''The Diana Prosperity'' or ''Reardon Smith Line Ltd v Yngvar Hansen-Tangen and Sanko SS & Co Ltd'
[1976] 1 WLR 989
is a landmark

English contract law English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries ...

case. It heralded a new contextual approach to interpretation of contracts.

Facts

A charterparty described the ship to be chartered as "called Yard no 354 at Osaka". Osaka was the name of the yard responsible for building the ship, although the building was subcontracted to another yard, Oshima. The Osaka yard could not handle a tankship of that size. Both parties knew this. But the buyers, wanting to get out of the contract for another reason, argued that the ship did not correspond with the description under s 13 of the

Sale of Goods Act 1979 The Sale of Goods Act 1979c 54 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulated English contract law and UK commercial law in respect of goods that are sold and bought. The Act consolidated the original Sale of Goods Act 1893 ...

Judgment

The House of Lords held that the words used did not fall under s 13, because they were merely labelling which vessel was involved. In the course of the decision, Lord Wilberforce stated that in construing a contract, the Court must, The hull number and yard had no particular significance. The description needs to focus on the ''goods'' not excessively technical arguments.

Notes

References

*C Mitchell and P Mitchell (eds), ''

Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract ''Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract'' (2008) is a book by Charles Mitchell and Paul Mitchell, which outlines the key cases in English contract law. Content The cases discussed are, *'' Coggs v Barnard'' (1703) on bailment *''Pillans v Van ...

'' (2008) *Bishop, Beale and Furmston, ''Contract Cases and Materials'' (2008) 429, who give a useful analogy for this case, "if Furmston were to sell his cottage, 'known as Denning's Orchard' to Beale, would Beale be able to get out of the contract on the grounds that the cottage had never belonged to anyone called Denning and didn't have a single fruit tree in the grounds?" {{DEFAULTSORT:Reardon Smith Line Ltd v Yngvar Hansen-Tangen and Sanko SS and Co Ltd English contract case law English interpretation case law House of Lords cases 1976 in case law 1976 in British law

Facts

Judgment

See also

Notes

References