SEA PASSAGES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 149, 27 June 1930, Page 11

SEA PASSAGES

ANOMALOUS POSITION

PETITION TO HOUSE

The legal position,.of., sea passengers in respect! of injuries >by accident re--suiting from negligence, of. shipowners by their agents or servants .is .raised in a petition presented. ia-iHe. House of by Mr.. 'R. ■ SPEeeii (Lab., Wellington South) to-day on\be> half of Mr."p;; j.o 'Regan, ;bf Welling-; ton..: ~-;.".■. ■.. '■'. • :'■■,/ ' ,-.' '"■'•■• ': ,*■;":'■.' ■

The petitioner points out that shipowners liavc for years past issued tickets to passengers having printed or . them conditions the legal effect of. which is to preclude any passenger from claiming damages in respect of injury by accident during the voyage' as tho rosult of negligence of any of the shipowners' servants or. agents. Should a passenger be fatally injured by accident, his wife or relatives wero likewise precluded from maintaining an action for damages, inasmuch as it was sottled law that any action of a wife, husband, parent or child of a deceased person might be met by any defence which' would bo availablo against the deceased himself had he been merely injured and not killed. "SCANDADOUS CONDITION OF LAW." _ Petitioner points out that ho petitioned the House in the matter in 1928, when ho pointed out that shipowners and theproprietors of service cars were habitually evading their liabilities by having exculpatory conditions printed on the tickets issued to passengers. "This scandalous condition of .the law," he says, "has been rectified so far as service cars are concerned by the Motor Vehicles Insurance • (Third. Party Risks) Act, 1928, section 13 of which prohibits the proprietors of servico cars from evading thoir liabilities by printing conditions on their tickets, but the immunity conferred on, shipowners still remains unaffected."- In 1929 he again raised the question, and the Public Petitions M to Z Committee unanimously recommended the matter, to the favourable consideration of the Government. Mr. O 'Began Bays that the state of the law-which he seeks to have ram* died has received forcible illustration during the last recess by the wreck of the U.S.S. Co.'s Manuka off the Otaga coast. In that case the Nautical Court which inquired into the disaster found that the wreck was due to the negligence of the master. Nevertheless the passengers, many of whom-' suffered heavy financial loss by reason ofdestruction of property, had no right of legal redress against the company, fiad tho' wreck occurred in bad weather there would hive been an appalling loss of life, but the relatives of the drowned passengers would have beea without any legal redress whatever, ' and would have been compelled to accept charity. There was no legal reason why the Railway Department should not'also escape liability, in respect of of injuries to passengers by printing conditions on the tickets issued, but the Department did not do so, and accordingly the legal position was that tho' Crown was liable in damages to persons using the railways, but shipping companies were under no obligation whatever. SAME AS THE' CROWN. Mr. O 'Regan does not ask that shipowners should be made liable in respect of accidents not due to negligence. His prayer is that they should bo in the same legal position as the Crown or any private person who by reason of a breach of common law duty causes damage to another. -He states* tliat for years past he has endeavoured to draw attention, to tho anomalous condition of the law, in -respect to s*a passages, but so far without result. He therefore asks that the House this session will pass legislation remedying the present inequitablo and indefensible state'of the law, thereby providing that shipping companies, in common with - others responsible for the safety of life, should no longer be immune from, the' legal consequences of their owa negligence. . ■ ...