A day in the life of an HWL Ebsworth Maritime lawyer
I have been asked to do a note on any interesting cases which I conducted on behalf of Ebsworths’ clients. There were many. One which is worth recording is the “Cobargo”. In that case we were acting for RW Miller who had a contract with a Pioneer Concrete subsidiary to carry aggregate from the south coast to the Pioneer Concrete depot at Blackwattle Bay. To carry out this contract Millers chartered the ship “Cobargo” from Heathking Steamships.
The aggregate was mixed with cement at Blackwattle Bay and the concrete was then delivered to building sites all around Sydney. What went wrong was that the concrete did not set at the many sites and failed. Surveyors who were inspecting the damaged sites were puzzled to find a lot of bees present. One of them remembered that he had once been told that when a concrete mixer truck broke down the driver usually went as quick as he could to a nearby shop to buy sugar to put in his load to stop it setting. It was then realised that the failure of the concrete was probably due to sugar and investigation found that the “Cobargo” had previously carried sugar on a run from the north coast to the CSR factory at Pyrmont. It was confirmed that sugar had caused the problem.
Millers were sued by Pioneer for the damages they had to pay and we in turn cross-claimed against Heathking. The case against Millers was that they were in breach of their contract to safely carry the aggregate. We contended that a failure on the part of Heathking to properly clear the bilges had resulted in a residue of sugary water going into the aggregate and thus causing the losses. Our case was that the “Cobargo” was not in a fit and proper condition to carry the aggregate under the terms of the charterparty.
The case initially came before Justice Yeldham in the Supreme Court. The plaintiff succeeded against Millers and following an Appeal to the Privy Council which upheld a majority of Yeldham’s findings the damages payable by our client to Pioneer were passed on to Heathking.
I often wonder whether the real cause of the failure of the concrete would have been found if someone had not noticed the bees.
Written by Norman Lyall, Consultant
