Opinion ID: 3011680
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Beta Spawn's Prima Facie Case

Text: To establish a prima facie case against a common carrier under the Carmack Amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C. S 11706,4 a plaintiff must prove the following three elements: (1) delivery of the goods to the initial carrier in good condition, (2) damage of the goods before delivery to their final destination, and (3) the amount of damages. Conair Corp. v. Old Dominion Fr eight Line, Inc., 22 F.3d 529, 531 (3rd Cir. 1994) (citation omitted); see also Missouri Pacific R.R. Co. v. Elmore & Stahl , 377 U.S. 134, 138 (1964). After a bench trial, the district court found that Beta Spawn succeeded in establishing each of these elements. FFE's main argument on appeal is that ther e was no competent evidence for the trial court to find that the spawn were delivered to FFE in good condition.5 Specifically, FFE contends that under the law of this _________________________________________________________________ 4. The district court found that this action was controlled by the Carmack Amendment. The Carmack Amendment imposes liability on a common carrier for the actual loss or injury to goods in an interstate commerce shipment. See 49 U.S.C. S 11706. 5. FFE does not contest the district court'sfindings as to the last two elements. 6 circuit, a shipper must prove by dir ect evidence that the merchandise was in good condition when tender ed to the carrier if such merchandise was not visible or open to inspection at the time it was tendered. In support of its contention, FFE points to Blue Bird Food Prods. Co., v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 474 F.2d 102 (3rd Cir. 1973) (Blue Bird I) appeal after remand, 492 F.2d 1329 (3rd Cir. 1974) (Blue Bird II). W e believe that FFE's reliance on Blue Bird is misplaced. Blue Bird I involved a shipper who r elied solely upon a bill of lading, which represented that the carrier had received the shipment in apparent good order, in order to prove that the goods had been tendered in good condition. See Blue Bird I, 474 F.2d at 104. The district court found such proof insufficient to establish the condition of the goods because the goods were in a sealed trailer and therefore not open for inspection. Bluebird Food Prods. Co. v. Baltimore and Ohio R.R. Co., 329 F . Supp. 1116, 1118 (E.D. Pa. 1971), vacated 474 F.2d 102 (3rd Cir. 1973). The district court stated rather broadly, however , that [w]here merchandise is sealed in a trailer, and the contents are not open and visible, the plaintiff must establish by direct evidence that the goods were delivered to the carrier in good order. Id. After initially r emanding the case for the district court to determine whether the trailer was indeed sealed, we affirmed the district court's finding that a bill of lading was insufficient to prove the condition of goods which had been in a sealed container. See Blue Bir d II, 492 F.2d at 1331. Nevertheless, because the shipper in Blue Bird exclusively relied on the bill of lading, this court never reached the issue of what type of evidence--in addition to a clean bill of lading--would establish that the merchandise had been delivered in good condition.6 Other courts, apparently focusing on the direct evidence requirement in the district court's opinion, have cited Blue _________________________________________________________________ 6. We explicitly stated in Blue Bird II, [t]he issue presented is whether the introduction of a bill of lading with the notation `Received . . . the property described below, in apparent good order . . .' is sufficient to establish the good condition of the lading at the time it was delivered by the shipper to the carrier. Blue Bir d II, 492 F.2d at 1331. 7 Bird for the proposition that wher e goods are not open and visible, a shipper may present only dir ect evidence, as opposed to circumstantial evidence, in or der to establish the condition of its goods. See, e.g. , D.P. Apparel Corp. v. Roadway Express, Inc., 736 F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1984) (In fact, where the contents of the shipment ar e not visible or open for inspection, additional direct and affirmative proof is necessary to show that the cloth was in good condition when delivered to Roadway) (citing, inter alia, Blue Bird I, 474 F.2d at 107-08); see also Ed Miniat, Inc. v. Baltimore and Ohio R.R. Co., 587 F.2d 1277, 1282 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (Under section 20(11) [of the Carmack Amendment], the burden of establishing the condition of the beef when entrusted to the railroad clearly lies on the shipper and discharging this burden requir es some direct evidence of this condition.) (citations omitted). In our view, however, the holding in Blue Bird, and even the must establish direct evidence language in the district court's opinion, were simply directed at making shippers produce evidence, other than a clean bill of lading, to establish the condition of goods which were not open and visible for the carrier's inspection. Accordingly, we reject the view that Blue Bird renders all circumstantial evidence irrelevant where the goods are not open and visible.7 See Fine Foliage of Fla., Inc. v. Bowman Transp., Inc., 901 F.2d 1034, 1038 (11th Cir. 1990) (Wefind no support for [the carrier's] assertion that a judge may not r ely on circumstantial evidence to establish the original condition of goods when that evidence is substantial and r eliable.). Although a bill of lading, by itself, is not sufficient to establish the condition of goods that were neither visible nor open to inspection, a shipper may rely on other reliable evidence--direct or circumstantial--which is sufficient to establish by a preponderance of all the evidence the _________________________________________________________________ 7. It is logical that courts would prohibit a shipper's reliance on a clean bill of lading alone where goods are not open and visible, because the condition of such goods are unknown to the carrier. See Pillsbury v. Illinois Cent. Gulf R.R., 687 F.2d 241, 244 (8th Cir. 1982) (Where goods are shipped under seal, the condition of the goods cannot be within the carrier's knowledge.). It does not necessarily follow, however, that reliance on all other circumstantial evidence should be disallowed. 