D Gerardo and Da Maria Antonieta (the plaintiffs), owners of the fishing vessel X, claimed for damage against D Marco Antonio, owner of the vessel Y, and its insurance company, Mutua de Riesgo Maritimo, Compania de Seguros a Prima Fija. The MV X sank after a negligent berthing manoeuvre of the MV Y.

The first instance Court partially admitted the claim and ordered the defendants to pay compensation. Both parties appealed the decision and it was reversed, dismissing the claim. The Court of Appeal determined that a collision required physical contact between the vessels. According to an expert witness report, the cause of the sinking was a crack produced by pressure on the wooden hull of the MV X when the MV Y was engaged in berthing manoeuvres alongside it. The plaintiffs recurred this decision in cassation before the Tribunal Supremo/Supreme Court (SC). They argued that the Court of Appeal ignored the previous case law that had established the application of collision rules to cases where there was no direct contact between vessels.

Held: The SC reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision. The SC stated that art 13 of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law with respect to Collisions between Vessels 1910 (Collision Convention 1910) extended its rules to claims for damage caused by one ship to another, even if there was no direct contact. Although this Convention was not applicable in this case, the rules of integration of lacunae (gap-filling) in Spanish law would fully justify the application of the collision rules to damage caused by one vessel to another as a result of an incorrect manoeuvre in navigation, even if there had not been contact between them. However, this argument did not meet the standard for cassation and the SC reversed the decision on other grounds.