BRITISH TRAWLERS FEDERATION, LTD., AND OTHERS v. LONDON & NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY.

(1932) 43 Ll L Rep 207

KING'S BENCH DIVISION.

Before Mr. Justice Branson.

Railways - Powers - Access to fish quay (Lowestoft) - Right of defendant railway company (owning quay) to impose upon plaintiffs (having business on defendants' quay) conditions governing the use of motor vehicles for transport of fish from quays - Prevention of congestion - Alleged obligation upon defendants to allow fish market on quay - Common law rights considered - "Fish" as non-customable goods - Whether rights affected by statute - Lowestoft Navigation Acts - Incorporation of Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act, 1847 - Sects. 33, 83 - "Shipping and unshipping of goods" - Held, that there was no common law right of access to the quay; that "fish" being non-customable goods, a private fish quay was still possible at common law; that the defendants were entitled at common law to all the rights of an owner of property, which included the refusal of access; that the right of access under Sect. 33 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act for the "shipping and unshipping of goods" did not include the right to sell, clean or pack fish on the quays, nor could any compulsion on the defendants to allow a fish market on the quay be implied from the defendants' Acts; and that therefore the defendants were entitled to impose upon the plaintiffs such conditions as they pleased concerning the sale, cleaning or packing of fish on their quay, subject, however, to any contractual rights which plaintiffs might have.