Voyage Charters
Page 269
Chapter 11
Owners' Responsibility Clause
| 2. Owners’ responsibility clause | 21 |
| Owners are to be responsible for loss of or damage to the goods | 22 |
| or for delay in delivery of the goods only in case the loss, damage | 23 |
| or delay has been caused by the improper or negligent stowage of | 24 |
| the goods (unless stowage performed by shippers/Charterers or their | 25 |
| stevedores or servants) or by personal want of due diligence on the | 26 |
| part of the Owners or their Manager to make the vessel in all respects | 27 |
| seaworthy and to secure that she is properly manned, equipped and | 28 |
| supplied or by the personal act or default of the Owners or their | 29 |
| Manager. | 30 |
| And the Owners are responsible for no loss or damage or delay | 31 |
| arising from any other cause whatsoever, even from the neglect or | 32 |
| default of the Captain or crew or some other person employed by | 33 |
| the Owners on board or ashore for whose acts they would, but for | 34 |
| this clause, be responsible, or from unseaworthiness of the vessel on | 35 |
| loading or commencement of the voyage or at any time whatsoever. | 36 |
| Damage caused by contact with or leakage, smell or evaporation | 37 |
| from other goods or by the inflammable or explosive nature or | 38 |
| insufficient package of other goods not to be considered as caused | 39 |
| by improper or negligent stowage, even if in fact so caused. | 40 |
11.1 This clause appears principally to stipulate an acceptance of, rather than an exception from, liability, but in effect it provides owners with a wide-ranging exclusion of their legal liability for loss, damage or delay in delivery of the goods carried. In essence, owners are not liable for loss of or damage to or delay in delivery of the goods unless caused by: