Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
BALTIME CLAUSE 13
The TFL Prosperity
The decision of the House of Lords in Tor Line A.B. v. Alltrans Group of Canada Ltd. (The TFL Prosperity)1 is of fundamental importance in any understanding of the Baltime charter-party. The plaintiffs time-chartered the roll-on/roll-off vessel TFL Prosperity from the defendants for a period of about six months on the amended Baltime 1939 form. Clauses were added to the printed form, one of which set out a number of dimensions and other features of the vessel. The free height of the main deck of the vessel was given as 6.10 metres. It was found by the umpire (Mr Alan Kent) that in fact the free height of the main deck was only 6.05 metres and that in consequence 40-ft. containers could not be double stacked on the main deck on mafi trailers. He held that the charterers’ damages in consequence of this breach of contract amounted to $106,417. Among other defences, the owners relied upon cl. 13 of the Baltime charter-party and it was upon this point alone that the case reached the House of Lords.
Clause 13 (sometimes irreverently known as the “Owners’ Irresponsibility Clause”) bears the rubric “Responsibility and Exemption”. The clause contains four sentences and it is convenient to number them separately, as did the House of Lords:
- “(i) The owners only to be responsible for delay in delivery of the vessel or for delay during the currency of the charter and for loss or damage to goods on board, if such loss or delay has been caused by want of due diligence on the part of the owners or their manager in making the vessel seaworthy and fitted for the voyage or any other personal act or omission or default of the owners or their manager.
- (ii) The owners not to be responsible in any other case nor for damage or delay whatsoever and howsoever caused even if caused by the neglect or default of their servants.
- (iii) The owners not to be liable for loss or damage arising or resulting from strikes, lock-outs or stoppage or restraint of labour or vehicles (including the master, officers or crew) whether partial or general.
- (iv) The charterers to be responsible for loss or damage caused to the vessel or to the owners by goods being loaded contrary to the terms of the charter or by improper or careless bunkering or loading, stowing or discharging of goods or any other improper or negligent act on their part or that of their servants”.
The owners’ argument was that the second sentence excluded them from liability for what would otherwise have been a breach of contract in misdescribing the free height of the main deck. They said, in summary, that apart from accepting liability for the particular types of loss and damage specified in the first sentence, the owners were not (because of the second sentence) liable in damages to the charterers in any other circumstances whatsoever, save, perhaps, where the breach was repudiatory. Such was not the present case. Lord Roskill, with whom all the other members of the House agreed, did not accept this argument. He held that the meaning of the first two sentences of cl. 13 was that the owners were liable for the types of loss and damage specified in the first sentence in the circumstances there described but were not
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