A roll-on roll-off liner tendered under a charter party did not conform to the description in the contract and the owners relied on a widely drawn exclusion clause.
Held: The owners’ argument failed. A literal interpretation would have defeated the central objective of the charter contract and would have been commercially absurd. As a result, the exemption was read, not literally, but very restrictively and the owners were held to be liable, notwithstanding the exemption clause, for financial damage resulting from their breach of warranty.
No more should be read into an exemption clause in an insurance policy than is necessary to make sense of it, particularly where to do more would relieve a party from any obligation at all. The repugnancy doctrine (even at its most extreme) only entitles a court to disregard an exception clause if the contract as a whole would otherwise be virtually reduced to a declaration of intent.
Lord Roskill said: ‘Such a literal construction would mean that the owners would be under no liability if they never delivered the vessel at all for service under the charter or delivered a vessel with a totally different description from that stipulated in the preamble. My Lords I cannot think that this can be right.’ and ‘In truth if clause 13 were to be construed so as to allow a breach of the warranties as to description in clause 26 to be committed or a failure to deliver the vessel at all to take place without financial redress to the charterers, the charter virtually ceases to be a contract for the letting of the vessel and the performance of services by the owners, their master, officers and crew in consideration of the payment of time charter hire and becomes no more than a statement of intent by the owners in return for which the charterers are obliged to pay large sums by way of hire, though if the owners fail to carry out their promises as to description or delivery, are entitled to nothing in lieu. I find it difficult to believe that this can accord with the true common intention of the parties and I do not think that this conclusion can accord with the true construction of the charter in which the parties in the present case are supposed to have expressed that true common intention in writing.’ and ‘I doubt whether the fourth sentence of clause 13 imposes greater liabilities than would in any event fall upon the charterers either under the charter or at common law.’
Judges:
Lord Roskill
Citations:
[1984] 1 WLR 48, [1984] 1 Ll R 123, [1984] 1 All ER 103
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Blackburn Rovers Football and Athletic Club Plc v Avon Insurance Plc, Eagle Star Insurance Company Ltd, AGF Insurance Ltd IC Insurance Ltd ComC 15-Nov-2004
The claimant football club insured its players through the defendants. A footballer injured himself in training and his career was finished. The insurers rejected the claim, and relied upon exception clauses, saying that the true cause was a . .
Cited – BOC Group Plc v Centeon Llc and Centeon Bio-Services Inc CA 29-Apr-1999
The court was asked whether a clause in a share sale agreement setting out the payment obligation worked to preclude the purchaser from exercising a right of set-off when the time comes to pay a later instalment of the price.
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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Transport, Contract
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.219699
