BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR – NEWS
MOTOR FREIGHT
Transportation
SINCE 1906, THE FEDERAL LAW GOVERNING LIAbility for lost or damaged cargo has been the so-called
Carmack Amendment, authored by Edward Ward Carmack,
a Tennessee lawmaker, lawyer, and publisher who in 1908
was gunned down by a political rival on the streets of
Nashville in what is still regarded as the city’s most notorious murder.
The amendment, attached to the landmark Interstate
Commerce Act signed into law 19 years before, holds a
carrier responsible for proving it wasn’t negligent in its
handling of in-transit cargo that was lost or damaged.
The shipper’s sole obligation is to show the cargo was in
good condition when it was tendered. To avoid liability, a
carrier must demonstrate that loss or damage was due to
one of five events: an act of God, actions of the shipper,
the “authority of laws” such as a government edict, the
presence of a “public enemy,” and the “inherent vice” of,
or a defect in, the shipment itself. The amendment, which
became so familiar through the decades that it was simply
referred to by the author’s last name, was designed to eliminate a hodgepodge of state laws that made it difficult for
shippers or carriers to determine their rights and obligations in a given situation.
For decades, the amendment has been a basic tenet of the
uniform bill of lading, which is the default—and still widely
used—contract of carriage between a shipper and carrier.
But it has not lacked for opposition. Carmack survived
numerous challenges in state courts before the U.S. Supreme
Court in 1964 finally upheld Carmack on grounds the
amendment rightly protects shippers who can’t travel with
the carrier and have no way of knowing how their goods
were handled or how they were lost or damaged.
Carmack held firm until last July 14. On that date, the
National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA), a
450-member carrier body that oversees a system of freight
classifications used to set tariff rates mostly for less-than-truckload (LTL) services, announced a series of changes to
the uniform bill of lading, all of which took effect Aug. 13.
The most far-reaching was to shift to shippers the burden
of proving carrier negligence. NMFTA also added “riots,
strikes, or any related causes” to the list of carrier defenses
to a cargo claim. Opponents have argued the change runs
counter to more than a century of settled law, including
the core position taken by the Supreme Court in upholding
Carmack, and puts shippers at an extreme disadvantage in
liability disputes.
Other NMFTA changes didn’t sit well with shippers
either. One put the liability burden on the carrier whose
For over a century, the Carmack
Amendment has provided liability protection
for motor freight shippers. But a carrier
group’s unilateral policy change last summer
upends decades of what many thought was settled law.
NMFTA: Hit the road, Carmack!
