This was an application for leave to appeal from a decision of Judge Simpkiss sitting in Canterbury County Court (Collins v Lawrence [2017] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 13 (Canterbury County Court) (CMI67)). The relevant facts were that on 14 November 2010 the applicant went on a fishing trip off the coast of Kent on the fishing boat the Gary Ann owned by the respondent. In order to disembark, the usual practice was to winch the boat up the shingle beach and then use freestanding steps to climb down to the beach. The applicant's case at trial was that, when he descended the steps, he stood on a wooden board that had been placed at the bottom of the steps and lost his balance. He suffered injury to his leg as a result.

Court proceedings were issued on 25 September 2013. If the Athens Convention 1974 applied to the claim, it was time barred, as the limitation period for personal injury claims under the Athens Convention is two years. The judge found that, when the claimant slipped on the wooden board at the foot of the steps, disembarkation was not complete, the Athens Convention accordingly applied, and the claim was time barred.

The applicant’s sole ground of appeal was that the judge was wrong to have found that he had not disembarked from the boat when the accident occurred. Article 3.1 provides that the carrier shall be liable for personal injury to a passenger if the incident which caused the damage occurred in the ‘course of carriage’. Carriage is defined in art 1.8.a, which provides that carriage includes ‘the course of embarkation an disembarkation’ but not the period during which a passenger is ‘in a marine terminal or station or on a quay or in or on any other port installation'.

The trial judge reasoned that, if a board had been placed on the shingle at the foot of the steps (which he found there was), it must have been placed there as part of the disembarkation equipment ‘i.e. to aid the person to disembarkation down the steps onto the shingle. This means that … the accident occurred while the claimant was disembarking from the Gary Ann and that the Athens Convention applied’ [42].

Held: The judge was correct that disembarkation was not complete until the claimant was ashore which in this case means being on the shingle beach. The process of disembarkation covers the whole period of moving from the vessel to a safe place on the shore. While a person is still using equipment which facilitates disembarkation, such as the steps and board in this case, they are still in the process of disembarkation.

It makes sense for the carrier to be responsible for overseeing the way in which people leave a vessel. It is the carrier’s decision to use the steps and if they are not safe, it is the carrier’s responsibility to find an alternative method of disembarkation.

Leave to appeal refused. Although the issue raised is potentially of some importance and concerns a novel point of law, his Honour considered that an appeal had no real prospect of success and there was no other compelling reason for an appeal.