The plaintiff manufacturing company sued its freight broker and transport carrier for the $206,509 cost of cleaning up a chemical spill.
The plaintiff alleged the defendants breached a 'direct drive' delivery contract by picking up other loads, which blocked access to the plaintiff's shipment and forced the plaintiff's employee to unload a skid of white paint.
The employee punctured the paint tote with a forklift and then washed the spilled paint into a storm sewer.
The court found the freight broker breached the direct drive contract, but dismissed the action because the damages were caused solely by the plaintiff's employee's negligence in operating the forklift and responding to the spill, which was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the breach.
