Docket No. 2208.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on behalf of
Robert J. Ewart,
Claimant,
v.
GERMANY.
PARKER, Umpire, rendered the decision of the Commission.
This case is before the Umpire for decision on a certificate of the two National Commissioners[a] certifying their disagreement.
Robert James Ewart, then 36 years of age, was a passenger on the torpedoed Lusitania, and claims to have been damaged through personal injuries and loss of property. He was born in Ireland and on July 31, 1913, became, through naturalization, an American citizen. The claimant was en route to Ireland to visit his mother and other relatives. When the Lusitania went down he was thrown into the water, where he remained several hours, and suffered from bruises on the head and body and from exposure and exhaustion. He remained in Ireland about a year, during which time he claims to have been incapacitated from work. Prior thereto he had for a number of years been employed as manager of one of the chain of stores operated by the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company at a salary of $35.00 per week. Some time after his return to the United States he married and took up residence in Wisconsin. He now occupies himself in caring for his garden, chickens, and cows. He claims to suffer still from the nervous shock he received in the wreck of the Lusitania.
The claimant had with him on the Lusitania wearing apparel, jewelry, trunks, and a suitcase which were lost and on which he places a value of $1,000. He claims that he also had with him in cash the sum of $7,263 which was lost, in connection with which his affidavit recites “that the reason for having said sum of money in cash in his possession was that on or about the year 1907 he lost money which he had deposited in a bank in Brooklyn, in the state of New York, through failure of said bank, and that since said time he usually kept his money in his personal possession.” This is the only evidence offered in support of this item of the claim.
The record does not disclose how the claimant came into possession of the funds alleged to have been lost; any corroborative evidence of his having had this amount or any considerable amount of cash in his possession; his purpose in carrying so large a sum with him to Ireland; the name of the bank in Brooklyn through the failure of which he sustained a loss in 1907, and whether subject to State supervision, or the amount so lost. The claimant has wholly failed to answer inquiries propounded to him by the German Agent, through the American Agent, seeking to elicit information to supply these obvious omissions from the record. The Umpire holds that as to this item the claimant has failed to discharge the burden resting on him to prove his case.
Applying the rules announced in the Lusitania Opinion and in the other decisions of this Commission to the facts as disclosed by this record, the Commission decrees that under the Treaty of Berlin of August 25, 1921, and in accordance with its terms the Government of Germany is obligated to pay to the Government of the United States on behalf of Robert J. Ewart the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars ($3,500.00), with interest thereon at the rate of five per cent per annum from November 1, 1923, and the further sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) with interest thereon at the rate of five per cent per annum from May 7, 1915.
Done at Washington March 5, 1925.
EDWIN B. PARKER,
Umpire.
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[a] Dated December 17, 1924.
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