The ship had been chartered, but the crew refused to sail without an escort, in war conditions. The charterer sought to be excused liability under a clause making allowance for ‘insufficiency of crew’.
Held: The presumption against surplusage is of little value in the interpretation of commercial contracts. Devlin J said: ‘A charter-party is built up of clauses generally agreed in the trade; and when they are added to or varied from time to time, as not infrequently they are, I doubt that the commercial draftsmen pay much attention to overlapping or that they are afraid of repetition. Secondly, the argument based on superfluity, which, as has often been said, is of little value in the construction of commercial documents, is hardly applicable at all to Clause 13. Whatever construction is put upon Clause 9, the second part of Clause 13 is, from a lawyer’s point of view, superfluous. All that it is saying legally is that the charterer is responsible for breach of the charter-party or for negligence’ and ‘if [the owner] is to surrender his freedom of choice and put his master under the orders of the charterer, there is nothing unreasonable in his stipulating for a complete indemnity in return.’
The existence of an exceptions clause is itself likely to affect what falls to be regarded as dominant, proximate or relevant; and that this is because ‘the whole of what one might call the area naturally appurtenant to the excepted event must be granted to it’.
Devlin J
[1949] 83 Ll Rep 228
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Royal Greek Government v Minister of Transport CA 2-Jan-1949
The charterers had ordered the vessel to sail but her crew refused to do so, except in convoy, because of the war. A dispute arose as to whether, the charterers’ order to sail having been disobeyed, the vessel was off-hire.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Total Transport Corporation v Arcadia Petroleum Ltd (‘the Eurus’) CA 18-Nov-1997
Arcadia chartered the Eurus, and had succeeded in their application for an award in arbitration proceedings against Total. The award had been reversed, and they now appealed against that order. The parties disputed whether the amount was an award of . .
Cited – Petroleo Brasileiro Sa v Ene Kos 1 Ltd (‘The MT Kos’) SC 2-May-2012
The MT Kos had been chartered by the appellants. The respondents failed to make payments, and notice was given to withdraw the vessel. The contract said that such a notice was without prejudice to any claim. At the time, the vessel was laden. The . .
Cited – Navigators Insurance Company Ltd and Others v Atlasnavios-Navegacao Lda SC 22-May-2018
The vessel had been taken by the authorities in Venezuela after drugs were found to have been attached to its hull by third parties. Six months later it was declared a constructive total loss. The ship owners now sought recovery of its value from . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 25 July 2021; Ref: scu.462284
