Matrici Sociedad Cooperativa (the plaintiff) claimed for damage to a cargo of stamping dies carried in a ‘door to door’ modality. The plaintiff contracted Kühne Nagel SA (the defendant) to organise the transport of the cargo from its factory in Zamudio, Biscay, Spain to the port of Valencia, Spain, to be carried by sea to Montreal, Canada, and from there by train to its final destination in Elkton, Michigan, United States. The defendant also assumed responsibility for the consolidation, stowage and securing of the cargo in containers and subcontracted these operations to another company. Once the containers were discharged in Montreal, part of the cargo was reported damaged due to defective stowage at origin and was detained by the Canadian customs authorities.

The defendant contended that, although it is a logistics operator, according to the relevant legislation and its contractual terms and conditions duly advised to the plaintiff, its liability is equivalent to that of a maritime carrier. In addition, the defendant argued that the damage was caused by rough seas, that the claim was time-barred according to art 3.6 of the Hague-Visby Rules, that the suit against it was not legitimate and that it was entitled to limit its liability.

The court of first instance dismissed the claim, declaring that it was time-barred. On appeal, the decision was reversed and the defendant was ordered to pay compensation. The Court of Appeal held that in order to identify the regime of expiration (caducidad) or limitation (prescripción), the focus must be on the moment where the main cause of action originated and not on the phase of the transport where the damage occurred. As the damage resulted from a deficient stowage that was performed before the beginning of the maritime transport and before the cargo was loaded on board the ship, this meant that the action was governed by the Civil Code, and not by art 3.6 of the Hague-Visby Rules. Kühne Nagel SA recurred the decision in cassation before the Tribunal Supremo/Supreme Court (SC), alleging that the action was time-barred.

Held: The SC reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal. The SC stated that according to the governing legislation when the lawsuit was filed, when the logistics operator (agente transitario) contracts in its own name, it assumes the position of a carrier in relation to the shipper. The logistics operator undertakes the responsibility of the cargo from the moment of its reception, even before it is delivered to the actual carrier and, if it is multimodal carriage, its liability is assessed - in the absence of a uniform regime - according to the rules that govern the carriers’ liability, and specifically those rules that relate to the particular part of the transport where the damage occurred. The stowage of the cargo within the container, although not performed by the actual carrier but by a subcontractor, was not an independent operation but was ancillary to the transport. Therefore, the liability resulting from defective stowage must be assigned according to the responsibility of the maritime carrier which, in this case, is governed by the Hague-Visby Rules. The time-bar is established in art 3.6 of these Rules and the action was barred when the lawsuit was filed.