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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  















Transport - From: 1960 To: 1969

This page lists 17 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.

 
Gardano and Giampieri v Greek Petroleum George Mamidakis and Co [1961] 2 Lloyds Rep 259
1961

McNair J
Contract, Transport, Commercial
The shipment was made under a c&f sale contract, a straight bill of lading, pursuant to a charterparty between the defendant and the claimant shipowner, Gardano. The bill named the Greek Ministry as consignee. The shipowner argued, relying on the 1855 Act that the shipper had lost its title to sue by the transfer of the bill of lading to the consignee. Held: That argument failed. The section did not operate where property had passed under the express terms of the sale contract not on or by reason of the consignment but ex the loading installation. In an ordinary contract of sale in the traditional c.i.f or c. & f. form, the seller discharges his obligations as regards delivery by tendering a bill of lading covering the goods. The contract is one which, though not a sale, is a sale of goods performed by delivery of documents, and the property passes when the documents are taken up.
Bills of Lading Act 1855 1
1 Citers


 
Riverstone Meat Co Pty Ltd v Lancashire Shipping Co ("The Muncaster Castle") [1961] AC 807
1961
HL
Lord Radcliffe, Viscount Simonds
Transport, Litigation Practice
Persons employed by a carrier in the work of keeping or making a vessel seaworthy are the carrier's agents whose diligence or lack of it is attributable to the carrier. A shipowner's or carrier's duty under Article III, Rule 1 would not start and he would not be responsible for work carried out until the transfer of ownership, or possession of the vessel, or until the vessel came into his "orbit", service or "control".
Considered decisions of foreign courts, in particular appellate decisions, should be treated as persuasive in order to strive for uniformity of interpretation of international conventions.
Lord Radcliffe said: "It is plain to me that this conclusion turns on the consideration that the causative carelessness took place at a time before the carrier's obligation under article III (1) had attached and in circumstances, therefore, when the builders and their men could not be described as agents for the carrier 'before and at the beginning of the voyage to . . make the ship seaworthy'. This is a tenable position for those who engage themselves upon the work of bringing the ship into existence. The carrier's responsibility for the work itself does not begin until the ship comes into his orbit, and it begins then as a responsibility to make sure by careful and skilled inspection that what he is taking into his service is in fit condition for the purpose and, if there is anything lacking that is fairly discoverable, to put it right. This is recognised in the judgment. But if the bad work that has been done is 'concealed' and so cannot be detected by any reasonable care, then the lack of diligence to which unseaworthiness is due is not to be attributed to the carrier."
The contemporary background of a treaty, including the legal position preceding its conclusion, can legitimately be taken into account as part of the context relevant to the interpretation of its terms.
Hague Visby Rules III 1
1 Citers



