Case: Glyn Mills Currie &amp; Co v The East and West India Dock Company (1882) 7 App Cas 591
Outcome: applied
Under the law merchant, an endorsement in blank of a negotiable instrument made out to order converts the instrument to a bearer instrument: Sewell v Burdick (1884) 10 App Cas 74 at 83 per Earl of Selborne LC, 92-93 per Lord Blackburn. In Lickbarrow v Mason (1794) 5 TR 683 at 686 the jury found that: '... by the custom of merchants, indorsements of bills of lading in blank, that is to say, by the shipper or shippers with their names only, have been, and are, and may be, filled up by the person or persons to whom they are so delivered or transmitted. ...' That custom has been accepted commercial practice since Lickbarrow v Mason 5 TR 683. The case established that a bill of lading was a transferable document of title: Glyn Mills Currie &amp; Co v The East and West India Dock Company (1882) 7 App Cas 591 at 604 per Lord Blackburn. In Scrutton on Charterparties and Bills of Lading (18 th ed, 1974) at 181 (20 th ed, 1996) at 184 the learned authors observed that a bill of lading endorsed in blank may pass from hand to hand by mere delivery so as to affect the property in the goods: see too Keppel Tatlee Bank Ltd v Bandung Shipping Pte Ltd [2003] 1 Lloyd's Rep 619 at 622 [18]-[20] (CA Singapore). 28 That argument is contrary to long settled principles of the law merchant and the express terms of the bill. In 1882 the great commercial lawyer, Lord Blackburn, said in Glyn Mills 7 App Cas at 604: 'And the very object of making the bill of lading in parts would be baffled unless the delivery of one part of the bill of lading, duly assigned, had the same effect as the delivery of all the parts would have had.' 29 His Lordship observed that he had never been able to learn why merchants and shipowners continued the practice of making out a bill of lading in parts. But, he said that so long as the practice continues it was of vast importance not to unsettle the principles which had already been settled: Glyn Mills 7 App Cas at 605. In that case, like this one, bills of lading were issued in a set of three. 30 Here, the bill of lading contained the time honoured clause recording that the master had signed three original bills of lading '... of this tenor and date, one of which being accomplished, the others will be void'. Hilditch was the holder for value of the bill of lading. It was a negotiable instrument. Hilditch was entitled to present the bill of lading to Dorval to enforce its right to delivery of its property, being the cargo referred to in that document of title. On delivery of the bill by Hilditch to Dorval, the bill of lading was, as it said, 'accomplished'. The other two originals became void. Dorval's argument has no substance. 31 I am of opinion that Hilditch became a lawful holder of the bill of lading for the purposes of the Sea-Carriage Documents Act . This is because it had come into possession of the bill, in good faith, as a result of completion, by delivery, of the bill which was endorsed in blank. The bill had become a bearer bill through it being endorsed in blank by SK. It had been transferred from SK by delivery to the Export-Import Bank of Korea, then to National Australia Bank and, ultimately, by a transfer of the bill, as a bearer bill, to Hilditch (see the Sea-Carriage Documents Act ; s 5 , definition of 'lawful holder', par (b)).