Sáorstát and Continental Steamship Company v De las Morenas

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 18 December 1945
• Date: 18 December 1945
• Docket Number: Case No. 25
• Court: Supreme Court

(H.C., S.C.),

Sáorstát and Continental Steamship Company

and

De las Morenas

Breach of contract - Civil process against agent - Whether agent personally liable - Whether Sovereign Government impleaded - Sovereign immunity.

The defendant, a colonel in the Spanish army, came to Eire as head of a commission appointed by the Spanish Government to purchase horses for the use of the Spanish army. He entered into a contract with the plaintiffs, the Saorstat and Continental Steamship Co. Ltd., whereby it was agreed that the plaintiffs should reserve, on the defendant's behalf, accommodation aboard one of their vessels for the carriage of a certain number of horses from Dublin to Lisbon. The contract, which was in the form of a booking note addressed to the commission "per" the defendant, provided that the defendant should become liable for dead freight if he failed to tender the horses for shipment when the vessel was ready to load. In an action for damages for breach of the contract, the defendant entered a conditional appearance, and, on a motion by the plaintiffs to enter judgment in default of defence, he applied by motion to the Court to set aside the proceedings, claiming immunity from the process of the Court on the ground that, as he had entered into the contract as an act of sovereignty on behalf of the Spanish Government, a sovereign State, the proceedings impleaded that Government, and should be set aside. Held by Haugh J. that the defendant's motion to set aside the proceedings...