by Tim Taylor, President

Several years ago, we recognized a specific need for a reliable timely service guarantee for our clients that went beyond the typical, bland rhetoric of “superior service.”

I know of no other carrier (except Fed Ex) or other airfreight carrier that offers such a guarantee.

At the time, our recycled office furniture clients were the most stringent client group we served, with unique needs for timeliness of service.

To this end, we established a service guarantee for all of our clients. We set a limit of $500.00 to offer some meat behind our promise of superior service—while not placing an undue, unreasonable and unenforceable risk on the part of our carrier partners.

The application of “special and consequential” damages in transportation has been fairly and specifically answered by the courts in the long history of the transportation industry.

Studied by nearly every first-year law student, Hadley v. Baxendale is the predominate case in this arena, addressing the specifics of delay in detail.

Essentially, the law holds that a party is not liable for special, incidental or consequential damages for breach of contract unless the damages were foreseeable and agreed upon at the time the contract was entered into by the parties.

Network F.O.B. would not enter into a contract unless it was (1) fully aware of the risk it was assuming or (2) found a way to satisfactorily limit the risk. Likewise, we would not ask our carrier partners to participate in an unlimited and unknown risk. That’s why we limit our risk to the amount of our service guarantee.

Unfortunately, the transportation industry is fraught with risks of delay and uncertainty, much like the airlines.

To build contingency insurance (which would still carry a limit and a deductible) into the rates to cover any amount of damage caused by delay would be prohibitively expensive.

While we continually strive to prevent any and all delays, we believe our $500.00 service guarantee is the better, more reasonable alternative to the prohibitively high costs associated with other options.