U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Infanzon v. Allstate Insurance Company, Docket No. 22-56070

Insurance Law

Insurance Agent’s Liability

Joinder

Diversity

California Law

 

 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

 

The district court correctly found that Leticia Pomes, the Allstate Insurance Sales Agent who was named as a codefendant in Infanzon’s state court complaint, was fraudulently joined. See Morris v. Princess Cruises, Inc., 236 F.3d 1061, 1067 (9th Cir. 2001). “Joinder of a non-diverse defendant is deemed fraudulent, and the defendant’s presence in the lawsuit is ignored for purposes of determining diversity, ‘if the plaintiff fails to state a cause of action against a resident defendant, and the failure is obvious according to the settled rules of the state.’” Id. (quoting McCabe v. General Foods Corp., 811 F.2d 1336, 1339 (9th Cir. 1987)). Under California law, an insurance agent acting in the name of a disclosed principal is not personally liable for acts committed within the scope of his or her employment, Lippert v. Bailey, 241 Cal. App. 2d 376, 382 (1966), “unless an agent or employee acts as a dual agent.” Mercado v. Allstate Ins. Co., 340 F.3d 824, 826 (9th Cir. 2003). Here, there is no dispute that Pomes acted on behalf of Allstate, her disclosed principal; that she always held herself out as Allstate’s agent to Infanzon and to others; and that she acted within the scope of her employment. Therefore, because Pomes acted as Allstate’s exclusive agent, Infanzon has no cognizable claim against her under California law, and complete diversity exists.

 

 

(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Aug. 2, 2024, Infanzon v. Allstate Insurance Company, Docket No. 22-56070, Not for Publication)

 

 

U.S. Supreme Court, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451

 

Article III of the Constitution

 

Chevron Deference

 

APA

 

 

 

Article III of the Constitution assigns to the Federal Judiciary the responsibility and power to adjudicate “Cases” and “Controversies”—concrete disputes with consequences for the parties involved. The Framers appreciated that the laws judges would necessarily apply in resolving those disputes would not always be clear. Cognizant of the limits of human language and foresight, they anticipated that “all new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation,” would be “more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning” was settled “by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.” The Federalist No. 37, p. 236 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison). The Framers also envisioned that the final “interpretation of the laws” would be “the proper and peculiar province of the courts.” Id., No. 78, at 525 (A. Hamilton). Unlike the political branches, the courts would by design exercise “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment.” Id., at 523. To ensure the “steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws,” the Framers structured the Constitution to allow judges to exercise that judgment independent of influence from the political branches. Id., at 522; see id., at 522–524; Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 484 (2011).

 

 

This Court embraced the Framers’ understanding of the judicial function early on. In the foundational decision of Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall famously declared that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). And in the following decades, the Court understood “interpreting the laws, in the last resort,” to be a “solemn duty” of the Judiciary. United States v. Dickson, 15 Pet. 141, 162 (1841) (Story, J., for the Court). When the meaning of a statute was at issue, the judicial role was to “interpret the act of Congress, in order to ascertain the rights of the parties.” Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 515 (1840). The Court also recognized from the outset, though, that exercising independent judgment often included according due respect to Executive Branch interpretations of federal statutes. (…) “Respect,” though, was just that. The views of the Executive Branch could inform the judgment of the Judiciary, but did not supersede it. Whatever respect an Executive Branch interpretation was due, a judge “certainly would not be bound to adopt the construction given by the head of a department.” Decatur, 14 Pet., at 515; see also Burnet v. Chicago Portrait Co., 285 U. S. 1, 16 (1932). Otherwise, judicial judgment would not be independent at all. As Justice Story put it, “in cases where a court’s own judgment . . . differed from that of other high functionaries,” the court was “not at liberty to surrender, or to waive it.” Dickson, 15 Pet., at 162.

 

 

(…) Congress in 1946 enacted the APA “as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried them to excesses not contemplated in legislation creating their offices.” Morton Salt, 338 U. S., at 644. It was the culmination of a “comprehensive rethinking of the place of administrative agencies in a regime of separate and divided powers.” Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U. S. 667, 670–671 (1986).

