Plaintiff, Engineered Arresting Systems Corp (EAS), retained OPT Project Transport Inc (OPT), a licensed freight forwarder, to arrange a shipment of six trailers containing Port-arrest P-IV Mobile Aircraft Arresting Systems (the Shipment), from Baltimore, Maryland to Mumbai, India. Acting on EAS’s behalf, OPT entered into a bill of lading with National Shipping Co of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA) for the ocean transportation of the shipment aboard the M/V Saudi Hofuf. The M/V Saudi Hofuf is a Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) vessel specially designed to stow and secure RoRo cargo such as the shipment. The bill of lading did not specify whether the shipment was stowed on deck or below deck. Thereafter, the shipment was stowed on deck and allegedly damaged. EAS brought an action against NSCSA for damage to its cargo. NSCSA moved for summary judgment seeking to limit its liability under COGSA/the Hague Rules. EAS argued that NSCSA was not entitled to the limitation because NSCSA’s on-deck stowage of the shipment constituted an unreasonable deviation from the bill of lading.

Held: The on-deck stowage, in this case, was not a deviation from the bill of lading. The Court reasoned that the evidence submitted by NSCSA was sufficient to establish that it was customary, both in the port of Baltimore and in NSCSA’s prior practice, for RoRo cargo such as the shipment to be stored on deck on RoRo vessels such as the M/V Saudi Hofuf. In addition, the court held that a carrier would not be deprived of limitations on liability based on a deviation unless the deviation was unreasonable. Therefore, even if the on-deck stowage was a contractual deviation, it would not have been an unreasonable one, because ample evidence showed that the M/V Saudi Hofuf was a specially designed RoRo vessel and was capable of carrying, and routinely carried, RoRo cargo such as the shipment on deck.