United Maritime Belgium N.V. ( Trustee of ) v. Unispeed Group Inc.
T-1452-92
Rouleau J.
27/1/97
19 pp.
Action to recover excessive freight charges paid by plaintiff to defendant for carriage of cargo by sea from Sorel, Quebec to Casablanca, Morocco-Transport of 1486 metric tons/2314 cubic metres of creosoted wood poles sold by Domtar to Office national de l'Énergie of Morocco-Price fixed at 85 DM per cubic meter-During loading, realization cargo occupied more space than anticipated-Defendant Unispeed demanded greater fee for completing contract, most of which plaintiff unable to recover from client, so now seeking to recover allegedly excessive freight charges on ground breach of agreement with defendant-Plaintiff alleging defendant SGS Supervision Services Inc., retained by plaintiff to measure space occupied by cargo, failed in duty to properly execute measuring mandate on behalf of plaintiff-Action allowed-Expert evidence adopted: when transporting bundles of poles, proper method to measure cubic metres and add approximately 30% for lost space between poles strapped in bundles-Only party offering price to carry goods can know stowage factor as only one knowing vessel to be chartered and dimensions thereof-Defendant Unispeed responsible for stowage plan-Should have known 40% of lost space in Hold 1 and 20% in Hold 2-Unispeed desperate for business and not sufficiently experienced to have undertaken carrying commitment in question-Defendant Unispeed wrongly assessed how much space wood poles would occupy-Error then compounded by fact had no idea which vessel would be used to carry cargo and therefore had no knowledge of structure or dimensions of vessel-Defendant SGS failed in duty to provide correct measurements-Plaintiff required to overpay defendant for carriage of poles as result of both incompetence of Unispeed and SGS' negligence in preparing report-Defendants therefore held jointly and severally liable for damages suffered by plaintiff ($130,674).