 

 

(…) The deference that Chevron requires of courts reviewing agency action cannot be squared with the APA.

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Supreme Court, June 28, 2024, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451, C.J. Roberts)

 

U.S. Supreme Court, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451

Statutory Interpretation

 

Presumptions

 

Ambiguity

 

 

 

Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA, as the Government and the dissent contend, by presuming that statutory ambiguities are implicit delegations to agencies. See Brief for Respondents in No. 22–1219, pp. 13, 37–38; post, at 4–15 (opinion of KAGAN, J.). Presumptions have their place in statutory interpretation, but only to the extent that they approximate reality. Chevron’s presumption does not, because “an ambiguity is simply not a delegation of law-interpreting power. Chevron confuses the two.” C. Sunstein, Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 405, 445 (1989). As Chevron itself noted, ambiguities may result from an inability on the part of Congress to squarely answer the question at hand, or from a failure to even “consider the question” with the requisite precision. 467 U. S., at 865. In neither case does an ambiguity necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting interpretive question. And many or perhaps most statutory ambiguities may be unintentional. As the Framers recognized, ambiguities will inevitably follow from “the complexity of objects, . . . the imperfection of the human faculties,” and the simple fact that “no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea.” The Federalist No. 37, at 236.

 

 

Courts, after all, routinely confront statutory ambiguities in cases having nothing to do with Chevron—cases that do not involve agency interpretations or delegations of authority. Of course, when faced with a statutory ambiguity in such a case, the ambiguity is not a delegation to anybody, and a court is not somehow relieved of its obligation to independently interpret the statute. Courts in that situation do not throw up their hands because “Congress’s instructions have” supposedly “run out,” leaving a statutory “gap.” Post, at 2 (opinion of KAGAN, J.). Courts instead understand that such statutes, no matter how impenetrable, do— in fact, must—have a single, best meaning. That is the whole point of having written statutes; “every statute’s meaning is fixed at the time of enactment.” Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States, 585 U. S. 274, 284 (2018). So instead of declaring a particular party’s reading “permissible” in such a case, courts use every tool at their disposal to determine the best reading of the statute and resolve the ambiguity.

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Supreme Court, June 28, 2024, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, Docket No. 22-451, C.J. Roberts)

 

U.S. Supreme Court, Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. v. Moab Partners, L.P., Docket No. 22-1165

Securities

 

Securities Fraud Claim

 

Duty to Disclose

 

Pure Omissions

 

Private Action Under Rule 10b–5(b)

 

Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

 

Circuit Split

 

 

 

 

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 10b–5(b) makes it unlawful to omit material facts in connection with buying or selling securities when that omission renders “statements made” misleading. Separately, Item 303 of SEC Regulation S–K requires companies to disclose certain information in periodic filings with the SEC. The question in this case is whether the failure to disclose information required by Item 303 can support a private action under Rule 10b–5(b), even if the failure does not render any “statements made” misleading. The Court holds that it cannot. Pure omissions are not actionable under Rule 10b–5(b).

 

 

Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 makes it “unlawful for any person . . . to use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security . . ., any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the SEC may prescribe.” 48 Stat. 891, 15 U. S. C. §78j(b). Rule 10b–5 implements this prohibition and makes it unlawful for issuers of registered securities to “make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.” 17 CFR §240.10b–5(b) (2022). This Court “has found a right of action implied in the words of §10(b) and its implementing regulation.” Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U. S. 148, 157 (2008).

 

 

Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act requires issuers to file periodic informational statements. See 15 U. S. C. §§78m(a)(1), 78l(b)(1). These statements include the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operation” (MD&A), in which companies must “furnish the information required by Item 303 of Regulation S–K.” See SEC Form 10–K; SEC Form 10–Q. Item 303, in turn, requires companies to “describe any known trends or uncertainties that have had or that are reasonably likely to have a material favorable or unfavorable impact on net sales or revenues or income from continuing operations.” 17 CFR §229.303(b)(2)(ii) (2022).

