The Scottish Maritime Museum has been in the news for adopting gender-neutral signage for ships as a response to vandalism of its signs.
This is a thorny issue. HMS Queen Elizabeth may well logically be a ‘She’, but what about HMS Prince of Wales or STS Lord Nelson?
English Admiralty Law still respects the use of the feminine gender for ships, regardless of their name. Thus Paragraph 61.8 of Part 61 of the Civil Procedure Rules that deal with Admiralty Court Jurisdiction and Procedure refer to:
‘Where-
Under the Interpretation Act 1978, however, such language would include any vessel used in navigation even if they were masculine.
The Civil Procedure Rules are made under Statutory Instruments approved by the Westminster Parliament, the ‘Mother of Parliaments’.
This week we examine an unusual arbitration case involving (or did it?) a foreign limitation period; and another decision on the tension between open justice and protection of commercially sensitive information (we understand, by the way, that on 25th February the Court of Appeal will…
This week we look at two decisions, both of which will be of critical importance to practitioners in pursuance of contested litigation. In one, unusually, without prejudice correspondence was admissible in a case involving fundamental dishonesty; whilst in the other, the court reviewed the authorities…
Following a 5-day liability trial in the High Court in Manchester, the Claimant’s negligence and Human Rights Act claims were dismissed by HHJ Bird sitting as a Judge of the High Court. The Claimant was a Type 1 diabetic who suffered from a history of…
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