LOSS OF LIFE AT SEA.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1791, 2 July 1913, Page 7

LOSS OF LIFE AT SEA.

SHIPOWNERS' LIABILITIES. ECHO OF TITANIC DISASTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) London, June 30. In connection with ithe actions for damages brought by relatives of some of those who lost their lives in the Titanic disaster, the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice has ruled against the Oceanic Company on a reserved poiat of law: Whether the oompany could be absolved from liability by a condition attached to tho back 6f a passenger's ticket nullifying the contract printed on the front of the ticket ensuring to passengers compensation through negligence by the company's servants. Shipping companies trading in New Zealand waters under the shipping and Seamen Act are liable, where such liability is proved, for loss of life up to JEB per ton. In other words, if 500 passengers lost, their lives on a ship of 1000 tons, and claims were made and upheld by the survivors, .the company would be liable to the extent of .£BOOO. All the same, the shipping companies, on their tickets, the conditions of which the passenger has to sign and agree to, disclaim responsibility and liability for tho persons of the passengers for the consequences of "tho act of trod, perils and accidents of tho seas or rivers or machinery, boilers, or steam navigation; or other accidents, whether of a like nature or otherwise, or,of default or error of judgment or negligence of pilot, master mariners, engineers, stevedores, servants, or others employed by the company, whether, in the nav.igation or management of iihe steamer or otherwise. , f ."