 

 

(…) The courts of appeals disagree on whether a failure to make a disclosure required by Item 303 can support a private claim under §10(b) and Rule 10b–5(b) in the absence of an otherwise-misleading statement.1 This Court granted certiorari to resolve that disagreement. 600 U. S. ___ (2023).

 

 

1 Compare Stratte-McClure v. Morgan Stanley, 776 F. 3d 94, 101 (CA2 2015) (“Item 303’s affirmative duty to disclose in Form 10–Qs can serve as the basis for a securities fraud claim under Section 10(b)”), with In re Nvidia, 768 F. 3d 1046, 1056 (CA9 2014) (“Item 303 does not create a duty to disclose for purposes of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b–5”); see also Oran v. Stafford, 226 F. 3d 275, 288 (CA3 2000) (“The ‘demonstration of a violation of the disclosure requirements of Item 303 does not lead inevitably to the conclusion that such disclosure would be required under Rule 10b–5. Such a duty to disclose must be separately shown’”).

 

 

Rule 10b–5(b) makes it unlawful “to make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.” 17 CFR §240.10b–5(b). This Rule accomplishes two things. It prohibits “any untrue statement of a material fact”—i.e., false statements or lies. Ibid. It also prohibits omitting a material fact necessary “to make the statements made . . . not misleading.” Ibid. This case turns on whether this second prohibition bars only half-truths or instead extends to pure omissions.

A pure omission occurs when a speaker says nothing, in circumstances that do not give any particular meaning to that silence.

 

 

Rule 10b–5(b) does not proscribe pure omissions. The Rule prohibits omitting material facts necessary to make the “statements made . . . not misleading.” Put differently, it requires disclosure of information necessary to ensure that statements already made are clear and complete (…). This Rule therefore covers half-truths, not pure omissions. Logically and by its plain text, the Rule requires identifying affirmative assertions (i.e., “statements made”) before determining if other facts are needed to make those statements “not misleading.”

 

 

(…) It once again “bears emphasis that §10(b) and Rule 10b–5(b) do not create an affirmative duty to disclose any and all material information.

Disclosure is required under these provisions only when necessary ‘to make . . . statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading.’” Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, 563 U. S. 27, 44 (2011) (quoting Rule 10b–5(b)).

 

 

Statutory context confirms what the text plainly provides. Congress imposed liability for pure omissions in §11(a) of the Securities Act of 1933. Section 11(a) prohibits any registration statement that “contains an untrue statement of a material fact or omits to state a material fact required to be stated therein or necessary to make the statements therein not misleading.” 15 U. S. C. §77k(a). By its terms, in addition to proscribing lies and half-truths, this section also creates liability for failure to speak on a subject at all. See Omnicare, 575 U. S., at 186, n. 3 (“Section 11’s omissions clause also applies when an issuer fails to make mandated disclosures—those ‘required to be stated’—in a registration statement”). There is no similar language in §10(b) or Rule 10b–5(b). Cf. Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 208 (1976).

 

 

“Silence, absent a duty to disclose, is not misleading under Rule 10b–5.” Basic Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U. S. 224, 239, n. 17 (1988). Even a duty to disclose, however, does not automatically render silence misleading under Rule 10b–5(b). Today, this Court confirms that the failure to disclose information required by Item 303 can support a Rule 10b–5(b) claim only if the omission renders affirmative statements made misleading.

(Fn. 2: Moab and the United States spill much ink fighting the question presented, insisting that this case is about half-truths rather than pure omissions. The Court granted certiorari to address the Second Circuit’s pure omission analysis, not its half-truth analysis. See Pet. for Cert. I (“Whether . . . a failure to make a disclosure required under Item 303 can support a private claim under Section 10(b), even in the absence of an otherwise-misleading statement”); see also 2022 WL 17815767, *1 (Dec. 20, 2022) (distinguishing between these “two circumstances”). The Court does not opine on issues that are either tangential to the question presented or were not passed upon below, including what constitutes “statements made,” when a statement is misleading as a half-truth, or whether Rules 10b–5(a) and 10b–5(c) support liability for pure omissions.) 