8 condition of the goods upon delivery. Pillsbury Co., 687 F.2d at 244 (8th Cir. 1982). Thus, even assuming that the shipment in the present case was not open and visible,8 the only difference between Beta Spawn's evidentiary burden here, as opposed to in a case where goods are open and visible, is that Beta Spawn cannot rely solely on the bill of lading to establish the spawn's condition. Unlike the plaintiff in Blue Bird , Beta Spawn does not rely on the bill of lading as proof that it tendered the spawn to FFE in good condition. Instead, it mainly r elies upon the testimony of Peterson, an officer and director of Mushrooms, Etc. Peterson testified that he successfully used a portion of the remaining Italspawn fr om the original June Shipment three weeks after the 16,000 units of spawn were shipped to Pennsylvania. Although we r ecognize that Peterson's success is not conclusive proof as to the condition of the spawn at issue because the two portions of spawn were kept in separate facilities, it does carry some weight in that all the spawn were stored under similar conditions. Peterson testified that the spawn--both on and off the farm--were refrigerated for the entire summer and never removed from the coolers. Further more, the cooler in which the spawn at issue were stored had a backup _________________________________________________________________ 8. The district court made no finding as to whether the shipment of spawn was open and visible. FFE asserts in its brief that the shipment was not open to inspection because the spawn wer e contained in closed boxes and because FFE's policy prohibited drivers from opening closed boxes. We do not agree that such evidence necessarily establishes that the spawn were not visible and open to inspection. In contrast to the goods in Blue Bird, the spawn here were not in a sealed trailer.See Blue Bird II, 492 F.2d at 1332-33. Although FFE's policy did not permit drivers to inspect the contents of closed boxes, there is no evidence that FFE was prohibited by Beta Spawn from per forming such inspection. The only evidence that FFE would have been hinder ed from opening the boxes is that the boxes had been secured to the pallets with tape wrapped around them. The boxes were not, however, shrink wrapped when delivered to Forbito. Furthermor e, Forbito, FFE's driver, testified that when the boxes were loaded onto the truck, some of the boxes' top lids were open such that he could see some of the bags of spawn. Nonetheless, because we hold that Blue Bir d does not prohibit Beta Spawn from relying on circumstantial evidence, we need not affirmatively decide whether or not the spawn were open and visible. 9 generator in case of power outage. Peterson visited the facilities where the spawn were stor ed every three to four days. Peterson's assertion that he maintained the spawn at a proper temperature during the summer was corroborated to some degree by Forbito's testimony that when he received the spawn, the temperature inside the boxes was 34 degrees and by evidence that the temperatur e was at 34 degrees when the truck reached Chicago. As Testa testified, once spawn is exposed to heat, an attempt to r e-cool the spawn will not be successful. Therefore, the fact that the boxes were at 34 degrees on the day they were tendered to FFE and on the day they reached Chicago tends to show that the spawn previously had been stor ed at the proper temperature and were in good condition when tendered to FFE. In addition, Peterson personally examined one of the bags of spawn before it was loaded onto FFE's trailer. There was no characteristic odor of spawn fermentation nor did the bag have a yellowish tint which signifies damaged spawn. Peterson's testimony that the bag contained good pr oduct was direct evidence only as to the condition of the spawn in that particular bag, but was circumstantial evidence of the spawn's condition in the other bags, as the bags had all been stored and loaded together. FFE asserts that there was insufficient proof that the spawn wer e in good condition in light of the fact that Forbito took exception to all four hundred boxes on the bill of lading and testified that the bottom two layers of boxes on every pallet were crushed, torn or open. Peterson testified, however, that he looked through the cracks where the boxes were torn and did not see any ripped bags. In addition, Peterson testified that even if boxes were torn, it was still possible for the spawn to remain undamaged. In fact, when Peterson initially received the June Shipment fr om Beta Spawn, he successfully used spawn which had arrived in tor n boxes to grow his first crop of mushrooms. Thus, considering all the evidence presented to the district court, we hold that the court did not err in finding that Beta Spawn met its burden of proof that the spawn were delivered to FFE in good condition. 10