 
 Riverstone Meat Co Pty Ltd v Lancashire Shipping Co Ltd; HL 1961 - [1961] AC 807
 
Hong Kong Fir Shipping Co v Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd [1962] 2 QB 26; [1961] EWCA Civ 7; [1962] 1 All ER 474
20 Dec 1961
CA
Sellers, Upjohn, Diplock LJJ
Contract, Transport
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, and that the ship was fit to charter. Held: "authority over many decades and reason support the conclusion in this case that there was no breach of a condition which entitled the charterers to accept it as repudiation and to withdraw from the charter. It was not contended that the maintenance clause is so fundamental a matter as to amount to a condition of the contract. It is a warranty which sounds in damages." and "If what is done or not done in breach of the contractual obligation does not make the performance a totally different performance of the contract from that intended by the parties, it is not so fundamental as to undermine the whole contract." and . .
Diplock LJ set out the test for whether a breach is repudiatory: "Does the occurrence of the event deprive the party who has further undertakings to perform of substantially the whole benefit which it was the intention of the parties as expressed in the contract that he should obtain as the consideration for performing those undertakings?"
Upjohn LJ said: "the remedies open to the innocent party for breach of a stipulation which is not a condition strictly so called, depend entirely upon the nature of the breach and its foreseeable consequences. Breaches of stipulation fall, naturally, into two classes. First there is the case where the owner by his conduct indicates that he considers himself no longer bound to perform his part of the contract; in that case, of course, the charterer may accept the repudiation and treat the contract as at an end. The second class of case is, of course, the more usual one and that is where due to misfortune such as the perils of the sea, engine failures, incompetence of the crew and so on, the owner is unable to perform a particular stipulation precisely in accordance with the terms of the contract try he never so hard to remedy it. In that case the question to be answered is, does the breach of the stipulation go so much to the root of the contract that it makes further commercial performance of the contract impossible, or in other words is the whole contract frustrated? If yea, the innocent party may treat the contract as at an end. If nay, his claim sounds in damages only. This is a question of fact fit for the determination of a jury."
The test for whether there has been a repudiatory breach of a contract was set out. Diplock LJ said: "The test whether an event has this effect or not has been stated in a number of metaphors all of which I think amount to the same thing: does the occurrence of the event deprive the party who has further undertakings still to perform of substantially the whole benefit which it was the intention of the parties as expressed in the contract that he should obtain as the consideration for performing those undertakings?" Though a term (in this case a "seaworthiness" term) was not a "condition" in the technical sense, it might still be a term breach of which if sufficiently serious could go to the root of the contract.
1 Cites

1 Citers

[ Bailii ]

 
 The "Spontaneity"; 1962 - [1962] 1 Lloyd's Rep 460
 
Chandris v Argo Insurance Ltd [1963] 2 LLoyds Rep 64
1963

Megaw J
Transport, Insurance
Terms of an insurance policy for the very nature of the loss may require a particular method of computation or process of quantification of loss before payment is due. Ordinarily, the right to the indemnity accrues as soon as the loss has been suffered.
1 Citers


 
Bremme v Dubery [1964] 1 WLR 119
1964

Parker L
Transport, Crime
The defendant was charged with unlawfully travelling on a railway without paying the fare and with intent to avoid payment. He said that having left the train, he was no longer travelling. Held: A man who has been physically conveyed on a railway does not cease to travel on that railway merely by alighting on the platform.
Regulation of Railways Act 1889 3 - Transport Act 1962


 
 The Walumba (Owners) v Australian Coastal Shipping Commission; 1965 - [1965] 1 Lloyds Rep 121
 
Crows Transport Ltd v Phoenix Assurance Co Ltd [1965] 1 WLR 383
1965


Insurance, Transport
The insured goods were stolen from temporary storage whilst awaiting being loading. Held They were 'in transit' under the insurance policy, everything done thereafter was incidental to and part of that transit.
1 Citers


 
The Merak [1965] CLY 3608
1965


Transport

1 Citers


 
Samuel Montagu Ltd v Swiss Air Transport Co Ltd [1966] 2 QB 306; [1966] 1 All ER 814; [1966] 2 WLR 854
1966
CA
Lord Denning
Transport, Damages
The plaintiff contended that the "unless" clause in the air waybill did not comply with Article 8 (q) of Unamended Warsaw Convention, so that the Article 22 limitation on its right to receive the full value of four lost boxes of gold was inapplicable. Held: Lord Denning disposed of the contention: "I do not think we should give a strict interpretation to article 8(q) in the Convention. We should not give it so rigid an interpretation as to hamper the conduct of business. I do not interpret the article as meaning that the waybill must contain the statement verbatim. It is sufficient if it contains a statement to the like effect. Moreover, the carriage cannot be subject to all the rules relating to liability established by the Convention: for some relate to goods, others to passengers, others to luggage. It follows that (q) is satisfied if the statement says that the carriage is subject to the rules so far as the same are applicable to the carriage. If that is sufficient, it must also be sufficient to say that the carriage is subject to the rules except in so far as the same are not applicable to the carriage. The next step is plain. If that is sufficient, it must also be sufficient to say that the carriage is subject to the rules except so far as it is not international carriage. Hence it is sufficient to say "unless such carriage is not international carriage as defined by the Convention". It is just another way of saying that the carriage is subject to the rules so far as the same are applicable. Another way of looking at the statement is to read it in conjunction with the carriage stated on the face of the document, which was London to Zurich. Everyone concerned with the waybill knew that carriage from London to Zurich was international carriage. To those persons (and no one else matters) the words "unless such carriage is not international carriage as defined by the Convention" were mere surplusage. They added nothing. They were inapplicable to the circumstances of this carriage and could be ignored."
1 Citers


