Admiralty procedure—delay and limitation of liability—joinder of parties

The plaintiff shipped an Airbus H225 Super Puma helicopter for carriage from Melbourne to Freeport, Malta on APL Detroit under a sea waybill issued by the defendant, which was time charterer of the carrying ship. The plaintiff alleged that it was an express term of the contract evidenced by the waybill that the helicopter would be delivered in Freeport no later than 11 July 2023. APL Detroit arrived in Gioia Tauro, Italy, on 11 July 2023 but then returned to Valencia, Spain, where the helicopter was transshipped to CMA CGM Iguacu. The helicopter was eventually delivered in Freeport in a damaged condition on 8 August 2023. The plaintiff sued the defendant in the Federal Court of Australia.

The defendant admitted that the helicopter had sustained damage to its rotor tail during transshipment in Valencia and that it was liable for that damage under the Australian modified version of the Hague-Visby Rules, Art.3, r.2.2 The defendant pleaded that it was entitled to limit its liability under Art.4, r.5 and it made an interlocutory application to have the question of its right to limit determined separately as a preliminary issue. The plaintiff resisted the application for consideration of a preliminary question on the basis that it had also alleged breach of Art.4A, r.1 of the Australian version of the Rules, which deals with liability for delay, and there were contested questions of fact about the cause of the delay.

By separate interlocutory application, the plaintiff sought to join its Chief Executive Officer as a second plaintiff, alleging that he had suffered “nervous shock” upon being told that APL Detroit was delayed, after which he was admitted to hospital for 65 days in a medically-induced coma.

Decisions: Defendant’s interlocutory application for consideration of a separate question dismissed; plaintiff’s interlocutory application for joinder of the Chief Executive Officer as second plaintiff dismissed.

Held: (1) Article 4A, r.1 of the Australian version of the Hague-Visby Rules has received very little, if any, judicial consideration to date. However, the facts underlying the plaintiff’s claim for breach of Art.4A, r.1 were contested. The delay claim depended