Act, neglect or default in the management of the ship

Held , that when the vessel was flooding in the Chesapeake Bay the valves must have been in the position recorded in the inspection of 9 February 1978. Although the crew had only a short amount of time to close the valves, it should have been the very first step in an emergency and therefore the crew’s failure to close the valve that was found fully open constituted a neglect or default by the crew. If this was the dominant cause or of approximately equal efficacy in the loss, then the plaintiff’s claim would be defeated. However causation had to be understood as the man in the street would understand it: Yorkshire Dale Steamship Co. v. Min. of War Transport [1942] A.C. 691, 706. Looking at the whole complex of circumstances ( Monarch Steamship Co. v. Karlshamns [1949] A.C. 196, 228) the failure of the crew to close that suction pipe valve was not even of equal efficacy to the unseaworthiness of the vessel in causing the loss. It was the unseaworthiness of the vessel that was the dominant cause of the loss. Therefore there would be judgment for the plaintiffs.