34:3 - Sullivan, Transportation Tort Liability Travels Up the Supply Chain

“In the last analysis, this is a case in which the law may simply have to catch up with an obligation that Robinson has voluntarily assumed, presumably in response to the market.” This pithy and portentous observation by United States District Judge J. Frederick Motz in the seminal case Schramm v. Foster, fairly states the present exposures facing parties (i.e. shippers, brokers, and third party logistics companies) as they establish a new and evolving economic presence in the supply chain. In short, how does a company that provides logistics services in self defined contract relationships properly apprehend tort liability that occurs downstream or upstream in the supply chain?

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