4.5 The Court of Appeal Judgement
The decision of the Admiralty Court was appealed by the vessel`s owner. The appeal was granted, and the UK Court of Appeal heard the case in February 2020 with Lord Justice Flaux, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave and Lord Justice Males presiding. The two permissible grounds of appeal were:
“That the judge wrongly held that a one-off defective passage plan rendered the vessel unseaworthy for the purposes of Article III rule 1 of the Hague Rules and, in particular, failed properly to distinguish between matters of navigation and aspects of unseaworthiness:”(1)Alize 1954 and another v Allianz Elementar Versicherungs AG and others [2020] EWCA Civ 293 (hereinafter: “Libra [2020]”, 29
“The judge wrongly held that the actions of the vessel's master and crew which were carried out qua navigator could be treated as attempted performance by the carrier of its duty qua carrier to exercise due diligence to make the vessel seaworthy under Article III rule 1 of the Hague Rules.”(2) ibid
4.5.1 Court of Appeal: Conclusion
The appeal was unanimously dismissed on both grounds, with the Judges building on the rationale set out by Teare J in the Admiralty Court. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave conveniently summarised his view by simply referring to relevant provisions of the Hague Rules and their inception in 1924, stating that, “The signatories to the Convention agreed to divide the allocation of risk for maritime cargo adventures into two separate regimes. The first regime imposes a non-delegable duty on carriers to exercise due diligence to make the ship seaworthy "before and at the beginning of the voyage" (Article III rule 1). The second regime excuses carriers from liability for loss or damage caused by errors of crew or servants "in the navigation or in the management of the ship" thereafter, i.e., during the voyage (Article IV rule 2(a)).”(3)Libra [2020], 102
Thus, the Court of Appeal concluded in line with the Admiralty Court, affirming that the defective vessel plan rendered the vessel unseaworthy at the beginning of the voyage. Consequently, the defences under Article IV r. 2(a) were inapplicable, and the Owners were once again found to be in breach of the seaworthiness obligation pursuant to the Hague Rules.