The plaintiffs owners of a drydock thought to limit their liability under the Merchant Seamen’s (Liability of Ship Owners and others) Act 1900 section 2 in respect of damage caused by a fire which broke out on the defendant’s vessel going to the negligence of the plaintiffs servants while the vessel was being repaired by them in the dry dock.
Held: While some limitations must be put upon the general language of the sections which are applied in its strict literal sense would lead to an absurdity limitation to be put was not in respect of the nature of the act done but in respect of area that is the damage must be in some way connected with the ownership of the dock.
Atkin LJ assimilated the law applied to carriers in these cases to the principles applicable generally to bailees, which he summarised as follows: ‘If this were a pure bailment, a delivery of a chattel to a bailee entrusted with the chattel to execute repairs on it and then redeliver it to the owner, I apprehend that the bailee would be under the obligation to exercise reasonable care and skill in preserving the safety of the chattel. If he failed to deliver the chattel at all the onus would be upon him to show that the non-delivery was not due to absence of care and skill on his part . . Moreover, if he redelivered the chattel in a damaged condition . . the onus is on the bailee to show that the damage was not due to the absence of reasonable care and skill on his part . . This he may do by showing that he took all reasonable precautions, but if he has to admit or is convicted of some act of negligence then the rule necessarily requires him to show that the loss was not caused by that act of negligence.’
Atkin LJ
[1927] P 47, 96 LJP 18, 136 LT 146, 42 LTR 708, 17 Asp MLC 138, 24 Lloyd LR 476
Merchant Seamen’s (Liability of Ship Owners and others) Act 1900 2
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Volcafe Ltd and Others v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores Sa SC 5-Dec-2018
The claimant appellants, arranged shipment of bagged Colombian green coffee beans, stowed in 20 unventilated 20-foot containers from Panama to Rotterdam, Hamburg or Bremerhaven for on carriage to Bremen. The bill of lading for each consignment . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Transport
Updated: 06 December 2021; Ref: scu.670133