Barratry (admiralty law)

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For other uses, including other legal terms, see Barratry.

In

shipowner
.

As barratry is considered misconduct against the shipowner (or

contract of carriage to receive compensation.[1]

Description

Barratry is defined in the Marine Insurance Act 1906 as "every wrongful act wilfully committed by the master or crew to the prejudice of the owner, or, as the case may be, the charterer"[2] and thus usually considered a crime against the ship's owner. Therefore, if the owner himself chooses to wreck the ship, no crime is committed, as the owner has simply destroyed his own property. However, his actions can constitute a crime against any other owners of the ship.[3] Harm to the crew can constitute barratry regardless of who damages the vessel.[4][5] Throughout the 19th century, US courts struggled to define and understand the law of barratry. Courts have since concluded that negligence alone is not sufficient to qualify as barratry; rather, there must be an intentional act and an intent to defraud.[3] Similarly, deviating from the assigned course does not itself constitute barratry.[5]

Barratry differs from the crime of mutiny in which the crew disobeys the captain of the ship in that in the former case, the crew remains loyal to the captain, who disobeys the owner of the ship.[citation needed]

Case law

The

US Supreme Court case Patapsco Insurance Company v. Coulter explored the meaning of barratry in detail.[6] In that case, a ship was provisioned to sail to Gibraltar to sell flour, the profits of which were to have been used to purchase goods in Marseille. However, at Gibraltar, a fire started aboard ship and destroying it and the cargo inside. The plaintiffs argued that the crew could have saved the ship but failed to do so. The court ruled that failure to extinguish a fire, even if negligent, does not constitute barratry. Fire was ruled the cause of the cargo's destruction, not barratry, and the insurance company was required to pay.[6]

National Union Fire Insurance Co. v. Republic of China et al. considered how the law of barratry applies during periods of

People's Republic of China. Although the Republic of China's insurance policy excluded losses from civil war, insurrection, or mutiny, it covered barratry. The court ruled that the ships had been lost to barratry, not mutiny, since the captains themselves had ordered their crews to hoist the flag of Communist China.[citation needed
]

Penalties

Until 1888, barratry was a

death penalty for barratry was abolished three years later.[8]

Barratry in fiction

  • In Tom Clancy's 1984 novel The Hunt for Red October, the character Admiral Foster remarks that the apparent theft of the eponymous Soviet submarine Red October by Captain Marko Ramius and his officers with the intention of defecting with the submarine to the United States, constitutes barratry, and not mutiny.
  • In the 1964 movie The Chalk Garden actress Hayley Mills says to a potential governess, “Maitland (the butler, played by her father, the actor John Mills) could [burn the house down one day], but he won't. He's a pyromaniac himself. Did seven years for barratry ...arson at sea".

References

  1. ^ Modern Maritime Law - Alexa Mandaraka-Shappard
  2. ^ "Marine Insurance Act 1906". Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b Robert Morton Hughes (1901). Handbook of admiralty law. West Publishing Company. p. 72. Retrieved December 14, 2011. barratry admiralty law.
  4. ^ "Understanding Barratry". Williams Kherker. Archived from the original on 2011-10-30. Retrieved December 14, 2011.
  5. ^ a b Nicholas Baylies; Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins; John Ilderton Burn (1814). A digested index to the modern reports, of the courts of common law, in England (1689–1809) and the United States (1799–1812). proprietors. pp. 227–228. Retrieved March 2, 2012. barratry ship.
  6. ^
    United States Supreme Court
    1830).
  7. ISBN 9780521463713
    . Retrieved March 19, 2012.,
  8. Slate.com
    . Retrieved December 6, 2011.
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