The plaintiff owners of the Cavendish claimed damages from the Port of London Authority (PLA) after their vessel struck the Sunk Head Tower or Buoy in the Thames while under the guidance of a compulsory PLA pilot. It was assumed for the preliminary issue that the collision was caused by the pilot's negligence. The plaintiffs argued that the PLA was vicariously liable in tort, owed a contractual duty to provide competent pilotage, and that s 16 of the Pilotage Act 1987 (UK) (the Act) did not preclude their claim.

Held: The plaintiffs' claims were dismissed.

The Court determined that the PLA was not vicariously liable, that no contractual relationship existed beyond assisting the shipowners in fulfilling their statutory duty to take a pilot, and that under s 16 of the Act, liability for the pilot's negligence rested with the shipowner, not the PLA.

If the drafter had intended to provide for a new duty upon a pilotage authority, it would have done so in clear and unequivocal terms. As Lord Loreburn put it, after referring to the original status of a pilot, in a passage which was quoted by Lord Jauncey and which I have already set out: 'if it had been intended to alter this old and familiar status, it is to be supposed that the legislature would have done it more explicitly.'

That sentiment applies equally here.The duties which are now expressed in s 2 of the Act in essence give statutory definition to duties which were in practice assumed by pilotage authorities under the earlier legislation.

The purport and effect of s 2 of the Act was not to impose duties upon competent authorities to pilot ships but to require them to supply properly authorised pilots for ships. Its duty was, in short, not significantly different from the duty which the Privy Council held was the duty of the government of Queensland in Fowles v Eastern & Australian Steamship Co Ltd [1916] 2 AC 556. The PLA is not vicariously liable in tort for the negligence of the pilot on board the Cavendish.