This was an appeal in cassation against the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal, 27 September 2010. Florence X was on board the yacht Chrisflo belonging to her husband when she was the victim of an accident caused by the sudden passage of the boom. Mr X declared the incident to his liability insurer, Générali IARD. Ms X sued the insurer and the Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie de Seine-et-Marne (CPAM) for compensation for her injuries. The insurer opposed her claim by invoking the limitation of liability applicable to the shipowner. The Court of Appeal held that the insurer was entitled to limit its liability to 166,500 SDRs.

Ms X and the CPAM appealed on the basis that art 58 of the Law of 3 January 1967, which allows the owner of a ship to limit its liability if the damage is directly related to its use, only applies to ships, that is to say vessels which are usually engaged in maritime navigation, which cannot be the case with a pleasure yacht. By granting the limitation of liability invoked by the insurer on the basis of art 58, without investigating whether the provision was applicable to a yacht, the Court of Appeal deprived its decision of a legal basis with regard to the aforementioned provision, now art L 5121-3 of the Transport Code.

The rules specific to maritime insurance contracts are not applicable to contracts intended to cover the risks relating to pleasure boating, which remain subject to the general provisions of insurance law. In the present case, under the terms of the contract 'Multigaranties Navigation de Plaisance', the insurer guaranteed risks relating to the navigation of a pleasure sailboat on the basis of the general rules of insurance law without ever mentioning rules specific to maritime law. By authorising the insurer to avail itself of provisions specific to maritime insurance, the Court of Appeal violated art L 171-5 of the Insurance Code.

Held: Cassation.

The limitation of liability provided for by art 58 of the Law of 3 January 1967, now art L 5121-3 of the Transport Code, is applicable to pleasure craft. Article L 171-5 of the Insurance Code provides that art L 124-3 of the same Code relating to the direct action of victims in yachting accidents does not preclude the application of the rules concerning the allocation of insurance compensation to the constitution of a limitation fund, as provided for in arts L 173-23 and L 173-24 of the Insurance Code. It follows from the combination of these privisions that the rules specific to maritime insurance contracts concerning the allocation of insurance compensation to the constitution of the limitation fund are applicable to contracts intended to cover the relative risks of pleasure boating once this limitation fund is constituted.

However, in this case, the Court of Appeal did not investigate whether the owner of the vessel had limited his own liability by constituting a limitation fund. Since the insurer is not among the persons benefiting from the limitation of liability provided for in the aforementioned articles, it can only benefit from it on this condition. The Court of Appeal thus did not give a legal basis to its decision.

For these reasons, the whole judgment delivered on 27 September 2010 between the parties by the Paris Court of Appeal is struck down and annulled. The case and the parties are returned to the position where they were before the aforementioned judgment, and the case is referred back to the Paris Court of Appeal, differently constituted, to be decided correctly.