APPEAL FAILS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 112, 11 April 1929, Page 8

APPEAL FAILS.

QUESTION OF LIABILITY. Per Press Association. 1 WELLINGTON, April 11, The Appeal Court gave judgment today in the case of the Coastal Shipping Coy. v. the Wanganui Herald Newspaper Co., dismissing the appeal, and upholding the judgment of Mr Justice Smith in the Court below. Their Honours said: “There can be, in our opinion, no question that the real, predominant, efficient cause of the loss was the unseaworthiness of the vossel and not the entry of sea water. No doubt tho vice in the bottom of the vessel arose in the first instance from the fact that there w-as what has been described as a capillary opening in the cement skin, but the whole sequences of the events may with propriety be comprehended in the term ‘natural causes f and lapse of time. We agree with Mr Justice Smith that the unseaworthiness of the vessel was the real, efficient cause, the proximate cause to -which the damage to the respondent’s goods must be ascribed, and therefore that the loss was not loss by Mangers of the sea’ within the meaning of section 3 of the Sea Carriage of Goods Act.” The questions submitted to the Court were then answered as follow-s:— “1. (a) —There being no modification or exclusion : of the common law warranty of seaworthiness in the contract of carriage, there is implied in that contract an absolute warranty of the seaworthiness of the ship. “1 (b) —Section 3 of the Sea Carriage of Goods Act does not in any way affect that warranty. “2. The loss or damage to the : respondent’s goods was caused by the unseaworthiness of the ship and not by ‘danger of the sea.’ ” Costs were allowed on the middle scale to the respondent. The facts briefly are that the appellant company in December, 1926, received from the respondent company 63 rolls of paper newsprint to be carried and transported by the appellant company in the Kapiti from Wellington to Wanganui. A loss of £320 occurred to the goods during tho courso of the voyage occasioned by the steamer springing a leak in her hull. This damage, it was admitted by both parties, was not due to any negligence or fault of the appellant company or the builders of tho Kapiti. A writ having been issued, it was ordered by the Court that the question of law arising between the parties should be argued before the trial.. Upon such argument it was held by Mr Justico Smith that the damage was not due to any “danger of the sea” which, under the bill of lading, is an exception to the liabilities of shipowners, and further that the damage was duo to the unseaworthiness of the steamer. From this decision the appeal was brought.