Page:Halsbury Laws of England v1 1907.pdf/328

This page needs to be proofread.

Admiralty.

106

as in actions in other branches of the High Court, after leave for its issue has been obtained from a judge of the Admiralty Division (p). Service out of the jurisdiction of a writ of summons or notice of a writ of summons may be allowed on the grounds prescribed by the Where person Kules of the Supreme Court (q). The only provision which needs out of the jurisdiction to be referred to here in relation to the procedure and practice in a necessary Admiralty actions is that which in terms allows of the issue of writs and proper for service out of the jurisdiction, or notice of which is to be given party. out of the jurisdiction, whenever any person out of the jurisdiction is a necessary or proper party to an action properly brought against some other person duly served within the jurisdiction (r). Thus where salvage services had been rendered to a British ship, laden with cargo belonging to foreign owners resident abroad, and the salvors instituted an action of salvage in personam against the owners of the salved ship and her freight and the owners of her cargo, the Court refused to set aside the notice of the service of the writ on the foreign cargo owners, on the ground that the foreign cargo owners were proper parties to the action properly brought against the shipowners for the recovery of the salvage due for salving the ship and freight (s). And where a collision occurred out of the territorial jurisdiction of the Court between a British vessel and a foreign vessel at the time of the collision in tow of a British steam-tug, and the owners of the British vessel brought an action of damage in personam against the owners of the steam-tug and the owners of the foreign vessel, and duly served the writ of summons in the action on the owners of the steam-tug and obtained leave to serve and duly served notice of a concurrent writ of summons on the owners of the foreign vessel out of the jurisdiction, the service abroad of the notice of the concurrent writ was not set aside {t) Sect.

2.

Actions in personam.

.

Pleadings,

223. There is no special rule as to the time for the delivery of the statement of claim in an Admiralty action in personam, and, subject to the power of the Court to abridge the time for the delivery of pleadings, the time for the delivery of statements of claim and E.

S.

C, Ord. 2, r. 5; Ord. 11, rr. 1, 3, 4. C, Ord. 11, r. 1 see title Peactice and Peocedijre.

Pv.

S.

C, Ord.

ip) R. S. [q) (r)

11, r. 1 (g).

(s) The Elton, [1891] P. 265. It is somewhat difficult to understand the reasoning of this decision. Ihe owners of the cargo were in noways concerned with the liability of the shipowners for salvage or the amount of salvage to be awarded for the services rendered to the ship and freight {The Pyreanee (1863), Br. & L. 189), and as before the passing of the Judicature Acts no action of salvage in personam could have been entertained against the cargo owners, and as theEules of the Supreme Court are mere procedure rules, no fresh jurisdiction could be conferred by the sub-section. If this decision had been appealed the Court of Appeal might have decided, in conformity with its decision in the case {The Due d'Aumale, [1903] P. 18) cited in the next note, that the action referred to in the sub-section as "an action properly brought within the jurisdiction " must be an action brought to recover a claim or claims which or all of which both sets of defendants, if served within the jurisdiction, would be entitled to oppose, and not an action in which (as is frequently the case in Admiralty actions) there are two or more different and independent claims in one suit, no single one of which all the defendants are jointly interested to defeat. But see Harris v. Owners of Franconia (0 The Due d'Aumale, [1903] P. 18. (1877), 2 C. P. D. 173, 177, and The British South Africa Company v. Companhia de Mocamhique, [1893] A. 602, 628.

C