case analaysis
Seller in Bombay sells 5,000 bales of cotton to Buyer, C & F (Incoterms 1990) Liverpool. Seller transports the cotton to the Bombay harbor and to the ship designed to Buyer, the SS Allthumbs. Due to an error in counting, only 4,987
bales were loaded. The ship’s bill of lading, however, shows a quantity of 5,000 bales. Seller then signs over the bill of lading to Buyer in exchange for payment in full for the cotton. When the Allthumbs arrives in Liverpool, the quantity error is discovered, and Buyer sues the ship for lost value of missing bales. Is the ship liable? Would it matter if Seller admitted that error was not the ship’s fault, but that of Seller?