Re Polemis & Furness, Withy & Co Ltd

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

Stevedores negligently dropped a plank into the hold of a ship. The plank caused a spark which ignited petrol vapour, destroying the ship. It was foreseeable that dropping the plank might cause some damage, but not fire.

Judgment Summary

The Court of Appeal held the charterers vicariously liable for the total loss of the ship by fire. Their stevedores had negligently allowed a plank to fall into the hold; unknown to them the hold contained petrol vapour, and the falling plank caused a spark which ignited the vapour and destroyed the vessel. The arbitrators found that some damage to the ship was foreseeable from dropping the plank, though the fire was not. The court held that this did not matter: once the act was negligent because some damage was foreseeable, the defendant was liable for all the damage that flowed directly from the negligent act, whether or not the particular kind of damage, or its extent, could have been foreseen. This 'directness' test of remoteness governed English law for forty years, but it was disapproved and effectively overruled by the Privy Council in Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock (The Wagon Mound (No 1)), which substituted reasonable foreseeability of the kind of damage as the test of remoteness in negligence.

Key Quotes

Subsequent Treatment