La Suiza Compañía Anónima de Seguro Generales, SA (the plaintiff), an insurance company acting under an assignment of right, claimed against the carrier, Naviera Barcelonesa SA, for damage to a cargo of mohair bales carried from Istanbul, Türkiye, to Barcelona, Spain.

The defendant alleged limitation of action based on an application of the Civil Code (CC). Article 952 of the CC provides for a one-year time bar from the date of the delivery and states that any action cannot be brought if notification of damage or protest is not filed at the moment of the receipt of the cargo or within the following 24 hours when the damage is not apparent. The plaintiff did not submit a protest within that period. The first instance Court admitted the defence and declared the claim time-barred. This decision was affirmed on appeal. The Court of Appeal (CA) noted that the bill of lading provided for the application of the Hague Rules if the country where the cargo was loaded was a State Party of that Convention; if not, the corresponding legislation of the country of destination must apply. As there was no evidence that Türkiye had ratified the Hague Rules, the CA concurred with the first instance Court that the Spanish CC must be applied to the case. The damage to the mohair bales was caused by water, a condition that was evident at the moment of its receipt. The lack of a protest in due time prevented the possibility to bring process against the carrier. The plaintiff recurred the decision on Cassation before the Tribunal Supremo/Supreme Court (SC).

Held: The SC affirmed the CA decision.

The plaintiff argued that there was an error in the interpretation of the clause, alleging that the expression ordering the application of 'the corresponding legislation of the country of destination' refers to the law that incorporated the Hague Rules in that country, preventing the application of the CC. The SC rejected the argument. The SC agreed with the lower Court that there was no evidence that Türkiye had ratified the Hague Rules. Therefore, the applicable law was the CC. The Law on Carriage of Goods by Sea of 22 December 1949 (LCGS 1949), which introduced the Hague Rules into the Spanish legal system with some modifications, could not be applied because it only applies when the bill of lading has been issued in a country that has ratified the Convention (art 10 of the Hague Rules). The plaintiff’s construction that the Hague Rules must apply exclusively did not match the parameters of differentiation between one or other legislation indicated in that clause. Furthermore, the 'corresponding legislation' contained in the clause refers to all national legislation into force in Spain. That means the CC as well as the LCGS 1949. However, art 24 of the LCGS 1949 states that the provisions of this law shall be applicable, solely and exclusively, to carriage between nations that have ratified the Convention. As there was no evidence of ratification by Türkiye, this provision made the Hague Rules inapplicable to this case. Therefore, although the claimant notified the damage to the carrier within the three days after reception, such notification fell outside the period stated in art 952 of the CC, and the claim was therefore time-barred.