The ship’s captain refused to load at the place stipulated for the month of September 1871, but was willing to load at a port he was permitted to select prior to that month.
Held: The breach of the charter-party by the shipowner went to the root of the contract and the charterer was right in his refusal to load. Baron Martin said: ‘Contracts are so various in their terms that it is really impossible to argue from the letter of one to the letter of another. All we can do is to apply the spirit of the law to the facts of each particular case. Now I think the words ‘conditions precedent’ unfortunate. The real question, apart from all technical expressions, is what in each instance is the substance of the contract’.
Judges:
Baron Martin
Citations:
(1872) 7 Exch 259
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Hong Kong Fir Shipping Co v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd CA 20-Dec-1961
The plaintiffs had recently acquired the ship the ‘Hong Kong Fir’ and contracted to charter it to the defendants, but being late in delivering it, the defendants cancelled the charterparty contract. The plaintiffs said the repudiation was wrongful, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.266187
