ABSTRACT
Novus actus interveniens has been pleaded from time to time in cases involving collisions between ships and it is argued that either the response taken to the emergency created or intervening heavy weather has severed the causal connection between the original negligence and the ultimate injury. As we shall see in the following brief survey of maritime case-law in this particular (and narrow) context, if one vessel, due to the negligent navigation of another vessel, is placed under the so-called ‘heavy hand of the casualty’, the reasonable conduct of those in charge of the victim vessel in seeking to mitigate loss will not be regarded as absolving the defendant from responsibility for loss sustained as a result of measures reasonably taken in the emergency situation generated by the defendant’s negligence.1
