Claim For Damage To Cargo Succeeds

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31867, 20 December 1968, Page 7

Claim For Damage To Cargo Succeeds

J. B. Ferguson and Company, Ltd, the plaintiff in an action arising from damage to galvanised roofing iron shipped from Onehunga to Christchurch in the ship Tawanui, was awarded $2104 by Mr Justice Macarthur in a reserved decision in the Supreme Court yesterday. The Northern Steamship Company, Ltd, was defendant in the action. Mr C. E. Purchase appeared for the plaintiff, with him Mr H. Dawson. Mr Salmon appeared for the defendant. His Honour said two actions were called. On the calling of the first, a claim for $3OO, counsel informed him the major points had been settled. The second action was a claim for $2660 which concerned a consignment of roofing iron delivered in Christchurch in November, 1963. The plaintiff sued on the basis that 88 bundles of roofing iron carried in the Tawanui under four bills of lading were delivered to the defendant in good order at Onehunga but were damaged on arrival at Christchurch. Alternatively the claim was that the goods were negligently stowed. The defendant admitted the Tawanui carried the goods but denied the allegations against it. Alternatively the defendant claimed that under the bills of lading it was not liable for damage caused through rust or the effects of climate. The damage to the galvanised iron roofing was described by witnesses as a white corrosion powder on the sheets. A defence witness described the damage as white rust which, he said, was a laymen’s and not an analytical term. His Honour found the defendant had failed to bring itself within the rust exception in the bills of lading. He did not think, having regard to dictionary definitions, that the damage to the roofing was rust within the plain ordinary popular sense of the word.

None of the dictionaries to which he was referred had contained a definition of white rust in relation to metals. The defendant’s evidence, even if accepted completely, would take the matter only as far as saying the damage could probably have been described as white rust. That was not the same thing as rust. “1 should add that in my opinion there is no ambiguity in the meaning of the word rust.” However if he was wrong and there was ambiguity the exception could not be held to include white rust. The award made was the plaintiff’s agreed loss.