LIABILITY OF SHIPPING COMPANIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2363, 2 December 1908, Page 4

LIABILITY OF SHIPPING COMPANIES.

CARRIAGE OF GLASS. . COMPANIES JiKLD LIABLE FOR DAMAGE. [Press Association.] .. DUNEDIN, Dec. 1. At the Magistrate’s Court to-day, Mr. Hutchison, S.M., .gave judgment in the ease Andrew Lees and Henry Brooks and Co. v. the>New Zealand Shipping Co. The taction was brought as a test case to ascertain whether certain stipulations in the bill of lading exempting shipping companies from liability for damaged cargo in transit would hold good in view of the statute law of New Zealand contained in section 30 of the Shipping and ♦Seamen’s Act of 1003, which provides that (any' such stipulation shall be null and void unless the Court holds it just and reasonable. The .amount claimed was £4 19s, the sum clue on the damaged part of a shipment of glass consigned from Antwerp by Brooks and Co. to Andrew Lees, of Dunedin, which arrived by the s.s. Itakaia. The defendant-company ad'mitted -the facts, _ and relied on tho conditions in the hill of lading to relieve them of legal liability. There was a stipulation in the hilt of lading that all articles of glass or containing .glass were to he taken lit shipper’s risk. -The question-was whether this stipulation was valid in- law. . Judgment was .given for plaintiffs for the amount claimed. Leave to (appeal was granted.