Whom To Sue?

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 13

Whom To Sue?

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, March 28. The people who have suffered from the “plague” of the Torrey Canyon’s oil are likely to receive very little damages, “The Times” said yesterday.

A leading Admiralty lawyer believed the liability of the tanker’s owners would be less than £1.5 million—which may be just about enough to pay for the detergent used on the oil slick. “The people liable to be sued for damages in this sort of disaster are the employers of the master and the crew,” said “The Times.” “Establishing who they are may not be easy. “The tanker is registered in Monrovia and sails under the Liberian flag. According to Lloyd’s Register, her owners are the Barracuda Tanker Corporation, of Bermuda.

“She had an tlalian master and crew, and was on a single charter to British Petroleum from the Persian Gulf to Milford Haven. “She is under contract to be salved by a Dutch company, and, to add to the polyglot confusion, she was built in Japan.” If out of this thicket of confusion the employers at the time can be established,

a writ may be served on them, “The Times” said. But if the employers turn out to be a brass plate in a foreign country, this may be easier said than done. “The Times” said in an editorial that the British Government should have “taken the law into its own hands” and set fire to the ship and its cargo, if necessary.

It would then have been open to anyone to sue the Government —and for the Government itself to sue for negligence.