Fundamental Breach

Fundamental breach in Law Enforcement

Main Entry: Law Enforcement in the Legal Dictionary. This section provides, in the context of Law Enforcement, a partial definition of fundamental breach.

Fundamental Breach in Maritime Law

Note: There is more information on maritime/admiralty law here.

The following is a definition of Fundamental Breach, produced by Tetley, in the context of admiralty law: A common law principle first developed in English decisions in the 1930’s, which became very popular in the U.K. and British Commonwealth jurisdictions in the 1960’s, prior to the enactment of consumer protection legislation. By virtue of this doctrine, a party who had committed an intentional breach of contract so serious as to “go to the root of the contract”, depriving the other contracting party of substantially the whole benefit of the contract, was held to have fundamentally breached the contract and was consequently deprived of the protection of limitation and exception clauses in the contract. Since the House of Lords’ decisions in Suisse Atlantique Société d’Armement S.A. v. N.V. Rotterdamsche Kolen Centrale [1967] 1 A.C. 361 and Photo Production v. Securicor Transport [1980] A.C. 827, however, fundamental breach has ceased to be a doctrine of substantive law, and has become purely a question of construction of the contract. In maritime law, however, fundamental breach is still evident in three areas of the law on carriage of goods by sea: knowing misrepresentation by the shipper (see this maritime law term in this legal dictionary) of the nature or value of the goods (Hague and Hague/Visby Rules (see this maritime law term in this legal dictionary) art 4, par. 5 fourth par.), unreasonable geographic deviation (Hague and Hague/Visby Rules art. 4 par. 4) and unjustified deck carriage (Hague and Hague/Visby Rules art. 1(c)). (Tetley, M.C.C., 4 Ed., 2008 at pp. 229-307.) “Fundamental breach” has been translated into French in different ways, including “violation d’une clause essentielle” in Z.I. Pompey v. Ecu-Line N.V. [1999] A.C.F. No. 2017 (Fed. C. of Can. per Blais J.)); “rupture fondamentale” in Armada Shipping Lines v. Chaleur Fertilizer [1995] 1 F.C. 3 (Fed. C. A. of Can.); and “inexécution fondamentale” in Hunter Engineering v. Syncrude Canada [1989] 1 S.C.R. 426 (Supr. C. of Can.) and Z.I. Pompey v. Ecu-Line N.V., [2003] 1 S.C.R. 450 (Supr. C. of Can.).

Resources