The appellant sued the respondent for EUR 251,449 on a cargo claim. The Court of first instance held that the claim was time-barred. The appellant appealed to the Provincial Court.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

It is worth starting with the applicability of the Hague-Visby Rules to the case. The new Law on Maritime Navigation (the LNM) does not apply, since the facts that give rise to the claim correspond to transport carried out prior to its entry into force in 2014. However, the port of origin (Xingang, in China: see the judgment of the Supreme Court No 1021/2005, of 30 December; art 24 of the Law of 22 December 1949 (the LTM)), plus the agreement of the parties on the applicability of the Rules, together with the existence of the paramount clause in the bill of lading, exclude any controversy on this matter. This prevents the appellant from trying to alter its approach, with references to regulations on land transport, or others (eg the Law on mediation in civil and commercial matters).

Based on the foregoing, the term of one year established by the applicable regulations for the exercise of the action (art 3.6 of the Hague-Visby Rules and art 22 of the LTM) is an expiration term. This is the result of the judgments of the Supreme Court No 990/2008, of 7 November; No 348/2011, of 26 May 26; and No 437/2016, of 29 June. As an expiration period, it is not susceptible to interruption or suspension (see eg judgments of the Supreme Court No 990/2008, of 7 November; and No 495/2020, of 28 September). Thus, Judgment No 370/2018, of 29 October, of the 1st Section of the Provincial Court of Pontevedra affirms:

Assuming that expiration, as a requirement of legal certainty, does not allow interruption, extrajudicial communications between the parties will not be relevant, especially those taken into consideration in the judgment to analyse the interruption of the limitation period. Nor can expiration be interrupted by the filing of a conciliation act, because although in the old jurisprudence such a possibility was admitted on the basis of the legal requirement of the filing of a conciliation act as an imperative procedural action prior to a demand, from the suppression of this requirement after the procedural reform of 1984, the jurisprudence rejected that possibility (vid. STS 14.2.1986, among others).

The appellant's claim alludes to the dates of unloading the three containers, the discovery of the discrepancy in the cargo, and finally its destruction at the request of the appellant. The last of these dates was 2 October 2014. Since the appellant's lawsuit was filed on 23 June 2016, the assessment of expiration made by the trial Judge is correct.

It should also be remembered that the limitations provided for in the Hague-Visby Rules are applicable in the case of actions related to loss of cargo that is the object of the transport contract, whether that action is based on contractual liability or extra-contractual liability (art 4 bis).