Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/255/317/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:25:36+00:00

Document:
An agreement between an interstate railroad company and a shipper to limit the carrier's liability upon an interstate shipment to a valuation stated in the bill of lading will not relieve the carrier of its common law obligation to pay the actual value in case of loss by its negligence if its schedule, filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission, provide but one rate applicable to the shipment. P. 255 U. S. 321. Reid v. American Express Co., 241 U. S. 544, distinguished. 178 App.Div. 783; 226 N.Y. 534, affirmed.
decided in favor of the defendant, the railroad company. The court of appeals of the state reversed the decision and directed the entry of the judgment for the plaintiff, which is here reviewed by certiorari and affirmed. The case is stated in the opinion.
On March 10, 1915, S. Ontra & Bro. delivered to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at Yokohama, Japan, 56 cases of "drawn work goods and renaissance," consigned to their own order at New York, and received a bill of lading for ocean transportation to San Francisco and thence by the Southern Pacific Company and its connections, by rail, to destination. The property was delivered to the Southern Pacific Company and, without new billing, was carried to a junction with the line of the petitioner, the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and while in its custody was totally destroyed in a collision. The respondent, successor in interest to the consignor, claimed in this suit the right to recover the fair invoice value of the goods, $17,449.01, and the petitioner conceded his right to recover, but only to the amount of the agreed valuation of $100 per package, $5,600, to which it contended he was limited by the bill of lading. All of the facts are stipulated or proved by undisputed evidence.
a judgment should be rendered by the Supreme Court in favor of respondent for $17,449.01, with interest and costs. The case is brought here on certiorari.
"It is expressly agreed that the goods named in this bill of lading are hereby valued at not exceeding $100 per package, . . . and the liability of the companies therefor in case of the total loss of all or any of the said goods from any cause shall not exceed $100 per package."
"Unless otherwise provided, when property is transported subject to the provisions of the Western Classification, the acceptance and use are required, respectively, of the 'uniform bill of lading,' 'straight' or 'order' as shown on pages 87 to 90, inclusive."
"The amount of any loss or damage for which any carrier is liable shall be computed on the basis of the value of the property (being the bona fide invoice price, if any, to the consignee, including the freight charges, if prepaid) at the place and time of shipment under this bill of lading, unless a lower value has been represented in writing by the shipper or has been agreed upon or is determined by the classification or tariffs upon which the rate is based, in any of which events such lower value shall be the maximum amount to govern such computation whether or not such loss or damage occurs from negligence."
Upon the facts thus stated, the petitioner contends that the agreed valuation of $100 per package or case in the Yokohama bill of lading is necessarily imported into the uniform bill of lading, becomes the valuation "agreed upon" within the terms and conditions quoted from that bill, and limits the respondent's recovery to that amount, $5,600, regardless of the value of the property and of the fact that it was lost by the carrier's negligence.
To this contention, it is replied by the respondent that it is admitted by the petitioner that its filed and published schedules contained but one rate applicable to the shipment as it was carried east of San Francisco; that that rate, $1.25 per 100 pounds minimum carload, was charged in the Yokohama bill of lading, and that, since no choice of rates was given or could be given to the shipper, any agreement, in form a valuation of the property, made for the purpose of limiting the carrier's liability to less than the real value thereof in case of loss by negligence was void and without effect.
In many cases, from the decision in Hart v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 112 U. S. 331, decided in 1884, to Boston & Maine Railroad v. Piper, 246 U. S. 439, decided in 1918, it has been declared to be the settled federal law that, if a common carrier gives to a shipper the choice of two rates, the lower of them conditioned upon his agreeing to a stipulated valuation of his property in case of loss, even by the carrier's negligence, if the shipper makes such a choice understandingly and freely, and names his valuation, he cannot thereafter recover more than the value which he thus places upon his property.
As a matter of legal distinction, estoppel is made the basis of this ruling -- that, having accepted the benefit of the lower rate, in common honesty, the shipper may not repudiate the conditions on which it was obtained -- but the rule and the effect of it are clearly established.
The petitioner admits all this, but contends that it has never been held by this Court that such choice of rates was essential to the validity of valuation agreements, and, arguing that they should be sustained unless shown to have been fraudulently or oppressively obtained, it affirms the validity of the agreement in the Yokohama bill of lading, and cites as a decisive authority Reid v. American Express Co., 241 U. S. 544.
With this contention we cannot agree.
fairly made, agreeing on the valuation of the property carried, with the rate of freight based on the condition that the carrier assumes liability only to the extent of the agreed valuation, even in case of loss or damage by the negligence of the carrier, the contract will be upheld as a proper and lawful mode of securing a due proportion between the amount for which the carrier may be responsible and the freight he receives and of protecting himself against extravagant and fanciful valuations."
"In the previous decisions of this Court upon that subject, it has been said that the limited valuation for which a recovery may be had does not permit the carrier to defeat recovery because of losses arising from its own negligence, but serves to fix the amount of recovery upon an agreed valuation made in consideration of the lower rate stipulated to be paid for the service."
The Reid case, supra, does not conflict with these decisions, for, in that case, the bill of lading containing the undervaluation, which was there sustained, expressly recited that the freight was adjusted on the basis of the agreed value, and that the carrier's liability should not exceed that sum "unless a value in excess thereof be specially declared, and stated herein, and extra freight as may be agreed on be paid." The bill of lading was for ocean carriage only, London to New York, to which, of course, the Interstate Commerce Act was not applicable (36 Stat. 544, § 1; Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 209 U. S. 78; Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. v. Hamburg-American Packet Co., 13 I.C.C. 266), and the carrier therefore was in a position to tender to, and, by the quoted provision of the bill, did tender to, the shipper the choice of paying a higher rate and being subject to less restricted recovery in case of loss. The case was plainly within the scope of the prior decisions of this Court upon the subject.

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