The claimant was a GP working in Deal, Kent. On 14 November 2010 he went sea fishing with a group of fishermen in a boat called Gary Ann, owned by the defendant. The weather was wet and the fishermen returned early. In order to disembark, the practice was to winch the boat up onto the beach and then the occupants would then step from the boat onto freestanding steps which led down to the shingle. When the claimant stepped onto the shingle, he slipped and fell. He over-flexed his knee joint and ruptured his quadriceps tendon which had to be repaired by surgery. The claimant said the accident was caused by him stepping onto a large plywood board placed at the bottom of the steps which was wet because of the weather conditions. He claimed damages for personal injury for negligence and breach of the common law duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957.

The defendant denied there was any board placed at the foot of the steps and said the claimant slipped on the shingle and denied liability. In the alternative, if there was a board, the defendant still denied liability and said there was an additional defence that the claim was governed by the Athens Convention which provides for a two year limitation period. It was common ground that if the Athens Convention applied, the limitation period had expired before the claim was brought and there was no provision extending time.

Held: The defendant was in breach of his duty of care to the claimant and that this caused the accident and injury. The Athens Convention applies to domestic UK vessel trips. Where the Athens Convention applies it provides the claimant’s exclusive cause of action and sole remedy for alleged personal injury suffered. (South West Strategic Health Authority v Bay Island Voyages [2015] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 652 CMI33).

The claimant accepted that the Athens Convention applied to the trip but said that it did not apply to the time the accident occurred as it happened outside the course of carriage. Art 1.8 provides that carriage covers ‘the period during which the passenger and his cabin luggage are on board the ship or in the course of embarkation or disembarkation’.

There is no authority (English or international) on the meaning of disembarkation under the Athens Convention. Nonetheless, the judge held that disembarkation was not completed until the claimant was established safely on the shingle beach. The method of disembarkation was by steps leading to the shingle. If a board had been placed on the shingle at the foot of the steps (as the judge found it was) then it must have been placed there as part of the disembarkation equipment. This means the accident occurred while the claimant was disembarking from Gary Ann and the Athens Convention applied. The claim was therefore time barred by the 2 year limitation provision in art 16.