This was an appeal in cassation against the judgment of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, 13 September 1989. SCAC, acting as a freight forwarder, loaded six trailers carrying prefabricated housing elements onto the Tolga, operated by Compagnie Nationale Algérienne de Navigation (CNAN). During the crossing between France and Algeria, the trailers, as well as the goods in them, suffered damage. SCAC sued CNAN for damages. SCAC's insurers, of which Mutuelle Générale Française Accidents was the leading agent, intervened.

SCAC and the insurers criticised the judgment for having considered that the circumstances of the event which caused the damage constituted a maritime event within the meaning of art 4.2.c of the Hague and, consequently, that CNAN was exonerated from liability. They argued that a maritime accident within the meaning of the aforementioned provision must be understood as an abnormally painful and unforeseeable event in view of the circumstances in which the crossing took place. By deducing that there had been a marine accident from the sole finding of 'a strong body roll, a brutal and violent event', without investigating whether this was not normally foreseeable in winter in the Mediterranean and whether a car ferry undertaking routine crossings from Marseille to Algiers was not specially adapted to these types of climatic conditions, which are very frequent in December, the Court of Appeal deprived its decision of a legal basis with regard to art 4.2.c of the Hague Rules.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

The Court of Appeal noted that, during the disputed incident, the wind had reached a force of 7 degrees on the Beaufort scale, the sea had become rougher and rougher, and that it was as a result of a swerve that the ship had found itself in a critical position across a breaking wave causing a strong roll, a singular incident. From these findings the Court held that, even if a wind of such force could not constitute a marine accident within the meaning of the Convention, it was not the same with the strong roll, which constituted a brutal and violent event. Thus, the Court of Appeal carried out the research allegedly omitted.