 

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Supreme Court, April 12, 2024, Macquarie Infrastructure Corp. v. Moab Partners, L.P., Docket No. 22-1165, J. Sotomayor, Unanimous)

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132

International Treaty and Other International Agreements

 

Interpretation

 

 

 

(…) Though the Montreal Convention does not further define “contracting carrier,” the President included a “detailed article-by-article analysis” of its text – prepared by the Secretary of State – when transmitting the treaty to the Senate. See Cong. Rsch. Serv., Treaties and Other International Agreements: The Role of the United States Senate 118 (2001) (explaining how “all treaties are transmitted to the Senate in the President’s name” and are typically accompanied by a letter from the Secretary of State that provides a “detailed description and analysis of the treaty”), 

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-106SPRT66922/pdf/CPRT-106SPRT66922.pdf

[https://perma.cc/JX6P-CX4W].

 

 

 

(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, April 4, 2024, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132)

 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132

 

Subrogated Claims for Damage to Cargo

 

Contracting Carrier under the Montreal Convention

 

Contracting Carrier and Actual Carrier

 

Freight Forwarder

 

Principal and Agent

 

Carriage by Air

 

Air Waybill and House Waybill

 

Insurance Law

 

Transportation Law

 

Export

 

 

 

Indemnity Insurance Company of North America (“Indemnity”) appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Unitrans International Corporation (“Unitrans”) on Indemnity’s subrogated claims for damage to cargo that occurred while the cargo was being unloaded from a truck at an airport. The district court (Pollak, M.J.) granted Unitrans’s motion for summary judgment on the grounds that Unitrans – a logistics company – qualified as a contracting carrier under the Montreal Convention and that Indemnity’s action was therefore time-barred by the Convention’s statute of limitations. Although we agree that contracting carriers are subject to the Montreal Convention, we find that there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Unitrans was a contracting carrier. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings.

 

 

In July 2014, Amgen, Inc. (“Amgen”), subrogor of plaintiff-appellant Indemnity Insurance Company of North America (“Indemnity”), engaged defendant-appellee Unitrans International Corporation (“Unitrans”) to arrange for the transportation of three pallets of Enbrel, a pharmaceutical drug (the “Cargo”), by motor and air carriage from Amgen’s facility in Dublin, Ireland to Philadelphia. On July 28, 2014, while Unitrans’s agent was delivering the Cargo to the air carrier at the airport, one of the pallets fell and was damaged. As a consequence, the entire shipment was returned to Amgen’s facility in Dublin, and the damaged pallet was declared a total loss.

 

 

Indemnity, as Amgen’s insurer, paid Amgen’s claim for the loss of the pallet and, as subrogee to Amgen’s rights, sued Unitrans for breach of contract, negligence, and breach of bailment. Unitrans moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Montreal Convention – which preempts all state law claims within its scope – governed Amgen’s claim. See Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, May 28, 1999, T.I.A.S. 13038, 2242 U.N.T.S. 309 (entered into force Nov. 4, 2003) (“Montreal Convention”). The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Pollak, M.J.) granted summary judgment in Unitrans’s favor, concluding that the Montreal Convention applied and that the action was therefore barred by its two-year limitations period. This appeal followed.

 

 

Though we hold that the Montreal Convention applies to contracting carriers, we find that there remains a genuine factual dispute as to whether Unitrans qualifies as a contracting carrier. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings.

 

 

(…) At Dublin Airport, while the TLC driver was removing the Cargo from the truck to deliver it to US Airways’s ground handling agent, one pallet fell off the truck and was damaged. The Cargo was returned to Amgen’s facility, and the damaged pallet was declared a total loss of over $1.8 million. Indemnity paid Amgen’s claim for the total loss and became fully subrogated to Amgen’s rights.

