Warehousing Update: The Issues Hiding In Plain Sight

For services that are, by their nature, designed to be stationary, warehousing operations welcome intertwined movements of a variety of areas of law. Warehousing law is primarily concerned with storage, handling and associated activities. Fundamentally, warehousing is classified as a "bailment" under common law, where a service provider gives reasonable care to items in its possession and control given to it by others without the passage of title. However, the issues that arise between the common law of bailment and the ancillary legal frameworks that govern warehouse operations are often in direct conflict and require technical and meticulous attention.

Liability Generally

We'll start where issues most commonly arise: liability for loss and damage to the products in storage. Transportation, logistics and warehousing activities are often so intertwined that it can be difficult to determine where a well-established service provider's transportation obligations end