Defendant charterer engaged Plaintiff individual repairer to do some repair the damaged foam of thermal insulation cabin on the ship, without notice to Defendant shipowner. When repairing onboard, the individual repairer was injured in an explosion. The judicial inspection confirmed individual repairer was disabled, and it was found that he had the habit of smoking and he had a mobile with him while working in cabin. The individual repaired sued both the charterer and shipowner. The court held that (i) the charterer’s engaging the individual repairer to repair the ship caused the labouring rather than employing relationship between them, so the repair contract was actually the labouring contract entered into by the two parties as per Art. 251 of the Contract Law of PRC; (ii) the charterer did not undertake strict liability for the actions of the individual repairer.