Australian Wheat Board v Reardon Smith Line Ltd [1954] HCA 27

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Webb and Taylor JJ. Australian Wheat Board v Reardon Smith Line Ltd [1954] HCA 27

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Order of Supreme Court discharged. In lieu thereof enter judgment for the defendant with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Dixon C.J.

The questions which this appeal raises for determination are two. The first may be stated in general terms. It is whether under the form of charter-party known as the Australian Grain Charter the charterer is liable to the shipowner for damage received by the ship owing to being directed by the charterer to an unsafe port or an unsafe wharf for loading. The second depends on an affirmative answer to the first question and is of a particular nature. It is whether damage received by a certain motor vessel named the Houston City on 12th July 1951 while loading at Geraldton under such a charter falls under that description.

The Australian Wheat Board, which is the appellant in this Court and the defendant in the action in the Supreme Court, chartered the ship from the owner Reardon Smith Line Ltd., which is the respondent in this Court and the plaintiff in the action. The charter-party was dated 19th March 1951 and was a voyage charter for the carriage of a cargo of bulk wheat from a Western Australian port. On 3rd July 1951 the charterers by radiogram to the master of the Houston City named Geraldton as the port and advised him that he was to load a complete cargo of wheat in bulk. There is only one berth at Geraldton for loading bulk wheat. It is No. 1 grain berth and lies at the eastern end of the quay. The quay is built of concrete and is about 1500 feet long running east and west on the southern side of the inner harbour of Champion Bay. Champion Bay is described by the Australian Pilot as "well sheltered from all winds except those between north-west through north to north east, from which direction gales sometimes blow with strength between May and November." Speaking of the quay, at which of course ships must be berthed broadside on to such winds, the same work says, "during bad weather it is necessary to keep vessels off the wharf by means of bow and stern hawsers to hauling off buoys. No. 1 wharf is the most exposed."