Supreme Court to hear intermodal cargo case
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a case involving what law should apply when cargo is damaged or stolen in intermodal moves.
The court last Friday granted a writ of certiorari and said it would review the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal decision in Altadis USA Inc. v. Sea Star Line and American Trans-Freight (ATF) Inc., a case in which a container full of cigars being imported from Puerto Rico to Tampa was stolen.
In its request for a review, attorneys for Altadis, the shipper of cigars, said the case raises the issue of whether the Carmack Amendment or Carriage of Goods at Sea Act (COGSA) applies to the inland move of a multimodal shipment to a place in the United States from a place in a U.S. territory, even if the inland carrier does not issue a separate bill of lading.
The question presented by the case 'involves an issue of surpassing significance in the transportation of goods using different modes of transport, which encompasses more than $1 trillion each year in U.S. trade,' the attorneys for Altadis said.
A lower court had held that the COGSA governed the dispute, instead of the Carmack Amendment because the bill of lading had incorporated COGSA by contractual agreement.
On appeal, Altadis argued a contractual agreement could not displace a governing federal statute such as Carmack, but the 11th Circuit rejected that argument.
'This case is an ideal vehicle for resolving the well-developed conflict among the lower courts,' the request for review said.
The petition said the issue has been discussed in appeals courts for two decades and that 'four circuits have fully considered the issue and have concluded that the Carmack Amendment is inapplicable to the inland segment of a multimodal shipment absent a separate bill of lading covering that segment. Two circuits have held precisely the opposite.'
'The conflict is thus fully developed without any realistic prospect of being resolved in the lower courts. It is ripe for adjudication' by the Supreme Court, the petition said.