 

 

(…) The principal legal issue presented is whether the Montreal Convention applies only to damage that occurs while cargo is in the charge of an actual carrier. Indemnity urges us to adopt this narrow construction of the Montreal Convention, which would place its claims outside of the Convention given that Unitrans merely arranged for the Cargo’s transportation through third-party carriers and was not itself an actual carrier. We reject Indemnity’s legal argument and hold that the Montreal Convention extends to “contracting carriers” when cargo is damaged in international carriage while in their charge. Nevertheless, because there remains a genuine factual dispute over whether Unitrans qualifies as a “contracting carrier,” we conclude that the district court should not have granted Unitrans’s motion for summary judgment.

 

 

(…) As relevant here, Article 18 of the Convention, which covers damage to cargo, provides that a carrier is liable for damage to cargo if “the event which caused the damage . . . took place during the carriage by air.” Montreal Convention art. 18(1). “Carriage by air . . . comprises the period during which the cargo is in the charge of the carrier.” Id. art. 18(3). Significantly, “carriage by air” can encompass periods when the cargo is not “actually aboard an airplane,” Underwriters at Lloyds Subscribing to Cover Note B0753PC1308275000 v. Expeditors Korea Ltd., 882 F.3d 1033, 1040 (11th Cir. 2018), but does not cover “carriage by land . . . performed outside an airport,” Montreal Convention art. 18(4); see also Underwriters at Lloyds, 882 F.3d at 1040.

 

 

(…) Taken together, these provisions make clear that a “contracting carrier” – that is, a company that arranges for the international transportation of cargo by engaging third-party carriers such as airlines and truckers to perform the actual carriage – is a “carrier” for purposes of the Montreal Convention if, as a principal, it enters into the contract of carriage with a consignor.

 

 

(…) Article 40 plainly provides that when an actual carrier performs the whole or part of carriage, both the contracting carrier and the actual carrier are subject to the Montreal Convention – the actual carrier solely for the carriage it performs and the contracting carrier for “the whole of the carriage contemplated in the contract.” Montreal Convention art. 40; see also id. art. 1(4). Thus, a contracting carrier, as defined by Article 39, is subject to the rules of the Montreal Convention, including Article 18. See A.S.A.P. Logistics, Ltd. v. UPS Supply Chain Sols., Inc., 629 F. Supp. 3d 42, 46 n.3 (E.D.N.Y. 2022).

 

 

(…) We likewise reject Unitrans’s contention that carriage by air is a “term of art” applying to all damage occurring within the premises of the airport and that, therefore, the Montreal Convention applies here because the Cargo was damaged while it was at the airport. Unitrans Br. at 12, 14. The text of the Montreal Convention does not support the contention that any damage that occurs at an airport occurs during carriage by air, regardless of whether the cargo is in the charge of the carrier. As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, the Montreal Convention provides that a carrier is liable only for damage sustained during “carriage by air,” which is “the period during which the cargo is in the charge of the carrier,” except when the cargo is transported on the ground outside an airport. See Underwriters at Lloyds, 882 F.3d at 1040–42 (quoting Montreal Convention arts. 18(1), (3)–(4)). None of our precedent, even under the Warsaw Convention, is to the contrary. See Victoria Sales Corp. v. Emery Air Freight, Inc., 917 F.2d 705, 706–08 (2d Cir. 1990) (holding that damage to cargo in the charge of a carrier that occurs outside of an airport does not occur during carriage by air, but not holding that all damage that occurs inside an airport occurs during carriage by air, regardless of whether the cargo is in the charge of the carrier); Com. Union Ins. Co., 347 F.3d at 464–68 (holding that, under Article 18(4), when the point of damage is unknown, carrier control over all portions of the journey is presumed, but not holding that, even if the point of damage is known, the cargo need not be in the charge of the carrier). Here, there is no question that the Cargo was damaged inside the airport, but there remains the issue of whether the Cargo was damaged while “in the charge of the carrier.”

