Jackson v Union Marine Insurance Co (1874) LR 10 CP 125

A shipowner arranged a voyage under which his vessel would proceed to Newport, load iron rails and carry them to San Francisco. He insured the expected freight. After leaving Liverpool, the vessel grounded and required repairs lasting several months. The charterers obtained another vessel rather than wait for the repairs. The shipowner then claimed the lost freight from his insurers. The dispute depended on whether the lengthy interruption discharged the charterers or merely delayed an obligation that still bound them. The jury found that the delay destroyed the commercial adventure contemplated by the original arrangement.

Did the delay caused by grounding and repairs discharge the charter because the contemplated commercial voyage could no longer be performed, making the lost freight recoverable under the insurance?

The Exchequer Chamber majority upheld the shipowner's recovery under the freight insurance. The grounding and lengthy repairs prevented the commercial adventure contemplated by the charter, even though the vessel could eventually sail again. The jury's assessment supported the conclusion that performance after the delay would be a different undertaking from the agreed voyage. The charterers were therefore discharged from their obligation to provide the cargo. The loss of freight was attributed to the insured maritime peril, not merely a voluntary abandonment of an otherwise unchanged bargain. Cleasby B dissented on the contractual analysis. The case concerns loss of the contemplated voyage and freight, rather than physical destruction of the vessel.

An exceptionally long interruption can discharge a contract where performance after the delay would be fundamentally different from the commercial adventure agreed. Permanent physical impossibility is unnecessary, but the delay's significance must be assessed against the nature and purpose of the particular contract.

Jackson is an early foundation for frustration through delay. It helps distinguish a voyage that remains commercially the agreed undertaking from one whose essential timing and purpose have disappeared. The insurance claim supplies the factual setting, but the undergraduate lesson concerns contractual discharge. Compare ordinary delay, which may produce damages without ending the contract, and Hong Kong Fir, which concerns termination for breach. Similar language about lost benefit does not make those doctrines or their remedial consequences identical.