 
Corps v Owners of the Paddle Steamer "The Queen of the South" [1968] 1 All ER 1163; [1968] 2 WLR 973; [1968] P 449; [1968] 1 Lloyds Rep 182
1968


Transport
Among the peope who might intervene on a ship's arrest are the harbour authority itself claiming statutory rights of detention and sale.
1 Citers


 
Fletcher and Campbell v City Marine Finance Ltd [1968] 2 Lloyds Rep 520
1968


Transport
A power of sale under a ship mortgage can only be exercised when a sum is due.
1 Citers


 
Burnside v Emerson [1968] 1 WLR 1490
1968
CA
Diplock LJ, Lord Denning MR
Transport, Personal Injury
A car crashed as a result of running into a pool of storm-water lying across the road. The pool had been caused by the authority's failure properly to maintain the drainage system, which had become blocked. Held. The claim succeeded. Diplock LJ described the statutory obligation of a highway authority to maintain the highway as being "a duty not merely to keep a highway in such a state of repair as it is at any particular time, but to put it in such good repair as renders it reasonably passable for the ordinary traffic of the neighbourhood at all seasons of the year without danger caused by its physical condition." The duty to repair includes the drainage system, but not every flood is evidence of a failure to maintain.
Lord Denning MR said that the action for breach of the statutory duty involved the plaintiff showing both that the road was in a dangerous condition, such that injury may reasonably be anticipated to persons using the highway; and also that the dangerous condition was due to a failure to maintain; and that in this connection a distinction should be drawn between a permanent danger due to want of repair and a merely transient danger due to the elements: only the former was actionable.
Highways Act 1959 44(1)
1 Citers


 
Margarine Union GmbH v Cambay Prince Steamship Co Ltd [1969] 1 QB 219
1969

Roskill J
Transport, Contract, Negligence
The practice of issuing delivery orders for parcels out of a bulk cargo were ineffective and the intended buyers were left without remedy against the carrier.
Roskill J said: "In my judgment, there is nothing in Hedley Byrne to affect the common law principle that a duty of care which arises from a risk of direct injury to person or property is owed only to those whose person or property may foreseeably be injured by a failure to take care. If the plaintiff can show that the duty was owed to him, he can recover both direct and consequential loss which is reasonably foreseeable, and for myself I see no reason for saying that proof of direct loss is an essential part of his claim. He must, however, show that he was within the scope of the defendant's duty to take care."
1 Citers


 
A/B Helsingfors Steamship Co Ltd v Rederiaktiebolaget Rex (The White Rose) [1969] 2 Lloyds Rep 52; [1969] 1 WLR 1098
1969

Donaldson J
Contract, Transport
A Finnish vessel had been ordered to load in Duluth, Minnesota, where Mr de Chambeau, an employee of charterers' stevedores was injured while on board. He had left his proper place for purposes unconnected with his work, but owners were liable to him under Minnesota law on the ground that the part of the ship where he had gone lacked fencing. The owners were, it seems, in breach of Finnish law in this respect, but that was expressly disregarded as being irrelevant. Donaldson J nonetheless agreed with the umpire that owners' indemnity claim failed because "what connected the accident with, and gave rise to, a potential liability and an actual loss was the provisions of Minnesota law". There was lacking "the necessary causal connection between the order to load and the loss"
Donaldson J said of clause 13 in the Baltime charter: "The indemnity afforded by this clause is clearly wide enough to cover loss incurred by reasonable settlement."
1 Citers


 
Corocraft Ltd v Pan American Airways Inc [1969] 1 QB 616
1969

Donaldson J
Litigation Practice, Transport
In the event of inconsistency between the French and English versions of the Convention, the French text prevails.
Warsaw-Hague Convention
1 Citers


 
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