Paper by Daniel J. Dougherty
This paper is written for the 1980's, an era when owners and operators of merchant ships have experienced serious financial troubles. Hopefully these problems will wane in the next decades.
The economic climate for shipping in the 1980's is not favorable. The 1984 Annual Review of one of the leading protection and indemnity [P & I] clubs in London reads in its opening paragraph:
A year ago, I mentioned in my report that I was hopeful of an early improvement in the shipping market and by 1984 the worst would be behind us. Sadly, my hopes have not materialised and it would seem that we shall have to wait still further for the long awaited upturn in business.
Both in the United States and in other countries, litigation is on the upswing.
P & I clubs have been organized in Japan, Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Bermuda, Norway, the United States, and, of course, England. Since London is the center of marine insurance and the development of the P & I club system, and since this Tulane Admiralty Law Institute Symposium is being presented in the United States, this paper is oriented toward the problems existing under English and American marine insurance and law.
Permit me to postulate the following sequence of events. Although hypothetical in the context of this paper, this sequence is common in today's world of shipping and insurance. Moreover, it is broad enough to allow an ample discussion of the problems of the 1980's and to permit the writer to range somewhat in that endeavor. A price must be paid nevertheless: the hypothetical is so broad that it will admit of no single answer to the problems it generates. This was my studied choice. This may be the first paper of this nature to address these issues. Any attempt to pontificate in the direction of offering unqualified answers would soon come to grief on the real facts.
About the Author
Daniel J. Dougherty. Partner, law firm of Kirlin, Campbell & Keating, New York City. B.S. 1950, Fordham University; LL.B. 1953, St. John's University.
Citation
59 Tul. L. Rev. 1466 (1985)