The Diamond
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1906 |
| Year | 1906 |
| Court | Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division |
Admiralty - Damage to Cargo - “By reason of” Fire -
Owing to the negligence of the crew in overheating a stove, a fire broke out on board the defendant's ship, and the plaintiffs' cargo was damaged. The plaintiffs alleged that the ship was unseaworthy in that the stove was placed too near to a bulkhead without any means of insulation, and, as the defendant must be taken to be “privy” to the position of the stove, he could not rely upon s. 502, sub-s. 1, of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, by which the owner of a British sea-going ship is not liable to make good any loss or damage happening “without his actual fault or privity” to goods damaged “by reason of fire on board the ship.” Secondly, the plaintiffs contended that a great part of the damage was due to smoke and to the water used to extinguish the fire, which was not damage included in the statute:—
Held, by Bargrave Deane J., that the defendant could claim the statutory exemption from liability, for the stove was perfectly safe if properly used, and, therefore, the vessel was seaworthy, and the defendant not in fault or “privy” to the negligence of the crew. Secondly, that damage by smoke and by water used in putting out a fire is damage “by reason of” fire within the meaning of the statute.
ACTION of breach of contract.
The plaintiffs were Spillers & Bakers, Limited, flour merchants, of Cardiff. The defendant was William Robertson, of Glasgow, owner of the Diamond.
The case is reported on the question of the statutory exemption from liability in favour of the owner of a British ship in respect of damage to goods “by reason of” fire on board his ship “without his actual fault or privity.”F1
In pursuance of a contract dated February 1, 1905, entered into between the plaintiffs and the defendant, under which the defendant undertook to provide for two years all the steamers that the plaintiffs required for the carriage of their goods, the plaintiffs shipped, under a bill of lading dated December 29 of the same year, on board the steamship Diamond, owned by the defendant, a cargo of flour and bran in good order and condition to be conveyed from Cardiff and delivered in the like good order and condition at Belfast.
The Diamond is an iron screw steamer of 468 tons gross register fitted with engines of 80 horse-power. She was built in 1886 under Lloyd's Special Survey and classed 100 A1, and underwent her last periodical survey, No. 1, in 1903. She left Cardiff on December 30, and on the 31st a fire broke out in the forehold owing to a stove in the firemen's quarters on the starboard side of the forecastle becoming overheated, whereby the adjacent iron bulkhead, three and a half to four inches distant from the back of the stove, became heated, together with a wooden casing to a pipe on the other side, with the result that some of the dunnage and the bags of flour stowed near the casing caught fire. After a hole had been made in the deck and the bulkhead broken through the hose was applied and the fire extinguished, but when the vessel reached Belfast on January 1, 1906, and the cargo was discharged, it was found that 4295 bags of flour and 298 sacks of bran had been damaged by fire and smoke and by water employed to extinguish the fire.
The plaintiffs, by their statement of claim, alleged that “the fire was caused by the negligence of the crew of the Diamond“in overheating the stove or allowing it to become overheated. In respect of the position of the stove the plaintiffs alleged that the vessel “was unseaworthy in that the stove was placed too near to the bulkhead and to the wooden casing, and without any air, baffle plate, or other means of insulation to prevent the overheating of the bulkhead, and the ignition of the wooden casing and adjacent cargo.”
The defendant admitted the loading of the cargo under the contract, the damage by an outbreak of fire, and that the fire was due to the negligence of the crew in overheating the stove; but, by his defence...
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