
- The sailors returned to Philadelphia aboard another vessel and filed a libel for wages, claiming only wages earned up to the time they left the *Polly & Kitty*, not wages for the remainder of the voyage.
- The master defended on the ground that the sailors’ departure triggered the desertion clause and required a total forfeiture of wages.

## Issues

1. Whether seamen who leave a vessel mid-voyage because of severe beatings and dangerous threats by the master and mate are “deserters” under a 48-hour desertion clause, resulting in forfeiture of earned wages.
2. What limits the law places on a master’s authority to impose corporal punishment on seamen as shipboard discipline.

## Decision

- The court decreed for the seamen and awarded wages earned up to the time they left the vessel at Lisbon.
- The court did not enforce the desertion clause to forfeit wages because the sailors’ departure was compelled by extreme ill usage and threats, not a voluntary abandonment of service.
- The court reaffirmed that a master may correct a disobedient mariner only with “moderate chastisement,” and that excessive violence and dangerous threats exceed lawful authority.

## Legal Principles

- When seamen sign shipping articles, they do not place their “limbs and lives” at the uncontrolled will of the master or mate; they remain under the protection of the law.
- The master is entrusted with broad discretionary authority to command the crew in matters of duty and the purposes of the voyage, but that authority is not an absolute command over the seamen’s persons.
- A master may punish a refractory or disobedient seaman only to the extent of “moderate chastisement”; the law treats the exercise of discretionary power with suspicion when it becomes cruelty.
- A contractual desertion-and-forfeiture clause does not apply where a seaman’s absence is the product of the master’s unlawful violence or threats that make continued service unsafe.
- Shipping articles are not read as the master’s only obligations; law and reason imply additional duties (including proper treatment), and serious breach by the master can excuse further performance by the seamen.
- By analogy to master–servant and apprenticeship doctrine, undue severity and cruelty by the superior can justify the subordinate’s departure without forfeiting earned compensation.

## Conclusion

Because the captain and mate of the *Polly & Kitty* subjected the crew to extreme beatings and threats—serious enough to require medical treatment ashore—the court held the sailors were justified in leaving at Lisbon and were not deserters under the 48-hour forfeiture clause; they recovered the wages they had earned up to their departure, and the court reiterated that any shipboard corporal punishment must remain within the bounds of moderate chastisement.


Rice et al. v. The Polly & Kitty, 20 Fed. Cas. 666 (1789)