Case report
Fire on the vessel on berth - Liability for damages : [court's decision review]
Vesna Skorupan Wolff
orcid.org/0000-0002-1591-7247
; Jadranski zavod HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The matter in dispute is the request for the damages suffered by the plaintiff due to fire on the
vessel, which was at the time of the damaging event on dry berth in the defendant’s marina.
The plaintiff claims that the defendant failed to early enough observe the fire that occurred on
the plaintiff’s vessel and to undertake adequate fire-fighting measures. It may not have been
expected of the defendant’s guard to uninterruptedly stay by the plaintiff’s vessel. Even if
he had noticed the fire on the vessel, he would not have been able to extinguish it due to the
speed at which the fire spread, the material the vessel was built from and the built-in burnable
material, as well as the wind. Hence the courts judges that the untimely observing of the fire
on the plaintiff’s vessel by a member of the defendant’s staff (guard in the marina) does not
stand in an appropriate (adequate) causal link with the wrecking of the plaintiff’s vessel in
the fire.
Keywords
vessel on berth; fire on the vessel; liability for damages; decision of the court
Hrčak ID:
190234
URI
Publication date:
27.11.2017.
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