Court Opinion

ID: 9460516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:52:52.072752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:39.429042
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The majority holds that the railroad’s letter of disallowance dated February 19, 1968 lacks “clear finality” necessitating “resort to . subsequent correspondence for clarification.” In that letter the railroad notified the plaintiff: “In the circumstances, have no option but to hereby disallow the claim.” The majority finds that it is reasonable to characterize “the letter as a ‘qualified’ disallowance leaving the way open for negotiation.”
I cannot agree with the majority’s characterization of the letter as lacking “clear finality.” But, even accepting the majority’s finding that the letter amounted to a “qualified” disallowance, I would hold that such a disallowance is sufficient to meet the requirements of the statute. The pertinent portion of section 2(b) of the Uniform Bill of Lading Contract provides:
[S]uits shall be instituted against any carrier only within two years and one day from the day when notice in writing is given by the carrier to the claimant that the carrier has disallowed the claim or any part or parts thereof specified in the notice. Where claims are not filed or suits are not instituted thereon in accordance with the foregoing provisions, no carrier hereunder shall be liable and such claims will not be paid.
The statute does not demand the degree of specificity that the majority reads into it. Indeed, there is no requirement that the notice of disallowance be utterly and completely unequivocal.
The majority recognizes the substantial authority which holds that negotiations subsequent to a disallowance do not toll the running of the limitations period. To blunt the impact of those decisions the majority characterizes the disallowance as “qualified” and not sufficient to meet the standard they impose, namely, an unequivocal disallowance. In so doing, the majority has created an unwieldly standard in this area of notices of disallowance. It is an amorphous standard that turns on distinctions of degree between a qualified and an unequivocal disallowance. Such distinctions will lead to arbitrary and inconsistent conduct and treatment with respect to the affairs of shippers and their customers. Moreover, the distinctions clearly run counter to the Interstate Commerce Act’s intent to eliminate any type of discriminatory and nonuniform treatment among carriers and their customers.
The plaintiff in a letter dated September 28, 1967 made its claim for damages. The railroad responded on February 19, 1968 stating that, “In the circumstances, have no option but to hereby disallow the claim.” The railroad’s response was sufficient to put the plaintiff on notice that its claim as tendered would not be met on first inquiry and, at best, all or part of plaintiff’s claim would be met only upon additional inquiry by the plaintiff. The railroad’s February 19 letter clearly was not a complete acceptance of the plaintiff’s demands. Consequently, the February 19 letter functioned, at least, as a triggering device for subsequent negotiations; negotiations which — to facilitate the statute’s purposes of encouraging the expeditious settlement of disputes and avoiding stale claims — should have been completed within two years and a day. I would hold that the February 19 letter served as an objective benchmark by which to measure the timeliness of plaintiff’s suit. As such it provided a much more suitable benchmark to determine if there has been adequate notice of disallowance than an endeavor that would venture into the realm of subjective intentions of the parties seeking to discern if the disallowance was total and unequivocal or partial and tentative.