Compania Anonima Maritima Union v. Strachan Shipping Co.

261 F. 57, 171 C.C.A. 653, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1717
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 31, 1919
DocketNo. 3357
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 261 F. 57 (Compania Anonima Maritima Union v. Strachan Shipping Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Compania Anonima Maritima Union v. Strachan Shipping Co., 261 F. 57, 171 C.C.A. 653, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1717 (5th Cir. 1919).

Opinion

WALKER, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The action of the court in dismissing the libel is.shown by the opinion rendered to have been the result of the conclusion reached that the libel-ant was deprived of any right to recover for a breach of the above-quoted written clause of the charter party by the provision of the above-quoted printed clause, commonly called the cesser clause, that:

[59]*59“Upon shipment of the cargo and acceptance by the master, and on settlement of dead freight, if any, or of any freight not represented by bills of lading, and of demurrage, if any, at port of lading, charterers shall be deemed to have fulfilled this charter party, and shall be under no liability thereafter, under any provision hereof, for any matters, past or future, or for any loss, damage, or other claim of breach of charter parly.”

[1] The cesser clause now in question differs from such clauses involved in reported cases to be referred to in that it expressly provides for the termination of the charterer’s liability:

“Upon shipment of the cargo and acceptance by the master, and on settlement of dead freight, if any, or of any freight not represented by bills of lading, and of demurrage, if any, at port of loading”

—without the shipowner being given any other means, in lieu of the lien on cargo which it had before, of securing indemnity for breaches of provisions of the charter party which could not be performed, and could not even be entered upon, until after the ship left the loading port. It is settled that a charter party containing a cesser clause is to be so construed, if possible, as not to have the effect of terminating the charterer’s liability to the shipowner for the breach of a provision which is not left or made enforceable by the shipowner against die cargo, or a person or thing other than the charterer. Crossman v. Burrill, 179 U. S. 100, 21 Sup. Ct. 38, 45 L. Ed. 106. The charter party under consideration in the case cited contained the following:

“Vessel to have an absolute lien upon tbe cargo for all freight, dead freight, and demurrage. Charterers’ responsibility to cease when vessel is loaded and bills of lading are signed.”

The bills of lading signed gave no lien for demurrage at the discharging port. It was held that the cesser clause there in question did not, under the circumstances stated, relieve the charterers from liability for the demurrage incurred at the discharging port. In the opinion in that case it was said:

“The charter party, like many mercantile instruments in common use, is drawn up in brief and disjointed sentences, and must be construed according to the intent of the parties as manifested by tbe whole instrument, rather than by the literal meaning of any particular clause, taken by itself.”

Following that statement was an approving reference to the decisions in the cases of Clink v. Radford, [1891] 1 Q. B. 625, and Hansen v. Harrold, [1894] 1 Q. B. 612, and the opinion quoted as follows from the opinions rendered in the first mentioned of those two cases:

“In Clink v. Radford, Lord Esher said: ‘In my opinion, the main rule to be derived from the cases as to the interpretation of the cesser clause in a charter-party is that the court will construe it as inapplicable to the particular breach complained of, if by construing it otherwise the shipowner would be left unprotected in respect of that particular breach, unless the cesser clause is expressed in terms that prohibit' such a conclusion. In other words, it cannot be assumed that the shipowner, without any mercantile reason, would give up by the cesser clause rights which he had stipulated for in another part of the contract.’ Lord Justice Bowen said: ‘There is no doubt that the parties may, if they choose, so frame the clause as to emancipate the charterer from any specified liability without providing for any terms of compensation to the shipowner; but such a contract would not be one vve should expect to see in a commercial transaction. The cesser clauses, as they generally [60]*60come before the courts, are clauses which couple or link the provisions for the cesser of the charterer’s liability with a corresponding creation of a lien. There is a principle of reason which is obvious to commercial minds, and which should be borne in mind in considering a cesser clause so framed, namely, that reasonable persons would regard the lien given as an equivalent for the release of responsibility, which the cesser clause in its earlier part creates, and one would expect to find the lien commensurate with the release of liability.’ And Lord Justice Fry added: ‘The rule that we are prima facie to apply to the construction of a cesser clause followed by a lien clause appears to me to be well ascertained. That rule seems a most rational one, and it is simply this: That the two are to be read, if possible, as coextensive. If that were not so, we should have this extraordinary result: There would be a clause in the charter party the breach of which would create a legal liability, there would then be a cesser clause destroying that liability, and there would then come a lien clause which did not recreate that liability in anybody else.’ ” [1891] 1 Q. B. 627, 629, 632.

Under the above-stated rules for construing charter parties, it is questionable whether, in the absence of a circumstance to be mentioned, the literal meaning of the clause providing for a cesser of the charterer’s liability to the shipowner would be followed, when to do so would result, in situations likely to arise, in depriving the shipowner of any benefit from such a provision as the one specifying the time allowed to the charterer for discharging cargo at its destination. It wpll might be inferred that it was contemplated that the expressed intent of the parties in reference to such a matter as the one dealt with in the last-mentioned provision would prevail over an inconsistent intent expressed by the broad general terms of the charter party’s cesser clause, and that it was not intended that the ship-owner was to relinquish all benefit of the stipulation as to discharging cargo without being compensated in some way for doing so.

[2] But the contention urged in behalf of the appellee that, in the circumstances disclosed, the printed cesser clause has the effect of depriving the appellant, the shipowner, of any remedy at all for a breach of the above-quoted written provision of the charter party cannot be sustained without a disregard of the well-settled rule that, if there is repugnancy between the printed and written provisions of a contract, the writing will prevail, on the ground that presumably it expresses the specific and paramount intention of the parties. Thomas v. Taggart, 209 U. S. 385, 28 Sup. Ct. 519, 52 L. Ed. 845; Hagan v. Scottish Ins. Co., 186 U. S. 423, 22 Sup. Ct. 862, 46 L. Ed. 1229. The last-cited case involved a marine insurance policy made out by using a blank printed form and adding provisions in writing. It was said in the opinion in that case:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In Re International Raw Material Corporation
22 F.2d 920 (Second Circuit, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
261 F. 57, 171 C.C.A. 653, 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 1717, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/compania-anonima-maritima-union-v-strachan-shipping-co-ca5-1919.