The Ship That Could Be Scraped With Fingernails
A Port Townsend jury acquitted a sailor who refused duty on the bark Caroline Reed after the vessel was shown to be dangerously rotten.
United States vs. Dryden—Indictment for refusing duty on board the bark Caroline Reed. Jury trial. The defendant showed in justification that the vessel was rotten in her hull, so that her timbers could be scraped out with the finger-nails, and her rigging was so rotten that going aloft was dangerous. Verdict of acquittal.
“Her timbers could be scraped out with the finger-nails, and her rigging was so rotten that going aloft was dangerous.”
Seamen could be prosecuted for refusing an order, but a Port Townsend jury recognized that a rotten hull and rigging made obedience a death sentence. The case reads like an early workplace-safety verdict: the worker, not the owner, had to prove the job was too dangerous to do. The question of who bears the risk when a job is unsafe is still with us.
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