RAMJIBAN SEROWGEE Vs. NIPPON YUSEN KAISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs sue to recover Rs. 54,000 by way of damages and for other reliefs in the following circumstances. The plaintiffs are gunny brokers; defendant 1 company, to which I shall refer as the Export Company, is a company which carried on the business of dealers and exporters of gunnies; and defendant 2 company is a Japanese Steamship Company by which defendant 1 company used to ship their goods. Defendants 3, 4 and 5 are companies owning jute mills which produce the goods in which the plaintiffs and defendant 1 company deal. They were added as defendants after the suit was filed but no relief was claimed against them and at the commencement of the hearing Mr. Banerji on behalf of the plaintiffs agreed that as against them the suit should be dismissed, which was accordingly done. These companies appear to have been added as ornamental parties to borrow Vice-Chancellor Bacon's picturesque expression.

(2.) The early stages of the matter with which this suit is concerned have not been made as clear as I should have been glad to have had them made, if only for the purpose of a complete and accurate account of the whole matter. Generally however they followed the usual course of events in such dealings and when the point is reached where details become important nothing has been omitted.

(3.) Early in the mon May, 1926, the plaintiffs as brokers entered into contracts on behalf of themselves as undisclosed principals with the Export Company for the sale of a large quantity of gunnies. At the same time they entered into similar contracts with several jute mill companies for the purchase of goods with which to implement their contract with the Export Company. Among the latter were contracts with the three defendant jute mill companies. I have not seen all the contracts and I am unaware of the total amount of each. These details are however of no account, and for the form of the contract, which it is common ground was the same in every case, both as regards the sale by the plaintiffs to the Export Company and the purchase by them from the jute mill companies, there has been exhibited a sold note dated 4 May 1926, expressing the terms on which the plaintiffs bought from the Kensington Jute Mills Co. Ltd.; certain clauses in that note relating to payment and delivery will have to be considered, but other details may be ignored. This suit relates to 75 bales bought from the Kensington Jute Mills Co. Ltd., 75 bales bought from the Dalhousie Jute Co. Ltd., and 100 bales bought from the Auckland Jute Co. Ltd., which were to be shipped by two steamers, the Moji Maru and the Hakata Maru. The Export Company duly sent to the plaintiffs shipping instructions accordingly, and the plaintiffs-passed them on to their sellers. A complete record of subsequent events, as to which there is no dispute is to be found in an admitted statement, in columnar form, which has bean prepared and exhibited. To attempt to state such a record at length would sacrifice its lucidity, and I therefore reproduce it, though after discarding a few details which are not necessary for the purposes of this judgment. The essential dates appear from the following table: