## Facts

- Shipowners chartered a vessel to charterers to carry, among other cargo, benzine (petrol) to Casablanca.
- During unloading, the charterers’ stevedores placed wooden boards across an opening as a temporary platform.
- Through the stevedores’ negligence, cargo-handling gear struck the boards and dislodged a plank, which fell into the hold.
- The arbitrator found the falling plank caused a spark in the hold, igniting petrol vapour and triggering a fire and explosion that destroyed the ship.
- The arbitrator also found that some damage from a falling plank was foreseeable, but the spark and resulting explosion were not reasonably foreseeable.
- The dispute proceeded as a case stated from arbitration to the Court of Appeal on whether the total loss was too remote.

## Issues

1. Whether, after negligence is established, damages are limited to harm that was reasonably foreseeable in type or extent.
2. Whether a defendant is liable for the entire loss where the damage is a direct consequence of the negligent act, despite an unforeseeable mechanism producing catastrophic harm.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal held the charterers liable for the full loss of the ship.
- The court treated foreseeability as relevant primarily to whether the conduct was negligent, not to the scope of recoverable damages once negligence and causation were found.
- Because the fire and explosion were found to be directly caused by the falling plank, and no independent intervening cause was identified, the loss was not too remote.

## Legal Principles

- In negligence, once a defendant’s act is negligent, the defendant is liable for all damage directly traceable to that act, even if the precise manner or extent of harm was not reasonably foreseeable.
- Foreseeability may inform whether conduct is negligent, but under the direct-consequence approach it does not restrict recovery for directly caused losses absent an independent intervening cause.
- Remoteness is determined by direct causal connection rather than reasonable foreseeability of the particular kind of damage.

## Conclusion

The court adopted a direct-consequence test for remoteness in negligence, allowing recovery for the ship’s total destruction because the loss followed directly from the negligent handling of the plank, notwithstanding the unforeseeable spark-and-explosion sequence.


In re Polemis, [1921] 3 K.B. 560 (Eng. C.A. 1921)