Court Opinion

ID: 9452654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:47:50.338176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:18.476904
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Appellant consignee never received 1,680 TV tuners worth $16,800, and ap-pellee concedes it is liable for the loss. However, appellee limits its liability to $3,500. Therefore, appellant has been denied $13,300, which it has lost through no fault of its own. For insufficient reasons the majority opinion approves this inequitable result and disregards the strong policy behind section 4(5) of COGSA.
The purpose of section 4(5) when enacted in 1936 was to protect cargo interests like appellant. Prior to that time, seagoing carriers had been able to limit their liability for loss of cargo to insignificant amounts. See Jones v. The Flying Clipper, 116 F.Supp. 386, 388 & n. 10 (S.D.N.Y.1953). Raising the minimum liability limitation to $500 per package was a very substantial concession by carriers to cargo interests. See Pan-Am Trade & Credit Corp. v. The Campfire, 156 F.2d 603, 605-606 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 329 U.S. 774, 67 S.Ct. 194, 91 L.Ed. 666 (1946). This the majority concedes. Therefore, one would think that in a close case section 4(5) would be construed consistently with that purpose — to protect the cargo interest. This is, of course, a close case; the majority opinion professes to find no controlling precedent or meaningful legislative history defining “package.” I do not suggest that the definition or its application to particular facts are simple matters. Once' again we have “the troublesome conundrum: When is a package not a package ?” Mitsubishi International Corp. v. S.S. Palmetto State, 311 F.2d 382, 383 (2d Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 373 U.S. 922, 83 S.Ct. 1523, 10 L.Ed.2d 422 (1963). More precisely, here the question is which claimed package was the package under section 4 (5) — each sixty pound carton with forty TV tuners packed inside, or each “pallet” of six cartons strapped on a loading platform with a board on top, with open sides plainly exposing the cartons? Obviously, reasonable men can differ as to whether the “pallet” is literally a package; that being so, I suggest that the clear policy of the statute should be decisive unless there is controlling precedent to the contrary. I do not read the majority opinion as suggesting that there is.
In Mitsubishi, at 311 F.2d 384, this court emphasized in finding a “package” that the article there (steel) was “completely enclosed in a wooden box prepared for shipment.” In Gulf Italia Co. v. American Export Lines, Inc., 263 F.2d 135, 137 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 360 U.S. 902, 79 S.Ct. 1285, 3 L.Ed.2d 1254 (1959), this court made the same point in finding no package. (“Plainly the tractor was not shipped in a package, unless the covering of certain portions of it make it a ‘package’ within the meaning of the Act.”) I would normally expect a package at least to completely enclose the goods in question. Here, the tuners were completely enclosed in cartons — each carton was obviously a package. Strapping six cartons together on a platform with a board on top “to prevent *948other cargo and the [four metal] straps from cutting into the top two cartons” 1 did not make a package out of the six cartons, since the pallet was not also enclosed on the sides. I realize that problems will remain on how to deal with other large units in the future, e.g., “fishyback” trailers. I suggest that we decide such cases when they arise, emphasizing now only the minimum requirements of a package.
None of the reasons the majority has given is adequate to support the unfair result here. First, the characterization of the transaction by the parties to a contract of adhesion, see Caterpillar Overseas, S.A. v. S.S. Expeditor, 318 F.2d 720, 722 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, American Export Lines, Inc. v. Caterpillar Overseas, S.A., 375 U.S. 942, 84 S.Ct. 347, 11 L.Ed.2d 272 (1963), should not be controlling. Cf. section 3(8) of COGSA, 46 U.S.C. § 1303(8); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Admiralty 167 n. 156 (1957). Moreover, in this case, whether the parties did consider the pallets to be the statutory packages is ambiguous at best; e.g., appellee’s own agent referred to “the loss of 42 cartons.”
Second, the majority opinion points out that the shipper, apparently for reasons of convenience and safety, and not the carrier chose to make up the cartons into a pallet. This would seem irrelevant. The opinion concedes that carriers also benefit from the use of pallets; indeed, in footnote 4, it refers to other “exciting possibilities” of large shipping units, presumably desirable to carriers as well as to shippers. Attaching no significance to which party loaded the cargo on board the vessel, the majority considers crucial the number of units received from the shipper, which it equates with the number of packages, arguing that “the number of inner cartons is not apt to be mentioned in * * * the shipping documents * * This, of course, assumes the conclusions that a carton is not a unit and — by calling these plainly visible cartons “inner cartons” — that the cartons were not packages. See also 49 U.S.C. § 100, made a part of COGSA by 46 U.S.C. § 1303(4), discussed in American Trading Co. v. The Harry Culbreath, 187 F.2d 310 (2d Cir. 1951).
Third, the majority implies that this shipper could have obtained full coverage by declaring the nature and value of goods and, if necessary, paying a higher tariff. But if each carton was a package, there would be no occasion for a special declaration at a higher charge, since each carton was worth less than $500. Thus, finding significance in failure to declare merely begs the question of how to construe the word “package.”
Fourth, the majority concedes that the $500 package limitation may have become inadequate and its application inequitable, but asserts that revision must come from Congress, not the courts. Inadequate it has become; technological advancement and decline in the purchasing value of the dollar have combined to reduce the meaning of the $500 minimum liability limitation Congress gave to cargo interests. But I do not understand why we should add to the inequity. The call for congressional revision may be sound, but in the meantime we should .construe the existing statutory term as applied to the facts before us in consonance with its legislative purpose. That judicial function we ought not abdicate.
Finally, the majority’s result is justified as giving “package” a more predictable meaning. I am not sure what the “certain” definition of package is that the majority relies upon, but I suggest that, in any event, certainty at the expense of legislative policy and equity is undesirable and often turns out to be ephemeral.
I would reverse.

. Stipulation, ¶5.