Tort

Wrongful interference with goods - aircraft removed by enemy forces during invasion destroyed or irrecoverable - damages recoverable only if loss foreseeableKuwait Airways Corp v Iraqi Airways Co and another (No 5): QBD (Aikens J): 7 April 2000

In 1990 when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait they removed 10 Kuwaiti civil aircraft to Iraq from Kuwait airfield and the aircraft were soon decreed by Iraq to form part of its own airline, the first defendant.

On ministerial order four of the aircraft were removed to a remote part of Iraq, where they were subsequently destroyed by coalition forces bombing, and six of them to Iran, which later did not return them to Iraq.

On a claim for damages for wrongful interference with goods the claimants contended that they were entitled to damages in respect of such losses as were a direct natural result of the interference since the liability was strict.Nicholas Chambers QC, Christopher Greenwood QC, Joseph Smouha and Sam Wordsworth (instructed by Howard Kennedy) for the claimant.

David Donaldson QC and Stephen Nathan QC (instructed by Landau & Scanlan) for the first defendant.Held, giving judgment for the first defendant, that the foreseeability tests for remoteness of damage were the same as for claims in negligence or nuisance or under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher, so that the damage suffered had to be foreseeable to the tortfeasor at the time when the tort was committed; that the court had to consider whether any new intervening event taking place after the interference had been foreseeable to the original wrongdoer; and that since such foreseeability had not been proved the claim failed.