Opinion ID: 1688556
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: carmack amendment

Text: On the other hand, the Carmack Amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act was passed by Congress in 1906; Ch. 3591, § 7, 34 Stat. 595 (1906); and governs the liability of U.S. inland common carriers for lost or damaged goods. Rini v. United Van Lines, Inc., 104 F.3d 502, 503 (1st Cir.1997). As the First Circuit recently reiterated: [T]he principal purpose of the Amendment was to achieve national uniformity in the liability assigned to carriers. It is evident that Congress intended to adopt a uniform rule and relieve such contracts from the diverse regulation to which they had been theretofore subject.... The importance of uniformity has frequently been stressed in subsequent Supreme Court decisions. Id. at 504 (internal quotations and citations omitted). As repeatedly reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court, the purpose of the amendment was to relieve shippers of the burden of searching out a particular negligent carrier from among the often numerous carriers handling an interstate shipment of goods. Reider v. Thompson, 339 U.S. 113, 119, 70 S.Ct. 499, 94 L.Ed. 698 (1950); Missouri, Kansas, & Texas R. Co. v. Ward, 244 U.S. 383, 386, 37 S.Ct. 617, 61 L.Ed. 1213 (1917) (amendment's purpose was to create in the initial carrier unity of responsibility for the transportation to destination); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Riverside Mills, 219 U.S. 186, 203, 31 S.Ct. 164, 55 L.Ed. 167 (1911) (amendment's purpose is adapted to secure the rights of the shipper by securing unity of transportation with unity of responsibility... [and] also facilitates the remedy of one who sustains a loss, by localizing the responsible carrier). Indeed, the Carmack Amendment imposes a form of strict liability on domestic common carriers. 49 U.S.C. § 11707(a)(1) (applicable carriers are liable to the person entitled to recover under the receipt or bill of lading and [f]ailure to issue a receipt or bill of lading does not affect the liability of a carrier or freight forwarder). As one commentator has written, the amendment codified the common law liability rule that a common carrier is liable without proof of negligence for loss or damage to cargo unless it can establish one of the common law defenses, i.e., act of God, enemies of the King, inherent vice of the goods, etc. Saul Sorkin, Limited Liability in Multimodal Transport and the Effect of Deregulation, 13 Till. Mar. L.J. 285, 291 (1989).