Justia Transportation Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a freight railroad, owned a spur line connecting to a plastics plant, the only shipper located on the spur. Defendant, another railroad, bought the lines, including the spur. The sales contract allowed plaintiff to continue to run trains on the lines being sold and granted plaintiff an exclusive easement to use the spur to serve the plant. Several years later, the plant entered receivership. The receiver sold all assets, including the plant. The buyer continues to manufacture plastics in the plant. Contending that the change in ownership voided the exclusive easement, defendant contracted with the buyer to ship products over the spur, leaving plaintiff with diminished use of the spur. The district court ruled in favor of defendant, reasoning that the contract referred specifically to the plastics company in business at that time. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, based on the language of the contract in light of extrinsic evidence, and rejected a trespass claim. View "Dakota, MN & E. R.R. v. WI & S. R.R." on Justia Law

Appellants sued appellee under 49 U.S.C. 14103(a) for the reimbursement of fees associated with the loading and unloading of its trucks at appellee's facilities. Appellants subsequently appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment. The court concluded that the district court properly read section 14103(a) to preclude relief for unreimbursed "lumping" absent a plaintiff-trucker's affirmative showing that he or she was not reimbursed by either the shipper or the receiver. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's order of summary judgment where appellants failed to identify any of its trucks whom a shipper had not already reimbursed. View "Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assoc., et al. v. Supervalu, Inc." on Justia Law

The State brought a complaint against BNSF Railway Co. ("BNSF") in November 2009 seeking a declaratory judgment requiring BNSF to abide by the terms of a 1984 agreement between them and a declaration that BNSF was in violation of that agreement; specific performance by BNSF of the agreement, and damages for BNSF's alleged breach of the agreement. The State subsequently filed an application for a preliminary injunction in June 2010 to prohibit BNSF from terminating the payment to the State and its short line operator per loaded car for each car handled in interchanges as required by Section 9 of the agreement. At issue was whether the district court's order granting the preliminary injunction was an abuse of discretion. The court held that the district court manifestly abused its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunction where it went beyond the State's requested relief and effectively ordered specific performance on the agreement under new terms substantially different than the prior agreed upon terms which severely limited termination of the new interchange agreement and was never part of the 1984 or 1986 agreements. Accordingly, the court reversed the order and resolved the injunction, remanding for further proceedings.

QT Trading, L.P. ("QT") sued defendants for rust damage to its steel pipes that allegedly occurred during their transport from Dalian, China to Houston, Texas. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment to in personam defendants on QT's claims for damages under the Carriage of Goods at Sea Act ("COGSA"), 46 U.S.C. 30701 note (Carriage of Goods by Sea), and for negligent bailment of its goods. The court affirmed summary judgment and held that the district court properly dismissed QT's COGSA claims where QT failed to establish genuine issues of material fact where none of the defendants were "carriers" and thus could not be liable for damages under the statute. The court also held that the district court properly dismissed QT's bailment claims where QT failed to show that a certain defendant had exclusive possession of the cargo.