Carrier liability

If you carry other people’s goods, every consignment is a risk you have agreed to hold for a while. Most arrive without incident, and the liability behind them is never tested. When one does not, the question comes quickly, and usually from a customer you want to keep: was this your fault, and if not, can you show it? Carriers who have never looked at the rules that answer it tend to pay claims they did not owe, or refuse ones they did.

Carrier liability is a regime of its own, stricter than ordinary contract law in some respects and more forgiving in others, and much of it cannot be set aside by agreement. It turns on questions such as these:

• the rules on when a carrier’s responsibility begins and ends, and on who answers for loading and unloading;
• the rules on the defences open to a carrier — inherent vice, defective packing, the sender’s own acts and events it could not avoid;
• the rules on a carrier’s answerability for its drivers, its subcontractors and the vehicles it hires in;
• the rules on theft from vehicles in transit, and on the security a carrier is expected to arrange for parking and routes;
• the rules on what a sender owes the carrier for inaccurate particulars, undeclared contents and badly stowed loads;
• the rules on a carrier’s duties when delivery becomes impossible — asking for instructions, keeping the goods and, in the end, disposing of them;
• the rules on how far contract terms may widen or narrow the liability the law places on a carrier;
• the rules on a carrier’s liability to passengers for injury, delay and lost luggage.

Our lawyers can support you with this.