KAWASAKI KISEN KAISHA V REGAL-BELOIT CORPORATION

561 US __ (2010), US Supreme Court, 21 June 2010

Carriage (multimodal) - Law applicable to US rail leg of multimodal international carriage - Whether Carmack Amendment applied to the inland segment of an overseas import shipment under a through bill of lading - Policy impact of the Rotterdam Rules - US COGSA - United Nations Convention for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea 2008

Goods had been shipped from China to a US port, and then by rail inland. The train on which the containerised cargo was being carried derailed and the cargo was destroyed. The cargo owner sued the carrier in a US court but the defendant carrier objected that there was no jurisdiction, because the bill of lading issued at the start of the carriage from China was subject to Tokyo jurisdiction. The cargo owner argued that it fell under the so-called Carmack Amendment, which limited and apportioned liability in relation to rail carriage to the receiving carrier and the delivering carrier; and which also limited the parties' choice of jurisdiction to US state and federal courts.