Dominique Lofton
The Exceptions: IV- Act of the Shipper case study
My case study will be over the act of the shipper that is discussed in chapter 9. It brought up some very interesting information on who is, or will be held liable if any damages, loss, and delay happens to the freight. So when it’s an act of the shipper the carrier will not be held liable. I will give you examples and also discuss when the act of a shipper reduces a carrier liability. Before I get into the exceptions I first must give you the general rule so that you can better understand what the exceptions are for act of the shipper. If there were any damage, delay, or loss because of the negligence or oversight of the shipper, consignee or any other party with a legal right to exercise authority over the freight, the carrier cannot be found liable. The shipper in this instance is the carrier. That is the company that gets goods from point A to point B. It can be a car, bus, van, train, or plane. In legal terms the meaning of shipper says that the carrier is not liable for any losses, damages, or delays as a result of acts or omissions by a person, consignor, consignee and whomever else physically handles the goods in that capacity. When this exception is used most often is when there have been some alleged deficiencies in either the loading by the consignor or the rare situation of unloading by the consignee. Another example of when this exception could be used is when the freight is packaged or other preparation of the goods. Over time the rule has been that if the shipper packs the items for shipment and in the process the item is damaged in transport he cannot charge the carrier for injuries if it was packed improperly. That rule also applies when the question is the propriety of the loading and stowage of goods either in the carrier’s vehicle or vessel. Now that I have gave you the basic understanding of the act of the shipper we can now talk about the exceptions to it. There are two very important limitations. The first exception is that the damage and/or loss must have been solely on the improper loading or packaging. So for an example even if the shipper loading or packaged the items subpar, the carrier is still held liable if there was some other cause that made the injury. But for that to happen it does have to be a non-excepted cause. Take for instance a shipper packed his items to be shipped to the next destination, but he packed it for a soft trip and not a hard one. These kinds of problems between the shipper and carrier can some major disputes. Every inch of the trip is scrutinized to the smallest detail of the journey, because the smallest discrepancy can change the legal decision. If the shipper wanted to ship a heavy load of LED from the Walmart distribution center to a 3rd party warehouse. It was packed in just the boxes that you find in your local store and placed by the shipper onto the truck. During the trip he was cut off by another driver and had to break really hard. Once he hit the breaks the televisions fell over and were severely damaged in the process. Since in the act of the television being improperly packaged with only the box that it came in then the carrier would not be held liable. There would be no evidence that the driver had been negligent in his driving duties by (a) driving beyond the posted speed limit, and (b) he could not have known that the other driver would have cut him off. Carriers have tried to come up with a way to curb the disputes with its shippers by publishing, in tariff form, a detailed guide in how to package different goods. These laws can be rather tough to comply with because it can be very expensive to the shipper. If the shipper does not comply with these standards then the carrier normally would treat any damages as inadequate packaging. The law does not support such black and white characteristics when it comes to who is at fault. Now the shipper would definitely get a strike against him but that does not mean that he will be at fault with that information alone. The carrier had to be unaware of the deficiency in packaging and/or loading when it received the shipment at origin in order to claim this exception. From the text and also other sources not all is lost for the shipper and recover and loses from damages while in transport. Even though the shipper might have packaged the freight wrong the carrier has to inspect the cargo to also make sure that it is packaged correctly and if you can see that it isn’t with normal observation. If he does notice any discrepancies then he should not accept the package. If he does accept the package then the carrier will be held liable if the freight is damaged from lack of significant packaging then the carrier is at fault. In closing no matter if 99% of the carrier actions caused the damage to their own goods it only takes that 1% from the carrier actions to make him liable for any damages. There are 5 common law exceptions to carrier liability. There is act or default of shipper, an act of God, public enemy, public authority, or the inherent vice of the commodity.