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

Heading: The deadfreight claim

Text: 25 The district court held Goodpasture liable for $25,876.49 in deadfreight charges incurred on the Safina-e-Najam because less grain was loaded than was called for by the charter party between Muhammadi and Yemen. Deadfreight is freight payable on cargo agreed by charterers to be shipped, but not actually shipped.    The space or deadweight capacity which the charterer has failed to use, but on which freight is nevertheless due, is regarded as being 'dead'. J. Bes, Chartering and Shipping Terms 36 (8th ed. 1972). 26 It is true that the deadfreight payment was made by Yemen to a third party, and that Yemen suffered no loss for deadfreight charges until it paid the arbitration settlement in February 1981. But Yemen's deadfreight claim still amounts to nothing more than a claim for consequential damages from Goodpasture's alleged breach of the 1974 grain sale contracts. 27 There is no basis in the present case for any right of indemnification running against Goodpasture to the benefit of Yemen. When, as here, there is no express agreement creating a right to indemnification, an implied right to indemnification can still be found in either of two sets of circumstances. Nye v. A/S/D/S Svendborg, 501 F.2d 376, 380 (2d Cir.1974). In one, an implied right to indemnification may be based on the special nature of a contractual relationship between parties. See, e.g., Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 133-34, 76 S.Ct. 232, 237-38, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956). This has been called an implied contract theory of indemnity, Araujo v. Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket S.S. Authority, 693 F.2d 1, 2 (1st Cir.1982), or an implied in fact indemnity, Nye, 501 F.2d at 380. A second set of circumstances in which indemnity may be found has been called implied in law indemnity. Id. This is a tort-based right to indemnification found when there is a great disparity in the fault of two tortfeasors, and one of the tortfeasors has paid for a loss that was primarily the responsibility of the other. Zapico v. Bucyrus-Erie Co., 579 F.2d 714, 718 (2d Cir.1978); W. Prosser, Law of Torts Sec. 51 (4th ed. 1971). 28 In the present case there is nothing special about the contractual relationship between Goodpasture and Yemen that would warrant implying in fact a contract for indemnification. Their grain sale agreements were fairly ordinary commodities contracts. There simply is nothing in them or in the parties' dealings from which an agreement to indemnify could fairly be implied. Zapico, 579 F.2d at 719. If an implied contract for indemnification were to be found here, one would have to be found in nearly every commodities sale contract that lacked a clause excluding it, a result that would reverse all standard contract and indemnity law. We therefore conclude there could be no implied contract for indemnity in this case. 29 Neither is there any reason in this case to impose a tort-based right to indemnification. Tort-based indemnification, or implied in law indemnity, is designed to allocate the cost of negligence to the joint tortfeasor primarily responsible. Galimi v. Jetco, Inc., 514 F.2d 949, 952 (2d Cir.1975); Nye, 501 F.2d at 380. Application of this theory is warranted, therefore, when the proposed indemnitor has breached a duty to a third party but the proposed indemnitee has paid the third party for the loss attributable to that breach. In the present case Yemen had to pay the deadfreight claim to Muhammadi because in its charter party Yemen had agreed to make such a payment. Goodpasture had no contract with Muhammadi and Goodpasture's duties to Yemen arose out of their contracts, none of which required Goodpasture to indemnify Yemen for deadfreight charges. 30 Goodpasture's contracts with Yemen required it to supply Yemen with a specific quantity of grain. Goodpasture had no duty to supply the shipowner with grain. When less grain was loaded on the Safina-e-Najam than was anticipated in the charter party between Yemen and Muhammadi, Yemen may have breached its duty to Muhammadi. Goodpasture's obligations, however, are measured not by Yemen's charter party with Muhammadi, but by Yemen's contract with Goodpasture. If the deadfreight charges were foreseeable consequential damages from breach of the Yemen-Goodpasture contract, they would be recoverable, if at all, in an action for breach of that contract. Such an action, however, would be subject to New York's four-year statute of limitations, and therefore time barred as of November 1978.