Application to persons employed on ships

(1) This Act shall apply to masters, seamen and apprentices to the sea service, if such persons are workmen within the meaning of this Act, and are members of the crew of any ship registered in Belize, or of any other British ship or vessel of which the owner, or (if there is more than one owner) the managing owner, or manager resides or has his principal place of business in Belize subject to the following modifications, (a) the notice of accident and the claim for compensation may, except where the person injured is the master, be given to the master of the ship as if he were the employer, but where the accident happened and the incapacity commenced on board the ship it shall not be necessary to give any notice of the accident; (b) in the case of death of the master, seaman or apprentice, the application for compensation shall be made within three months after news of the death has been received by the claimant; (c) where the injured master, seaman or apprentice is discharged or left behind in a British possession or in a foreign country, depositions respecting the circumstances and nature of the injury may be taken by any judge or magistrate in the British possession, and by any British consular officer in the foreign country, and if so taken shall be transmitted by the person by whom they were taken to the Minister, and such depositions or certified copies thereof shall in any proceedings for enforcing the claim be admissible in evidence as provided in sections 691 and 695 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, c. 60 and those sections shall apply accordingly; (d) in the case of the death of a master, seaman or apprentice leaving no dependants, no compensation shall be payable, if the owner of the ship is under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, c. 60 liable to pay expenses of burial; (e) the half-monthly payment shall not be payable in respect of the period during which the owner of the ship is, under any Act in force for the time being in Belize relating to merchant shipping liable to defray the expenses of maintenance of the injured master, seaman or apprentice; (f) any sum payable by way of compensation by the owner of the ship under this Act shall be paid in full notwithstanding anything in section 503 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, c. 60 (which relates to the limitation of ship-owner’s liability in certain cases of loss of life, injury or damage), but the limitation of the owner’s liability imposed by that section shall apply to the amount recoverable by way of indemnity under section 34 (relating to remedies both against employer and stranger) as if the indemnity were damages for loss of life or personal injury; 48 (g) section 174(2) and (3) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, c. 60 (which relates to the recovery of wages of seamen lost with their ship) shall apply as respects proceedings for the recovery of compensation by dependants of masters, seamen and apprentices and proceedings for the recovery of compensation shall in such a case be maintainable if the application is made within six months of the date at which the ship is deemed to have been lost with all hands. (2) This Act shall also apply to any person not being a master, seaman or apprentice to the sea service, employed on board any such ship as is mentioned in this section, if he is so employed for the purposes of the ship or of any passengers or cargo or mails carried by the ship and if he is otherwise a workman within the meaning of this Act. compensation if no amount agreed in four weeks.