Salvage

Settlement Agreement.

The seaman is specially protected by law from those who would deprive him by agreement of his right to salvage award. He is the ward of the admiralty, and in order to protect him from those who would cause him to discount his rights in salvage, it has been provided by statute that every stipulation by which any seaman consents to abandon any right which he may have or obtain in the nature of salvage shall be wholly inoperative (U.S. Rev. Stat. 4,535; Comp. Stat. s. 8,324) However, it has been intimated in an obiter dictum that a settle ment made with the seaman after the performance of the salvage service would be valid where the shipowner has acted in good faith (Rivers v. Lockwood, 239 Fed. 38o).

Salvage awards are frequently agreed on by the parties with out the need of litigation, and the shipowner commonly conducts the negotiations. If a suit proves necessary to collect the award, the shipowner has the right to sue on behalf of the crew (Castner, Curran and Bullitt v. United States, 5 F. [2nd] 214). The ship owner, however, has not any authority to bind the crew by any arrangement which he may make with the salved interests. Indeed, if the settlement which the shipowner agrees to accept is not com mensurate with the services rendered, the crew may maintain direct action against the salved interests for their proper share of salvage award. The arrangements made by their shipowner are not a bar to their recovery (Bergher v. General Petroleum Co., 242 Fed. 967). The common practice in salvage settlements without litigation is that the salved interests, in paying the entire award to the owner of the salving ship, demand and receive an agreement of indemnity by which the owner of the salving vessel agrees to hold harmless the salved interests from any future claims which may be made by the crew in respect of the salvage services. Thus

the owner of the salving vessel takes upon himself the responsi bility for the salvage settlement and assumes the obligation of making good to his own crew any deficiency of salvage award which any court in the future may allow to the seamen in addition to their share of the award fixed by the settlement. It is generally considered that any payment which the seaman receives, whether in consideration of the surrender of his salvage rights, or in the distribution of a settlement fund received by his shipowner, is deemed a payment pro tanto on account of any salvage award to which the seaman may be entitled (The Edward Lee, Fed. Cas. No. 4,292; The Adirondack, 5 Fed. 254; Baker Salvage Co. v. The Taylor Dickson, 4o Fed. 261; Rivers v. Lockwood, 239 Fed. 38o).

See also SALVAGING. (E. S. M.) See C. Abbott, A Treatise of the Law relative to Merchant Ships and Seamen (14th ed., 19o1) ; Sir W. R. Kennedy, A Treatise on the Law of Civil Salvage (2nd ed., 1907) ; E. S. Roscoe, On the Admiralty Jurisdiction and Practice (4th ed., 192o) ; T. G. Carver, Treatise on the Law relating to Carriage of Goods by Sea (7th ed., 1925).