Georgia Ports Authority v. Mitsubishi Intern. Corp.
| Decision Date | 31 October 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 60895,60895 |
| Parties | , 30 UCC Rep.Serv. 1275 GEORGIA PORTS AUTHORITY v. MITSUBISHI INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Fred S. Clark, Savannah, for appellant.
J. Wayne Pierce, Henry E. Scrudder, Jr., Robert L. Pennington, Atlanta, for appellees.
This is a suit by Mitsubishi International Corporation against the Georgia Ports Authority, Southern Railway Company, and Central of Georgia Railway Company to recover damages for their alleged negligence in shipping 12 boxcar loads of plywood by rail from Savannah to Atlanta. Mitsubishi imported the plywood to Savannah from Taiwan for sale to the Crown Door Corporation in Atlanta, and the Georgia Ports Authority loaded it onto the boxcars. By the time it arrived in Atlanta, the cargo had shifted inside the boxcars, making the job of unloading it much more difficult and rendering a portion of it unusable. The question at trial was basically whether the Ports Authority was at fault for failing to block and brace the cargo adequately so that it would withstand the normal stresses associated with rail transport or whether the railroads were at fault for subjecting the boxcars to abnormally rough treatment during switching and coupling operations.
Mitsubishi sought $53,362.53 in damages, a figure arrived at by taking the original sale price for the goods agreed upon by Mitsubishi and Crown Door ($177,983.08) and deducting the price which they later agreed upon for the sale of cargo in its damaged condition ($124,630.55). Mitsubishi also sought interest from the date of injury in the amount of $12,008.86, for a total recovery of $65,371.39. The jury found against the Ports Authority and in favor of the railroads, awarding damages in the amount of $65,371.39. This appeal followed. Held :
1. The Ports Authority contends that Mitsubishi was not the proper party in interest to bring this suit because the evidence established that the goods were shipped "C.I.F. Savannah" from Taiwan, and thus Mitsubishi's duties to the buyer ended before either the negligence or the damage occurred. See generally Code Ann. § 109A-2 320(2).
The issue of who, as between the buyer and seller, had the risk of loss was not litigated either before or during the trial. The underlying and unquestioned assumption upon which all of the pleadings and the evidence were based was that Mitsubishi was responsible for delivering the goods to Crown Door in Atlanta in satisfactory condition.
Code Ann. § 109A-2 509 sets forth the following rules for determining which party has the risk of loss during shipment:
There was evidence to authorize the inference that Mitsubishi had agreed with Crown Door to deliver the plywood in Atlanta. In the first place, their mutual conduct evidences such an agreement; Crown Door initially rejected the goods because of their damaged condition and subsequently agreed to accept them only after Mitsubishi agreed to a reduced price, based on an appraisal of the damages. In the second place, the Georgia Ports Authority billed Mitsubishi, not Crown Door, for its services in blocking and bracing the cargo inside the boxcars. Thus, the evidence authorized a conclusion that the risk of loss was on Mitsubishi during the period in question, and the trial court did not err in denying the Ports Authority's motion for directed verdict based on the allegation that Mitsubishi was not the proper party in interest to bring this suit.
2. The Ports Authority contends that Mitsubishi's evidence of damages was inadequate because all of its calculations were based on the initial sale price of the goods rather than their initial market value. See Hoard v. Wiley, 113 Ga.App. 328(2), 147 S.E.2d 782 (1966). However, the vice president and plant manager for Crown Door, who testified that he had approximately 21 years of experience in purchasing and dealing with the type of materials involved in this case, testified that in his opinion the original value of the goods was in fact identical to the original sale price. This was sufficient to support the award of damages. See generally Rowe v. City Council of Augusta, 119 Ga.App. 571(1), 168 S.E.2d 209 (1969); Rosenberg v. Mossman, 140 Ga.App. 694(1), 231 S.E.2d 417 (1976); Housing Auth. v. Starcher, 149 Ga.App. 402(3), 254 S.E.2d 515 (1979).
3. The award of interest cannot stand because of Mitsubishi's failure to comply with Code Ann. § 105-2016, which requires that in order to collect prejudgment interest in an action ex delicto, the claimant must first give notice of the claim by registered or certified mail. Mitsubishi cites several cases for the proposition that damages are considered liquidated whenever they are ascertainable by mathematical calculation on the basis of established facts; however, the mathematical calculations in this case were based on expert opinion testimony as to the original value of the goods and the extent of the damage. Thus, the "established facts" could only be established by a jury. Indeed, damages in an action ex delicto must always be proven by evidence before they can be regarded as...
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