 

 

There is no dispute that Unitrans was not the actual carrier because it did not perform and was not intending to perform any part of the carriage itself. Therefore, the Montreal Convention applies only if Unitrans was a contracting carrier under Articles 39 and 40. As discussed above and as relevant here, the Montreal Convention provides that a contracting carrier is a person that (1) as a principal (2) makes a contract of carriage governed by the Montreal Convention (3) with a consignor, and (4) an actual carrier performs the whole or part of the carriage by virtue of authority from the contracting carrier. See Montreal Convention art. 39. In general, a principal is “someone who authorizes another to act on his or her behalf as an agent” or “someone who has primary responsibility on an obligation.” Principal, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

 

 

Given the current factual record, we find that there remains a genuine dispute as to whether Unitrans was acting as a principal and, by extension, whether it qualifies as a contracting carrier. On the one hand, there is evidence indicating that Unitrans was acting as a principal because it took primary responsibility in making and executing the carriage contracts. Indeed, in Unitrans’s interrogatory responses, it stated that it “acted as a freight forwarder and an indirect air carrier with regard to the Cargo,” taking “responsibility for the care, custody, and control of the Cargo” “from the receipt of the Cargo at the Amgen facility.” J. App’x at 248; see also, e.g., id. at 81 (Unitrans employee stating that “air waybill 037-49058936 was issued for the door-to-door carriage of the Cargo on July 28, 2014”); id. at 225 (parties agreeing that Unitrans “entered into a contract with . . . Amgen . . . to transport the Cargo from Amgen’s facility in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania”); id. at 268 (Amgen listing Unitrans as a “carrier” in its internal invoices). A reasonable juror could take these statements to mean that Unitrans – acting as a principal with ultimate “responsibility” for the Cargo – made a contract with consignor Amgen to transport the Cargo internationally, and that Unitrans then subcontracted with US Airways. In this circumstance, Unitrans would have assumed the responsibility of a contracting carrier, while US Airways was set to perform the air carriage – as the “actual carrier” – by virtue of authority from Unitrans.

 

 

On the other hand, the record also contains evidence that paints Unitrans as an agent that merely set up an air-carriage contract between Amgen and US Airways. In this circumstance, Unitrans would not have been acting as a principal because it merely brokered the agreement while US Airways was obliged to perform the air carriage by virtue of its own authority. This view is supported by the fact that Unitrans presents itself as a “logistics company that arranges carriage of cargo on behalf of its customers,” which suggests that it acts as an “intermediary” that merely makes travel arrangements in the manner of a travel agent. Id. at 63, 70.

 

 

It remains unclear whether Unitrans (or MCL as its agent) ever issued a “house waybill” – which could further shed light on Unitrans’s role and responsibilities – and if so, what happened to it. See J. App’x at 80 (explaining that an “air waybill” is the waybill issued by the actual carrier while the “house waybill” is issued by the forwarder). (Fn. 9).

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, April 4, 2024, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132)

 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132

Waybill

 

Export 

 

Transportation

 

 

 

A “waybill” is “a document acknowledging the receipt of goods by a carrier or by the shipper’s agent and the contract for the transportation of those goods.  .  .  . A waybill ordinarily records where the goods are being sent, how much they are worth, and how much they weigh.” Waybill, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). An “air waybill” is specifically “a waybill for transportation of cargo by air.” Id. Article 4(1) of the Montreal Convention provides that “in respect of the carriage of cargo, an air waybill shall be delivered.” Montreal Convention art. 4(1). (Fn. 2).

 

 

(…) It remains unclear whether Unitrans (or MCL as its agent) ever issued a “house waybill” – which could further shed light on Unitrans’s role and responsibilities – and if so, what happened to it. See J. App’x at 80 (explaining that an “air waybill” is the waybill issued by the actual carrier while the “house waybill” is issued by the forwarder).

 

 

 

 

(U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, April 4, 2024, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America v. Unitrans International Corporation, Docket No. 21-2132)