CHANDRAN A/L SUBBIAH V DOCKERS MARINE PTE LTD (THE “TASMAN MARINER”)

[2009] SGHC 109, High Court, Singapore, Judith Prakash J, 6 May 2009

Shipping – Liability – Stevedore injured at work – Liability of employer – Duty of care – Occupier’s liability –Factories Act (Cap. 104, 1998 Rev. Ed.), sections 33 and 47A

The plaintiff was a freelance stevedore engaged by the defendant to carry out stevedoring tasks on board Tasman Mariner. He fell from a height of about 10 m onto the top of a cargo container in the hold of the vessel and suffered head and hand injuries as a result. In this action, he sought damages for personal injuries and consequential loss which he suffered as a result of an accident whilst in the employment of the defendant. There had been an unsuccessful attempt to join the vessel’s owners as third parties. Prakash J held that the plaintiff’s claim failed. The first argument based on duty of care failed; the defendant did not have a duty to inspect the premises or the hatch before allowing the workers to perform the task of loading and unloading unless there was some ground of suspicion. There was no evidence of any circumstance which would have given rise to any ground of suspicion prior to the commencement of work by the plaintiff and his co-workers. It would be too onerous to impose a general duty on stevedoring companies to inspect the vessel before allowing stevedoring operations to commence even if there was nothing special in the circumstances to lead the company to suspect that the vessel or its fixtures might pose a danger to the stevedores. An argument based on occupier’s liability also failed: The defendant did not have control over who entered or left the vessel. To make a person who does not decide who has entry to premises an occupier, it needs to be shown that he has some other form of control. In this case, there was no evidence of any form of control that the defendant had over the vessel. The occupation of the vessel by the defendant was merely transient and for the specific purpose of loading and unloading. At all times, the vessel was under the control of her master and crew and, indeed, even the stevedoring operations would have been subject to the authority of the vessel’s officers. Whatever control the defendant had was only over the process of loading and unloading of the goods in the hatch and it could not be said to be the occupier of the vessel. An argument based on the Factories Act (Cap. 104, 1998 Rev. Ed.) also failed.