Ferry Compensation Limited By Statute

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 36

Ferry Compensation Limited By Statute

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 19. The total compensation available to meet death and injury claims arising from the Wahine disaster will be limited by law to about $540,000. That for property damage, including cargo, will be limited to about $144,000.

These sums are fixed by a formula laid down in the Shipping and Seamen Act, 1952. For carrying people the shipowners liability is $6O for each registered ton; for property and cargo the liability is $l6 a ton.

The Wahine was about 9000 tons, but the net tonnage has to be ascertained by a formula laid down in the Act. These facts are revealed in a paper on carriers’ liability prepared jointly (before the sinking' by two Auckland solicitors Messrs K. I. Barker and R. J. Craddock, for presentation to the international business and law symposium to be held in Auckland next month. Dealing with the claim for those killed and injured, the writers say that the limitation could be overcome only upon proof by a claimant

that the mishap was caused through “the actual fault or privity” of the owner. Proof Difficult They say that in practice this was very difficult to prove and did not cover the usual situation of negligent navigation by a servant of the shipowner. The limitation applied alike to Cook Strait ferries, harbour ferries and hydrofoils, passenger-carrying launches, New Zealand registered coasters, colliers, fishing boats, tugs and barges. All claimants would share pro rata in the available fund and there would have to be litigation to ascertain the proportion of the fund pay-

able to each separate claimant, they say. Reform Needed They labelled the provisions an “anachronism in need of urgent reform.” They saw no reason why domestic carriers by sea should not be put in the same position as domestic land carriers. The writers hoped that the symposium would urge the Government to rectify an “anomalous and unjust” state of affairs. “We do not want a sea disaster comparable to the Kaimat air disaster to activate the legislative conscience in this regard,” they wrote in their pre-Wahine paper.