Opinion ID: 463733
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The detention charges

Text: 31 The district court found Goodpasture liable for $227,163.22 in detention charges resulting from its refusal to dock and load the Safina-e-Najam from October 21 until November 10, 1974. The district court reasoned that [s]ince defendant's actions alone contributed to the detention, defendant is liable for the resulting charges. We reverse on this claim because there is no more basis for any implied right of indemnification--under either a contract theory or a tort theory--on these detention charges than there was for such an implied right on the deadfreight claim, discussed above. 32 Goodpasture had no general duty to the shipowner to dock and load the Safina-e-Najam, and any particular duty Goodpasture may have had with respect to the grain ran to Yemen under the 1974 commodities contracts. If there was a duty under the grain sale contracts to dock the ship Yemen had chartered and to provide the grain that was to be loaded onto that ship, that duty ran to Yemen, not to the shipowner, and any breach of that duty was properly the subject of a contract action, not an indemnity action. Detention charges may be foreseeable consequential damages, and might have been, if proved, recoverable in a contract action brought by Yemen against Goodpasture. Such an action, however, was not commenced within the four-year statute of limitations period and is therefore barred. 33 Moreover, even if Yemen's claim for detention charges for delays in docking and loading the Safina-e-Najam were not time barred the district court clearly erred in finding that Goodpasture was solely responsible for those delays. The district court reasoned that defendant [Goodpasture] is responsible for the delay after presentation because it prevented the Safina-e-Najam from loading during the dispute over the carrying charges.... Since defendant's actions alone contributed to the detention, defendant is liable for the resulting charges. That conclusion, however, is not supported by any finding that Goodpasture's refusal to berth the ship breached any duty owed to Yemen or to the ship; moreover, it conflicts with other findings made by the district court. 34 Goodpasture could be held liable for the detention costs only if it had a duty to avoid the delay of the Safina-e-Najam between October 21 and November 10, 1974. While there may have been such a duty under the original contracts between Yemen and Goodpasture, Goodpasture's withholding of delivery because Yemen had failed to make the payment with unclaused bills of lading as required by the contract, is supported by U.C.C. Sec. 2-703(a). See N.Y.U.C.C. Sec. 2-703(a) (McKinney 1964). Yet this point was not addressed by the district court. 35 Furthermore, the district court's finding that the wheat was not contaminated prior to the loading of the Al Kulsum suggests that Goodpasture was justified in refusing to accept the claused bills of lading. Thus, the district court's lack of discussion of Goodpasture's right to delay the berthing of the Safina-e-Najam, together with its finding that implies that Goodpasture had such a right, undermines the district court's conclusion that Goodpasture was solely responsible for the detention.