Evra Corp. v. Swiss Bank Corp.

673 F2d 951 (7th Cir. 1982)

Facts

Hyman (P) contracted to charter a ship to deliver scrap metal to Brazil. The contract called for a fixed price. A few months later, charter prices soared. The charter owners sought to terminate the charter agreement after a payment was late because it was mailed. An arbitration panel found for P and reinstated the charter. A few months later, P failed to comply with a payment order and received notice that the agreement was canceled. The next day P attempted to wire the monies and did so, but the payment was delayed for six days. No one can pinpoint what exactly caused the delay, but one possibility was that the receiving telex machine had simply run out of paper. Another was that the message was received and it was never delivered to the banking department, but in any event, the charter was canceled because of Swiss Bank's (D) failure to deposit the funds in the charter account. The arbitrators ruled against P. P then sued D to recover for its lost profits. The court found D negligent and awarded damages of $2.1 million mostly for lost profits. D appealed.