This was an appeal from Holyhead Marina Ltd v Farrer [2020] EWHC 1750 (Admlty) (CMI870), where Teare J had to decide whether Holyhead Marina Ltd (Holyhead), the owner of Holyhead Marina, could limit its liability as a dock owner for storm damage to 89 leisure craft moored at the Marina.

Section 191 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 (UK) (the Act) provides:

1. This section applies in relation to the following authorities and persons, that is to say, a harbour authority, a conservancy authority and the owners of any dock or canal.
2. The liability of any authority or person to which this section applies for any loss or damage caused to any ship, or to any goods, merchandise or other things whatsoever on board any ship shall be limited in accordance with subsection (5) below by reference to the tonnage of the largest United Kingdom ship which, at the time of the loss or damage is, or within the preceding five years has been, within the area over which the authority or person discharges any functions.
3. The limitation of liability under this section relates to the whole of any losses and damages which may arise on any one distinct occasion, although such losses and damages may be sustained by more than one person, and shall apply whether the liability arises at common law or under any general or local or private Act, and notwithstanding anything contained in such an Act.
4. This section does not exclude the liability of an authority or person to which it applies for any loss or damage resulting from any such personal act or omission of the authority or person as is mentioned in Article 4 of the Convention set out in Part 1 of Schedule 7 [ie the LLMC 1996].
5. The limit of liability shall be ascertained by applying to the ship by reference to which the liability is to be determined the method of calculation specified in paragraph 1(b) of Article 6 of the Convention set out in Part I of Schedule 7 read with paragraph 5(1) and (2) of Part II of that Schedule.
6. Articles 11 and 12 of that Convention and paragraphs 8 and 9 of Part II of that Schedule shall apply for the purposes of this section.
7. For the purposes of subsection (2) above a ship shall not be treated as having been within the area over which a harbour authority or conservancy authority discharges any functions by reason only that it has been built or fitted out within the area, or that it has taken shelter within or passed through the area on a voyage between two places both situated outside that area, or that it has loaded or unloaded mails or passengers with the area.
8. Nothing in this section imposes any liability for any loss or damage where no liability exists apart from this section.
9. In this section - 'dock' includes wet docks and basins, tidal docks and basins, locks, cuts, entrances, dry docks, graving docks, gridirons, slips, quays, wharves, piers, stages, landing places and jetties; and 'owners of any dock or canal' includes any authority or person having the control or management of any dock or canal, as the case may be.

Teare J held that the limitation right granted to dock owners under s 191 of the Act should not be restricted to damage caused to commercial vessels, as opposed to leisure craft. The extent of the right to limit could only be assessed by examining the ordinary and natural meaning of the structures included within the statutory meaning of 'dock'. Dock owners had secured a right to limit in very wide terms in their own interests, not in the interests of shipowners or of international trade, and there were no words in the Act which restricted the right to limit to dock owners to the extent that they assisted commercial shipping. The ships may have to be 'used in navigation' or 'intended for use in navigation' (see s 331 of the Act and Pt II para 12 of Sch 7 of the Act, which provides that '[r]eferences in the Convention and in the preceding provisions of this Part of this Schedule to a ship include references to any structure (whether completed or in course of completion) launched and intended for use in navigation as a ship or part of a ship'), but they need not be 'seagoing' (see Pt II para 2 of Sch 7 of the Act, which provides that 'the right to limit liability under the Convention shall apply in relation to any ship whether seagoing or not, and the definition of "shipowner" in paragraph 2 of article 1 shall be construed accordingly').

The Judge held that although the Marina was not 'a dock within the ordinary meaning of that word' in the context of s 191 of the Act, the individual pontoons which made up the Marina were within the statutory definition of a 'dock', being landing places, jetties or stages. Holyhead was therefore entitled to limit its liability to 500,000 SDRs, equating to about GBP 550,000.

The leisure craft owners appealed, arguing that the Judge was wrong to take into account the fact that pleasure craft as well as commercial ships were entitled to limit their liability, when the owners' argument was that the types of structure listed in s 191(9) of the Act were all for use by commercial or passenger shipping and not, like marinas, for the mooring of pleasure craft. Marinas, pontoons and moorings were not structures that would have fallen within the definition of a 'dock' when the dock owner's right to limit liability was introduced in the predecessor of the Act, the Merchant Shipping (Liability of Shipowners and Others) Act 1900 (the 1900 Act). The s 191(9) definition was not changed to include marinas, pontoons and moorings when the Act came into effect in 1995.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

The Court agreed with Teare J's reasoning, and went further, finding that terms as general as 'landing place', 'stage', or 'jetty' should not be construed so narrowly as to exclude either a collection of pontoons joined together to form a marina, or indeed the marina itself. The Court held that the Marina as a whole was a landing place, even though the many constituent pontoons themselves making it up were also landing places. Section 191(3) of the Act makes it clear that the limitation of liability 'relates to the whole of any losses and damages which may arise on any one distinct occasion'. That limitation of liability applies to the whole Marina, rather than to the constituent parts of the structure (here, the individual pontoons) simply because both the parts and the whole can properly be described as, for example, a landing place.

The owners submitted that the LLMC, which is aimed at encouraging international trade (see CMA CGM SA v Classica Shipping Co Ltd (The CMA Djakarta) [2004] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 460) (CMI728), was relevant to the interpretation of s 191 of the Act. But the 1900 Act significantly predated the Convention. It is thus hard to see how the Convention can inform the interpretation of s 2(4) of the 1900 Act, which was re-enacted without substantive change in s 191 of the Act. Moreover, the Convention addressed shipowners and salvors so, while s 191 of the Act was a bargain implemented to facilitate the limitation of liability of shipowners, it was not required by the Convention. Section 191 of the Act was a compromise between the two chief interests of dock owners and shipowners, with no suggestion that leisure craft owners were excluded from the latter category.