Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 1767

The court’s inference, by virtue of its authority to ascertain and understand the facts of the case, assess and weigh the evidence submitted to it, and interpret contracts and other instruments in the manner it considers most faithful to their parties’ intention, that the contract submitted in the case is a time charterparty under which the lessor undertakes to place the vessels specified in the contract at the lessee’s disposal for the agreed period in a condition fit for navigation and the agreed service, and to maintain this fitness throughout the contract period. The lessor’s retention, under this charterparty, of the vessel’s navigational management pursuant to Article 171 of the Maritime Trade Law. The lessee is not obliged to pay hire for the period during which the vessel’s operation ceases if that is attributable to the lessor’s act, since the lessor is obliged to enable the lessee to obtain the full intended enjoyment of the leased property. - Establishment that the lessee did not enjoy the vessels leased to it for a reason attributable to the act of the respondent lessor. Its effect. The lessee is not obliged to pay hire for them. - The master—the lessor’s representative—may unload the goods at the lessee’s expense and responsibility. The judgment’s departure from the foregoing view is incorrect and warrants its reversal and dismissal of the original action. - The court’s satisfaction, in the counterclaim, by virtue of its authority to adopt some of what appears in the appointed expert’s report and discard other parts thereof, that the papers contain no evidence of the appellant’s allegation of damage resulting from the respondent’s breach of its obligations arising from the contract in dispute. Its effect: the claim for compensation lacks a legal basis. - Obligations of the Public Authority for Minors Affairs: