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{{Admiralty law}}

{{For|other uses, including other legal terms|Barratry (disambiguation){{!}}Barratry}}

In [[admiralty law]], '''barratry''' is an act of [[gross misconduct]] committed by a master or crew of a vessel resulting in damage to the vessel or its cargo. These activities may include [[desertion]], illegal [[scuttling]], theft of the ship or [[cargo]], and any act carried out against the best interests of the [[shipowner]].

As barratry is considered misconduct against the shipowner (or [[demise charter]]er), who is the only party having [[Standing (law)|standing]] to sue for damages, any affected owners of cargo must normally bring claims against the shipowner (or demise charterer) for [[breach of contract|breach]] of [[Law of Carriage of Goods by Sea|contract of carriage]] to receive compensation.<ref>Modern Maritime Law - Alexa Mandaraka-Shappard</ref>

==Description==
Barratry is defined in the [[Marine Insurance Act 1906]] as "every wrongful act wilfully committed by the master or crew to the prejudice of the owner, or, as the case may be, the charterer"<ref>{{cite web |title=Marine Insurance Act 1906 |url=https://www.legislation.gov.uk/id?title=Marine+Insurance+Act+1906 |accessdate=1 August 2022}}</ref> and thus usually considered a crime against the ship's owner. Therefore, if the owner himself chooses to wreck the ship, no crime is committed, as the owner has simply destroyed his own property. However, his actions can constitute a crime against any other owners of the ship.<ref name=Hughes>{{cite book |title=Handbook of admiralty law |publisher=West Publishing Company |author=Robert Morton Hughes |year=1901 |page=[https://archive.org/details/handbookadmiral00hughgoog/page/n94 72] |url=https://archive.org/details/handbookadmiral00hughgoog |quote=barratry admiralty law. |accessdate=December 14, 2011}}</ref> Harm to the crew can constitute barratry regardless of who damages the vessel.<ref>{{cite web |title=Understanding Barratry |work=Williams Kherker |url=http://www.admiraltylawsuitattorney.com/admiralty_article_understanding_barratry.aspx |accessdate=December 14, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111030082009/http://www.admiraltylawsuitattorney.com/admiralty_article_understanding_barratry.aspx |archive-date=2011-10-30 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=Baylies>{{cite book |title=A digested index to the modern reports, of the courts of common law, in England (1689–1809) and the United States (1799–1812) |publisher=proprietors |author1=Nicholas Baylies |author2=Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins |author3=John Ilderton Burn |year=1814 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/adigestedindext02burngoog/page/n238 227]–228 |url=https://archive.org/details/adigestedindext02burngoog |quote=barratry ship. |accessdate=March 2, 2012}}</ref> Throughout the 19th century, [[US courts]] struggled to define and understand the law of barratry. Courts have since concluded that [[negligence]] alone is not sufficient to qualify as barratry; rather, there must be an intentional act and an intent to [[fraud|defraud]].<ref name=Hughes/> Similarly, deviating from the assigned course does not itself constitute barratry.<ref name=Baylies/>

Barratry differs from the crime of [[mutiny]] in which the crew disobeys the captain of the ship in that in the former case, the crew remains loyal to the captain, who disobeys the owner of the ship.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

==Case law==
The [[US Supreme Court]] case ''Patapsco Insurance Company v. Coulter'' explored the meaning of barratry in detail.<ref name=patapsco>{{cite court |litigants=Patapsco Insurance Company v. Coulter |vol=28 |reporter=U.S. |opinion=222 |pinpoint=222 |court=[[United States Supreme Court]] |date=1830 |url=http://supreme.justia.com/us/28/222/ |accessdate=December 15, 2011}}</ref> In that  case, a ship was provisioned to sail to [[Gibraltar]] to sell flour, the profits of which were to have been used to purchase goods in [[Marseille]]. However, at Gibraltar, a fire started aboard ship and destroying it and the cargo inside. The plaintiffs argued that the crew could have saved the ship but failed to do so. The court ruled that failure to extinguish a fire, even if negligent, does not constitute barratry. Fire was ruled the cause of the cargo's destruction, not barratry, and the insurance company was required to pay.<ref name=patapsco/>

''National Union Fire Insurance Co. v. Republic of China et al.'' considered how the law of barratry applies during periods of [[civil war]] and [[insurrection]].<ref name=Lauterpacht>{{cite book |title=International Law Reports |author1=Elihu Lauterpacht |author2=C J Greenwood |year=1963 |pages=72–75 |isbn=9780521463713 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_WbPwDNuQ8C&q=barratry+ship+taiwan&pg=PA72 |accessdate=March 19, 2012}},</ref> In the 1940s, the US had sold 13 ships to the Nationalist government of the [[Republic of China (1912–49)|Republic of China]]. In 1949, during the [[Chinese Civil War]], the communist [[People's Republic of China]] took control of [[Mainland China]] and forced the Nationalist government to flee to [[Taiwan]]. Six of the ships were at ports in Mainland China, and a seventh was at sea. The Republic of China ordered all seven ships to set sail for Taiwan, but none of them complied since they chose instead to turn themselves over to the communist [[People's Republic of China]]. Although the Republic of China's insurance policy excluded losses from civil war, insurrection, or [[mutiny]], it covered barratry. The court ruled that the ships had been lost to barratry, not mutiny,  since the captains themselves had ordered their crews to hoist the [[flag of China|flag of Communist China]].{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

==Penalties==
Until 1888, barratry was a [[Capital punishment|capital offense]] in the United States. Juries routinely [[jury nullification|refused to convict people of the crime, even if their guilt was obvious]], because they did not agree with the death penalty for barratry. That came to a head with the destruction of {{ship||Mary Celeste}} in 1885. ''Mary Celeste'' had become infamous after being discovered adrift in 1872, in good condition, with no one on board. In 1885, her final owner, Captain G. C. Parker, was accused of barratry for [[Mary Celeste#Later history and fate|deliberately running her aground and burning her]] off the coast of [[Haiti]] and then making an exorbitant insurance claim for a nonexistent cargo. Despite the obvious attempt at [[insurance fraud]] and clear evidence of his guilt, five of the twelve jurors refused to convict Parker to avoid condemning him to death. The [[death penalty]] for barratry was abolished three years later.<ref>{{cite news |title=Ghost Ship |author=Paul Collins |date=December 6, 2011 |work=[[Slate.com]] |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2011/12/the_mary_celeste_the_unluckiest_ship_to_ever_sail_the_seven_seas_.2.html |accessdate=December 6, 2011}}</ref>

==Barratry in fiction==
* In [[Tom Clancy]]'s 1984 novel ''[[The Hunt for Red October]]'', the character Admiral Foster remarks that the apparent theft of the eponymous Soviet submarine ''Red October'' by Captain Marko Ramius and his officers with the intention of defecting with the submarine to the United States, constitutes barratry, and not mutiny.
* In the 1964 movie [[The Chalk Garden (film)|''The Chalk Garden'']] actress [[Hayley Mills]] says to a potential governess, “Maitland (the butler, played by her father, the actor [[John Mills]]) could [burn the house down one day], but he won't. He's a pyromaniac himself. Did seven years for barratry ...arson at sea".

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

{{portalbar|Law|Oceans}}

[[Category:Admiralty law]]
[[Category:Crimes]]
[[nl:Barratry#Andere_betekenissen]]

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