THE P. AND 0. AND ITS PASSENGERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 155, 2 July 1901, Page 5

THE P. AND 0. AND ITS PASSENGERS.

A QUESTION OF IMPORTANCE,

j A case of considerable importance |to oversea travellers was decided in | the City of London Court the other ! day, when Mr Townend sued the P. I and 0. Company for £ 11 5/, the value of his wife's dressing bag. The facts las set forth by Mr Townend were I that he and his wife were passengers from Marseilles to Port Said in i December last, and owing to bad vveaj ther and some of the portholes being left open, his wife's dressing bag bej came soaked by sea. water. The purser told the steward to dry it in the kitchen, but when the bag- was brought back the bottom had been jso much burned that the article wa3 useless. It would cost £11 5/ to replace the bag, which was a gift. Mr Rowlatt, defendants' counsel, said that the plaintiff's ticket contained conditions which clearly exempted the defendants from any liability whatever for any negligence of their servants. The deputy judge (Mr Pitt Lewis, K.C.) said those exemptions referred to the contract, of carriage. The undertaking by the .steward was a separate contract, and the defendants were liable for the damage done. Mr Eowlatt said that the point was of great importance to the defendants. They had fought a good many hundred cases, but their exemptions had always been upheld. It would be a serious thing if the Courts were to lightly disregard the contract by which the plaintiff was bound, and to hold the company liable for every act of their servants. The steward had no authority from the company to dry the bag. The deputy judge said he should find for the plaintiff for £5, and he would refuse leave to appeal. Mr Rowlatt said they would willingly pay costs on the higher scale,-if leave to appeal were given, so important and farreaching was the matter, but the judge refused.

Of course, Mr Pitt Lewis's decision is not a final pronouncement on cases of this kind, and in some respects it is a pity the case was not carried to a higher court, so that travellers might get to know their exact legal rights in the matter of damaged baggage. The matter indeed is of so much public importance that it appears to me that edmmonsense dictates that some pronouncement oji the points at issue should be made by the highest legal tribunal in the land. It is manifestly impossible for any ordinary individual to obtain a definite decision as to the liability of steamship companies in regard to passengers' baggage. Only millionaire companies or individuals can afford the luxury of appeals to decide cases which turn upon the question as to who shall pay for five or ten pounds worth of damage. This being so, it appears to me that the great legal want of the day is some method of procedure whereby little, cases involving great public interests ca2i be taken straight from the county Co,urts to the hignest tribunal, and on the judge of the lower court certifying that in his opinion the case was one. of great importance to the general public, the costs should be borne by the State, upon whose highly paid legal servants the conduct of,the case before the ultimate tribunal should devolve. Each party to the suit should have the right to be represented by counsel also if he or they chose to, but in that case they would pay their own lawyers.