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ARTICLE · 24 NOVEMBER 2011

Cable-Cutting – "A Very Stupid Thing"

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
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Marine Insurers may wish to take note of the conditions under which a crab fisherman was found liable, and uninsured, for an act of property damage.

CanadaTransport
Graham Walker
Graham Walker
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Marine Insurers may wish to take note of the conditions under which a crab fisherman was found liable, and uninsured, for an act of property damage.

"Réal Vallée is a good man; a decent man; an honest man - a fisherman. However he did a very stupid thing." So begins the judgment of Justice Harrington of the Federal Court of Canada in Société Telus Communications v. Peracomo Inc., the first Canadian decision interpreting article 4 of the Convention on the Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976 (LLMC). The LLMC, together with its 1996 Protocol, have the force of law in Canada pursuant to the Marine Liability Act.

Vallée was a snow crab fisherman in Québec. When the anchor of his crab cage got hooked onto an underwater cable stretching across the St. Lawrence River between Pointe au Père and Baie Comeau, Vallée, thinking (mistakenly) that the cable had been abandoned, hauled the cable out of the water and cut it with an electric saw, on two occasions, to

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