Mayhew Foods Limited v OCL (1984) 1 Lloyd's Rep 317

Bingham早期精彩判决，高明地distinguish了Captain v Far Eastern Steamship Co.

- Frozen chicken was shipped from a U.K. port, then discharged and stored for almost a week at Le Havre before being loaded on board another ship for carriage to Saudi Arabia.

Bingham J:
As Mr. Justice Devlin pointed out in Pyrene Co. Ltd. v. Scindia Navigation Co. Ltd., [1954] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 321 at pp. 329, the rights and liabilities under the rules attach to a contract or part of a contract.

As persuasive authority for this submission, Counsel relied on Captain v. Far Eastern Steamship Co., [1979] 1 Lloyd's Rep. 595, where a shipowner seeking to rely on the Hague Rules scheduled to the Canadian Carriage of Goods by Water Act was held disentitled to do so because the damage to the cargo had occurred during a lengthy period of storage ashore between two voyages. I do not, however, think that this decision gives much assistance, because the shipper there was told when the contract was made that there would be transhipment and there were separate bills of lading for the two legs of the journey. The present case is factually different. The answer to this problem is again to be found in the principle that the rights and liabilities under the rules attach to a contract.

It was said (by the carrier) that the interval of storage at Le Havre was not carriage by sea and so not covered by the rules. …The answer to this problem is again to be found in the principle that the rights and liabilities under the rules attach to a contract. …If, during that carriage, OCL chose to avail themselves of their contractual right to discharge, store and tranship, those were, in my judgment, operations "in relation to and in connection with the carriage of goods by sea in ships", to use the language of the Act, or were "within the contractual carriage", to use the language of cl. 21 (2) of the bill of lading conditions.

It would, I think, be surprising if OCL could, by carrying the goods to Le Havre and there storing the goods before transhipment, rid themselves of liabilities to which they would have been subject had they, as contemplated, shipped the goods at Southampton and carried them direct to Jeddah, the more so since Mayhew had no knowledge of any voyage to Le Havre. My conclusion is that the rules, having applied on shipment at Shoreham, remained continuously in force until discharge at Jeddah.