The contract for the sale of ice was for cash on delivery at the rate of 20s a ton as weighed on arrival and delivery in the United Kingdom, but it was agreed that the buyer should ‘take upon himself all risks and dangers of the seas’. The vessel was lost.
Held: The true construction of the contract was from the buyer’s viewpoint, as set out by Cockburn CJ’s: ‘I will engage, when it arrives, to pay you according to what may be its value; and if, in the meantime, while it is upon the seas, it shall perish through the perils of the seas, I will undertake to pay you for it according to what may be estimated to have been its fair value at the time of going down.’
Lord Blackburn said: ‘Now here the ship and the cargo have gone to the bottom of the sea, but in the case of Alexander v. Gardner and Fragano v. Long ( 4 B. and C. 219) it was held that if the property did perish before the time for payment came, the time being dependent upon delivery, and if the delivery was prevented by the destruction of the property, the purchaser was to pay an equivalent sum.’
Cockburn CJ, Willes, Blackburn, Mellor, Brett and Grove JJ
(1872) LR 7 Ex 98
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Martineau v Kitching QBD 3-May-1872
Sugar was agreed to be sold, with the price payable ‘Prompt at one month; goods at seller’s risk for two months’, to be kept at the seller’s premises and drawn down by the buyers as wanted. After two months and after only some of the sugar had been . .
Cited – PST Energy 7 Shipping Llc and Another v OW Bunker Malta Ltd and Another SC 11-May-2016
Parties had entered into a bunker supply contract which contained a retention of title clause in favour of the supplier. It purported to allow the buyer to use the goods before title came to be passed.
Held: The owner’s appeal failed. It did . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 15 October 2021; Ref: scu.618137
