Court Opinion

ID: 9644373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:54:15.563504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:12.478413
License: Public Domain

CHASE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the result and in the opinion except that part which deals with the denial of recovery for the 53 bags which were lost. As to them I agree with the district judge that there can be no recovery because no written notice of claim was given within the time required by the terms of the bill of lading. That time limit was reasonable — within six months after the giving of written notice of loss. Apart from the provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 1303(6) this was, therefore, a permissible limitation for the carrier to put into the contract of carriage that should be enforced. Bank of California v. International Mercantile M. Co., 2 Cir., 64 F.2d 97; The General G. W. Goethals, 2 Cir., 298 F. 935; The Susquehanna, 4 Cir., 296 F. 461.
Moreover, it does not seem to me that anything in the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act should be held to have foreclosed the right of a ship owner to make liability contingent upon the filing of a notice of claim just like the bill of lading did in respect to these lost bags.
That statute provides for the filing of a notice of loss within the time fixed upon pain otherwise of having the removal of the goods treated “prima facie” as evidence of the delivery by the carrier of the goods as described in the bill of lading. This is, indeed, the only real disadvantage the statute permits as a result of the failure to file a notice of loss for it allows suit to be brought within one year after the goods were, or should have been, delivered whether or not a notice of loss or damage was filed.
If a notice of loss or damage and a notice of claim were not different things, and presumably so considered by Congress when the statute was passed, I could agree that the statute made provision for suit even though no claim for loss as well as no notice of loss had been given. But they are two separate and distinct things. A. Russo & Co. v. United States et al., 5 Cir., 40 F.2d 39; Anchor Line v. Jackson, 2 Cir., 9 F.2d 543. Consequently merely permitting suit within the statutory time limit but only at *323some disadvantage as to proof if no notice of loss has been duly given certainly does not, I think, put the failure to give any notice of claim into the same category and beyond the scope of a legitimate bill of lading agreement between carrier and shipper.
Nor does the broad, general provision in the Act that there shall “otherwise than as provided” be no lessening by agreement in a contract of carriage of the liability of the carrier for loss or damage to the goods caused by its negligence, fault or failure to comply with the statute make the district judge’s conclusion untenable. The phrase “otherwise than as provided in this Act” means in its setting merely contrary to the provisions of the Act and cannot reasonably be thought to deprive the carrier of all right to make a contract of carriage “lessening such liability” simply because there is no language in the statute itself expressly and affirmatively permitting it.
I would affirm for the reasons above stated.