Move It and Lose It! The Law for Lost and Damaged Items by Interstate Moving Companies, 0521 SCBJ, SC Lawyer, May 2021, #26
Author | By Rachel E. Carr |
Position | Vol. 32 Issue 6 Pg. 26 |
By Rachel E. Carr
The pandemic has slowed life in many ways, but for now, the real estate market has not yet declined. Historically low interest rates, job losses, and the high cost of rent are all factors that have consumers considering new homes and big moves for 2021.
As real estate attorneys, we see clients from all over the country moving to our respective areas and that has not changed in this pandemic. There are three ways clients typically move: (1) do-it-yourself rented moving trucks, (2) portable storage units, and (3) a moving company that packs, loads, transports, and unloads household goods. The scope of this article is to discuss the people moving across state lines with third party moving companies.
As your clients anxiously push through the closing package to get the keys, they may be wondering what to do if their household goods are late or damaged by their movers. If your clients hired a moving company to move their household goods across state lines and their furniture or dishes are broken, they may not have the remedy they would anticipate.
What happens when your client’s household items are damaged by an interstate residential moving company?
In the
1990s Michael Ward was transferred from New Jersey to North
Carolina for a new job and hired a moving company to load,
drive, and unpack his household property.
If you
have no prior knowledge or background with this issue, you
may immediately think that moving companies are liable for
their own negligence when transporting household possessions.
However, federal law generally
The
good news for a client that hired an interstate mover is that
Carmack makes the carrier company strictly liable for any
actual damages that result from the move.
Carrier liability history
Historically,
Congress determined that interstate moving contracts were
governed by the Interstate Commerce Commission
(“ICC”).
The ICC
was abolished in December 1995 with the ICC Termination Act
of 1995. An independent federal agency, the Surface
Transportation Board (“STB”), was created and
charged with economic regulation of various modes of surface
transportation. This charge includes “adopt[ing] rules
to enhance consumer protection for losses incurred on
interstate household goods moves.”
Statute v. contract—Determining value of lost/ damaged goods replacement value
In the absence of any writing, a carrier’s liability for household goods is...
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