Cargo Loss and Damage Claims Against a Carrier

The rule is old and short. A carrier that receives property for transportation in interstate commerce is liable for the actual loss or injury to it. That liability attaches without proof of negligence, and it belongs to the carrier issuing the receipt or bill of lading as well as to the delivering carrier. Everything else in this area is about the exceptions and the deadlines.

What the claimant has to prove

The prima facie case has three parts. First, that the goods were delivered to the carrier in good condition. Second, that they arrived short, damaged or not at all. Third, the amount of the loss. Nothing about the carrier's conduct forms part of the claimant's case, which is why the statute is described as imposing something close to strict liability.

In practice the first element decides most disputes. A clean bill of lading is evidence of apparent good order, but a driver who never saw the contents of a sealed trailer cannot attest to what was inside it. Claimants who load their own trailers and seal them need independent proof of condition at origin: production records, weight tickets, photographs, temperature data. Carriers who accept freight without noting visible damage lose the argument they would otherwise have had.

The excepted causes and the second requirement

Once the claimant establishes the three elements, the burden shifts. The carrier must prove both that it was free from negligence and that the loss was due to one of five causes: an act of God, the public enemy, an act or default of the shipper, public authority, or the inherent vice or nature of the goods. Proving the cause alone is not enough; the carrier must clear itself of negligence as well.

Act of the shipper and inherent vice carry most of the weight in modern practice. A load blocked and braced by the shipper that shifts in ordinary transit is the classic act of the shipper. Produce that decays on a normal-length transit at the specified temperature is inherent vice. Both defenses collapse if the carrier's own handling contributed, which is why a temperature record showing an unexplained gap defeats an otherwise good inherent vice defense.

The two periods that end a claim

Section 14706 sets minimums rather than the deadlines themselves. A carrier may not provide by rule, contract or otherwise a period of less than nine months for filing a claim, nor less than two years for bringing a civil action, running from the date the carrier gives written notice that the claim is disallowed in whole or in part. Standard bill of lading terms adopt exactly those minimums, so nine months and two years are the operative numbers on most shipments.

Part 370 governs what the carrier does after receiving a claim. It must acknowledge receipt within thirty days and, within one hundred twenty days of receipt, either pay, decline, or make a firm compromise settlement offer. If it can do none of those, it must advise the claimant of the status at intervals of sixty days and state the reason for the delay. A carrier that simply stops responding does not stop the claimant's clock, but it does hand the claimant a record of its own noncompliance.

Released rates and how a limitation holds

Section 14706 permits a carrier to limit its liability to a value established by written declaration of the shipper or by written agreement, but only where the shipper was given a reasonable opportunity to choose between two or more levels of liability. Courts examine whether the tariff or agreement was available, whether the choice was genuinely offered, and whether the shipper had notice of the rate and the corresponding limit.

Limitations fail on the mechanics more often than on the principle. A limitation buried in terms the shipper never saw, a rate quoted without any alternative, or a bill of lading with the declared value box left blank in a scheme where completing it was the only route to full liability, all invite an argument that no fair opportunity existed. The way a limitation is presented and disclosed raises the same questions of prominence and comprehension addressed in the standards for clear and conspicuous disclosure, and the durability of a written promise about the goods echoes the rules on written warranties and their availability before sale.

Choosing the defendant

The claim runs against the receiving carrier, the delivering carrier, and any carrier over whose line the property moved. That choice matters when an intermediary sits in the middle. A broker is not a carrier and is not liable under the statute, a point developed in the treatment of broker authority and re-brokering, so a claimant who sues only the entity it dealt with may have sued nobody the statute reaches.

The statute also does not reach a company hauling its own goods, because there is no receipt of property from a shipper, a distinction set out in the line between for-hire and private carriage. And the carrier's own solvency is not secured by any federal cargo filing for general freight, a gap explained in the insurance filings a carrier actually makes. Identifying the right defendant early is worth more than the merits, because the nine-month period runs regardless of how long it takes to work out who the carrier was.