In a September 2025 judgment a US Appeals Court confidently proclaimed the matter as being a “straightforward contract interpretation case”. It is.
The insured claimed under a Marine Open Cargo Policy for damage to blood plasma that underwent a harmful temperature variation due to a delay in shipment. As a result of a “FDA hold”
While performing services on a construction site owned by a Port Authority, an employee of a contractor slipped and fell on wet soil and rocks because of unsafe working conditions and sued for damages. The construction management firm, Techno, was insured under a comprehensive general liability policy. When the port authority was sued by the
The July 2021 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment in Capitec Bank Holdings Limited v Coral Lagoon Investments 194 (Pty) Ltd and Others (10530/2020) [2021] ZAWCHC 65, deferred to the Constitutional Court in Beadica 231 CC and Others v Trustees, Oregon Trust and Others [2020] ZACC 13; 2020 (5) SA 247 (CC) which authoratively dealt with
The dispute arose under a settlement agreement in obliging the defendants to deliver 100 000 cubic metres of “clean sand (top soil excluded)” which was “stockpiled”. It was not clean sand nor properly stockpiled and yielded only two thirds of the amount of clean sand, leading to a large damages claim. The Supreme Court
When interpreting a statutory provision, one must proceed from the fundamental premise that meaning must be given to every word (provided the context lends itself to such meaning). The rationale for this principle is that a statute is not taken to use words without meaning. No clause, sentence or word must be construed to be
An insured loss must be caused legally and factually by the insured peril.
Even where factual causation is established legal causation does not automatically follow.
In Concord Insurance Co Limited v Oelofsen N.O. (1992) the court said that in the contractual context policy considerations do not enter the enquiry (unlike in criminal law or delict,
The interpretation process is objective, not subjective.
Where the meaning of any policy is clear, effect must be given to it.
The court cannot substitute what it regards as reasonable, sensible or business-like for the words actually used. The court should not in those circumstances rewrite the contract made by the parties.
Courts should not
A forfeiture clause, entitling the lessor to cancel the agreement, without notice to the lessee, in the event of breach by lessee is not void for unfairness in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 2008. The CPA should not be construed to invest the court with the power to refuse to enforce contractual terms on
The application of the contra proferentum rule was one of the issues which the English High Court considered in Financial Conduct Authority v Arch Insurance (UK) Limited and Others.
The rule provides that where there is doubt about the meaning of a contract, the words will be construed against the person who proffered them.
A court may not refuse to enforce contractual terms on the basis that the enforcement would, in its subjective view, be unfair, unreasonable or unduly harsh. It is only where a contractual term or its enforcement is so unfair, unreasonable or unjust that it is contrary to public policy that a court may refuse to