PILLAGED CARGO.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 10 February 1927, Page 10

PILLAGED CARGO.

SHIPOWNERS' LIABILITY. AN APPEAL DISMISSED. [THE PBESS Special Service.] WELLINGTON, February !>. A reserved judgment, iniportaut to shipowners and consignees, was given to-day by Mr Justice Alpcrs on an appeal by the owners of the City of Naples from the decision of the .Magistrate in favour of Gollin and Co., Ltd. On October 10th, 1923, Gollin and Co. imported, per the City ot Naples, eight cases of alarm clocks from New York. Both the ship and the Wellington Harbour Hoard gave receipts acknowledging the cases in apparent good order and condition. A carrier sent by Gollin and Co. to the Harbour Hoard sheds refused to accept delivery of one case on tin: ground that it bad been tampered with. When the case was opened, 31 out of 50 clocks were found to have been taken. Gollin and Co. thereupon claimed £l-3 6s, alternatively, from the owners of the ship and the Wellington Harbour Board. The Magistrate was satisfied on the evidence that the case was pillaged on the ship, and not in tho Wellington Harbour Board shed. As the owners of the ship lmd not attempted to prove that the case had not been pillaged while on board (the onus being on them in view of their receipt), the Magistrate found for Gollin and Co. for the amount claimed. Tho owners of the City of Naples appealed. "I sec no reason to doubt," said Mr Justice Alpers in his judgment, "that the Magistrate arrived at a sound conclusion, and with proper regard for tho practical exigencies of handling and examining cargo. The truth of the matter is that all these cases of short delivery turn on inferences of fact, and not on rules of law. The Magistrate has not in so many words given an express finding that the case, when delivered to tho Harbour Board, was not in fact 'in apparent good order,' but such finding is clearly implied in his judgment, and seems to me a reasonable deduction from the evidence taken as a whole." The appeal was dismissed, with costs.