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''Sea Harvest Corporation (Pty) Ltd and Another v Duncan Dock Cold Storage (Pty) Ltd and Another''〔2000 (1) SA 827 (SCA).〕 is an important case in South African law, particularly in the area of delict and on the question of negligence. == Facts == A recently built cold store, owned by the first respondent and erected on land in the Table Bay harbour owned by the second respondent, was set alight by a distress flare fired to celebrate the New Year. The fire destroyed the store and its contents. Among the contents were goods owned by the first and second appellants, which had been stored in terms of oral contracts of deposit. The main section of the store containing the cold rooms was steel-framed and roofed with two pitches of fibre cement separated by a fibreglass box gutter. The roof was insulated with panels of expanded polystyrene sheathed in aluminium. The cold rooms themselves were constructed of similar panels, although both the polystyrene core and aluminium cladding were thicker. The roof sheets were non-combustible, but the fibreglass guttering, though requiring a "fairly substantial heat source" to ignite, was combustible, as was the polystyrene core of the insulation panels, although the aluminium cladding would provide some initial protection. Because the port area did not fall within the jurisdiction of the local municipality, plans for buildings required the approval of the port engineer rather than that of the city council. The plans for the cold store facility were, nonetheless, submitted to the council's fire department for comment. The fire department classified the store as "moderate risk storage" and required, in terms of the applicable SA Bureau of Standards code, the installation of a sprinkler system in the roof void and in the store itself. (No sprinkler system would have been required by a "low risk" classification.) At the time, only one or two cold stores in South Africa had sprinkler systems. The same was generally true of cold stores in the United Kingdom and Europe. After discussing the fire department's "requirements" with the project engineer and architect, and then consulting the National Building Regulations and SABS code, the port engineer concluded that the correct classification of the building was "low risk" and that a sprinkler system was accordingly not required. None was therefore installed. Despite the prohibition against the firing of distress flares in the harbour, other than for the purposes of assistance, it appeared that the firing of flares at midnight on New Year's Eve had been a regular occurrence. There was no evidence that a flare had ever previously caused a fire in the harbour or its surrounding areas. The parties were agreed * that a distress flare had probably ignited the fibreglass box gutter; * that this in turn had ignited the expanded polystyrene core of the roof insulation panels; and * that the fire had then spread to the cold-room roofs and into the cold rooms. It was common cause that a sprinkler system would either have extinguished the fire or at least have served to control it. In an action for damages against the respondents, the appellants alleged that the respondents had been negligent in failing to instal a sprinkler system. A Provincial Division dismissed their claims. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sea Harvest Corporation v Duncan Dock Cold Storage」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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