Opinion ID: 151053
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Regal-Beloit

Text: In Regal-Beloit, the Supreme Court held that the Carmack Amendment does not apply to a shipment originating overseas under a single through bill of lading. ___ U.S. ___, ___ _ ___, 130 S.Ct. 2433, 2442-43, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, 2010 WL 2471056, at . Carmack applies only to transport of property for which Carmack requires a receiving carrier to issue a bill of lading, regardless of whether that carrier erroneously fails to issue such a bill. Id. at 2444. There is a two-part test for whether a Carmack bill of lading must be issued: First, the rail carrier must provid[e] transportation or service subject to the jurisdiction of the [STB]. Second, that carrier must receiv[e] the property for transportation under this part, where this part is the STB's jurisdiction over domestic rail transport. Carmack thus requires the receiving rail carrierbut not the delivering or connecting rail carrierto issue a bill of lading. Id. at 2442-43 (quoting 49 U.S.C. § 11706(a)) (alterations in original). The holding of Regal-Beloit is based on the second part of that test: [F]or Carmack's provisions to apply the journey must begin with a receiving rail carrier, which would have to issue a Carmack-compliant bill of lading. It follows that Carmack does not apply if the property is received at an overseas location under a through bill that covers the transport into an inland location in the United States. In such a case, there is no receiving rail carrier that receives the property for [domestic rail] transportation, [49 U.S.C.] § 11706(a), and thus no carrier that must issue a Carmack-compliant bill of lading. The initial carrier in that instance receives the property at the shipment's point of origin for overseas multimodal import transport, not for domestic rail transport. Id. at 2444 (second alteration in original). Regal-Beloit's application of those principles to the facts of Regal-Beloit is straightforward. In that case, a VOCC, K Line, received cargo in China for intermodal transport to inland destinations in the United States under bills of lading which provided that COGSA would govern the entire journey. K Line then subcontracted with the Union Pacific Railroad Company for rail carriage to the final destinations. K Line transported the cargo to the port of Long Beach, California, without incident, but Union Pacific's train subsequently derailed in Oklahoma, and allegedly destroyed the cargo. See id. at 2438-39. The Court held that Carmack did not apply to K Line or to Union Pacific, because neither was a receiving rail carrier for Carmack purposes. K Line received the cargo in China for intermodal transport, not in the United States for rail transport. That `K' Line chose to use rail transport to complete one segment of the journey under ... essentially maritime contracts does not put `K' Line within Carmack's reach and thus does not require it to issue Carmack bills of lading. Id. at 2444 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Union Pacific also was not a receiving rail carrier, for [a] carrier does not become a receiving carrier simply by accepting goods for further transport from another carrier in the middle of an international shipment under a through bill. Id. Rather, Union Pacific was a mere delivering carrier, which did not have to issue its own Carmack bill of lading. Id.