The Princesse Cl‚mentine
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1897 |
| Year | 1897 |
| Court | Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division |
Admiralty - Practice - Service of Writ - Foreign Corporation - Agent - Clerk -
The defendants, a foreign corporation, had their name on the door of an office of their agents in London, and issued business cards and advertisements directing the public to apply to them there respecting the carriage of goods by their steamers running between Tilbury and Ostend. The rent of the office was paid by the agents of the defendants, aid the clerks, including the manager, employed in the office, were the servants of the agents.
The plaintiffs, owners of cargo in a foreign ship, commenced an action for damages by collision against the defendants, and served the writ of summons on the managing clerk at the office in London. On motion by the defendants to set aside the service:—
Held, by Gorell Barnes J., that the service of the writ was not on “the …. clerk …. of such corporation” within the meaning of Order IX., r. 8, of the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, and must therefore be set aside, but without costs, as the defendants had held themselves out as having an office in London.
MOTION by defendants, the Société John Cockerill, owners of the steamship Princesse Clémentine, to set aside the service of a writ on the ground that the service was on a clerk of an agent of the defendants, and was therefore not served in accordance with the provisions of Order IX., r. 8, of the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883.F1
On December 1, 1896, the plaintiffs, the Société Anonyme de l'Usine du Francais, and Besse Neveu Cabol Jeune of Martinique and Bordeaux respectively, issued a writ of summons in an Admiralty action in personam against the defendants, claiming, “as owners of a cargo of sugar laden on board the Axel Waestfelt, damages occasioned through a collision which recently occurred between the steamship Axel Waestfelt and the Princesse Clémentine.”
The indorsement stated that the writ was “served by H. P. Weston on the manager at the offices of the Société John Cockerill, Dominion House, 110, Fenchurch Street, E.C.”
The defendants entered a conditional appearance and, in support of the motion to set the service aside, filed an affidavit by a member of the firm of Barr, Moering & Co., forwarding and shipping agents of 110, Fenchurch Street, and 72, 73, Fore Street, in the city of London, stating, in substance, that the defendants were a foreign corporation carrying on...
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