You work for a company in Washington state that sells sports equipment. On June

Question

You work for a company in Washington state that sells sports equipment. On June 14, you supervised the placement of several boxes of your equipment on to a Quick Delivery truck for shipment to a customer in Maryland. Your equipment was destroyed when the driver of that truck fell asleep at the wheel and crashed on June 17. You have pulled the contract for the sale of those goods. It was signed on June 11. The contract states clearly that title to the goods will pass to the buyer as soon as the goods are pulled from the warehouse. The contract does not specifically address risk of loss. It does state that the goods will be shipped by a commercial carrier. The customer has called and asked you to ship another shipment of goods at your cost. Justify your position that the risk of loss falls on the buyer of the goods. You work for a company in Washington state that sells sports equipment. On June 14, you supervised the placement of several boxes of your equipment on to a Quick Delivery truck for shipment to a customer in Maryland. Your equipment was destroyed when the driver of that truck fell asleep at the wheel and crashed on June 17. You have pulled the contract for the sale of those goods. It was signed on June 11. The contract states clearly that title to the goods will pass to the buyer as soon as the goods are pulled from the warehouse. The contract does not specifically address risk of loss. It does state that the goods will be shipped by a commercial carrier. The customer has called and asked you to ship another shipment of goods at your cost. Justify your position that the risk of loss falls on the buyer of the goods.

Explanation / Answer

Facts: On June 14, the delivery of equipment was dispatched on to a Quick Delivery truck. On June 17, the equipment was destroyed when the driver fell asleep at the wheel. The sale of goods contract does not specifies about risk of loss. But, it states that title to the goods will pass to the buyer as soon as the goods are pulled from the warehouse.

Issue: One needs to justify that the risk of loss would fall on the buyer of goods.

Law applicable: Risk of loss is the term used to specify that who would bear the risk if the goods are damaged, lost or destroyed without any fault of either of the party. If the risk of loss is on buyer then he would be required to pay the price of goods and if it is on seller then he/she cannot recover the price from the buyer. As per the common law, the risk of loss would be placed on the party who held title to the goods.

Conclusion: As explained earlier, as per common law the risk of loss is placed on the party who held title of the goods. In the sale of goods contract, it was mentioned that the title to the goods will pass to the buyer as soon as the goods are pulled from the warehouse. Thus, as the goods were pulled out from warehouse for delivery, the buyer held the title of goods. Hence, the risk of loss was automatically transferred to the buyer and the seller would not be required to ship another shipment of goods at their cost.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse Y
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.