OS&D claims are the written demands shippers and consignees file with a motor carrier to recover the value of freight that arrived over, short, or damaged. The Carmack Amendment at 49 U.S.C. § 14706 makes interstate motor carriers liable for the actual loss or injury to property they transport, and 49 CFR Part 370 sets the rules for how those claims get filed, investigated, and resolved.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading Liability attaches to the receiving carrier, the delivering carrier, and every carrier whose line the freight crossed in between.
What Over, Short, and Damaged Mean
An overage means the carrier delivered more items than the Bill of Lading lists. Usually freight was loaded onto the wrong trailer or misrouted, which means another consignee somewhere is filing a shortage claim on the same pieces.
A shortage is the opposite: fewer items arrived than the shipping documents show. It can be a few missing cartons on a pallet or an entire skid that never arrives. The carrier is responsible for the full quantity it accepted at origin.
Damage covers physical harm to the cargo. Visible damage, like crushed boxes or punctured packaging, you can note before the driver leaves. Concealed damage only shows up when you open the packaging later, and those claims are harder to win because the carrier will argue the damage happened after delivery.
What You Have to Prove
Courts applying the Carmack Amendment require the claimant to establish three things: the carrier received the goods in good condition, the goods arrived damaged or short, and the claimant suffered a specific dollar amount of loss. Once you show all three, the burden shifts to the carrier to prove it wasn’t at fault.
The Bill of Lading handles the first element. A carrier that signs for the freight at origin without noting any exceptions has created evidence that the goods were in good condition when it took possession. The delivery receipt handles the second element, especially if the consignee writes damage or shortage notations on it before the driver leaves. The commercial invoice or purchase order handles the third by proving what the goods were worth. Every document in your claim file maps back to one of these three requirements.
Documents to Gather Before You File
Federal law sets a low bar for what technically counts as a valid claim. Under 49 CFR § 370.3, a claim only needs to be a written communication that identifies the shipment, asserts carrier liability, and demands a specific dollar amount.2eCFR. 49 CFR 370.3 – Filing of Claims Filing with just the minimum invites delays, because the carrier will request supporting documents during its investigation anyway.
Gather these before you file:
- Bill of Lading, the contract of carriage showing the carrier accepted your freight and in what condition.
- Delivery receipt, ideally with notations describing shortages or visible damage written on it before the driver left.
- Commercial invoice, which shows the actual value of the goods and is the basis for your dollar demand.
- Photographs of damaged packaging, the freight itself, and any labels or markings that identify the shipment. Photograph both the exterior wrapping and the damaged product inside.
- The carrier’s claim form, usually downloadable from its website. It asks for the PRO number (the carrier’s tracking number), shipment details, and the amount you’re claiming.
During its investigation, 49 CFR § 370.7 lets the carrier request the Bill of Lading, freight charge receipts, and either the invoice or a certified statement of value.3eCFR. 49 CFR 370.7 – Investigation of Claims Submitting everything up front eliminates the most common cause of processing delays.
Filing Deadlines
The Carmack Amendment prohibits carriers from setting a claim-filing deadline shorter than nine months.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading Nine months is a floor, not a ceiling. Some carrier tariffs allow longer; any shorter deadline buried in a bill of lading is unenforceable.
The clock starts on the delivery date, or the date delivery should have occurred for a lost shipment. Waiting until month eight to assemble documentation is a recipe for a denied claim. File within 30 days when you can. Evidence is fresher, carrier personnel still remember the shipment, and there’s no argument about timeliness.
Concealed damage has no separate federal deadline, but many carriers impose contractual notification windows of 15 to 21 days after delivery. Missing that window doesn’t automatically kill your claim if you’re still inside the nine-month statutory minimum, but it hands the carrier an argument that the damage happened in your warehouse rather than on their truck.
How to Submit the Claim
Most carriers now take claims through online portals where you upload documents and enter shipment details. The portal is faster and generates an automatic confirmation number for tracking. If a carrier has no portal, or you want a paper trail with legal weight, send the claim package by certified mail with return receipt requested to the claims department.
Your Bill of Lading may address whether you need to pay freight charges before the carrier will process the claim. Nothing in 49 CFR Part 370 conditions claim processing on freight payment, but many carrier contracts require the freight bill to be current before the claim will be evaluated. Some contracts also prohibit deducting claim amounts from outstanding freight invoices. Whether you can legally offset a claim against unpaid freight depends on your carrier contract, not a blanket federal rule.
After filing, keep the damaged freight and packaging. Don’t throw it away, don’t repair it, and don’t return it to the vendor without the carrier’s written consent. The carrier has the right to inspect the goods, and disposing of them beforehand can undermine the claim. If the carrier wants to salvage damaged goods, 49 CFR § 370.11 governs that process.4eCFR. 49 CFR 370.11 – Processing of Salvage
What the Carrier Must Do and When
Under 49 CFR § 370.5, the carrier must acknowledge receipt of the claim in writing within 30 days, unless it fully resolves the claim within that period.5eCFR. 49 CFR Part 370 – Principles and Practices for the Investigation and Voluntary Disposition of Loss and Damage Claims and Processing Salvage – Section: 370.5 The acknowledgment is just confirmation the claim exists in their system; it doesn’t signal any decision.
The real deadline is 120 days. Under 49 CFR § 370.9, the carrier must pay the claim, decline it, or make a firm written settlement offer within 120 days of receipt. If it can’t meet that deadline, it has to send a written status update explaining the delay, and keep sending updates every 60 days after that for as long as the claim stays open.6eCFR. 49 CFR 370.9 – Disposition of Claims
Clean claims often settle well inside 120 days. Claims that drag past the deadline usually have a documentation gap the carrier is asking you to fill, or involve concealed damage where liability is genuinely disputed. If you’re past 120 days with no written status update, the carrier is in violation of federal regulations, and that’s worth citing if you need to escalate.
If the Carrier Denies the Claim
Carriers can deny claims outright. A denial has to be in writing with reasons. The five common-law defenses that let a carrier escape liability are: an act of God, the shipper’s own fault (including inadequate packaging or mislabeling), inherent vice of the goods, an act of public enemy, and an act of public authority. If the carrier proves one of these caused the loss, it isn’t liable even though it had possession.
The most common defense in everyday OS&D disputes is shipper fault, particularly inadequate packaging. The carrier will argue the freight wasn’t packaged to survive normal handling and that damage was inevitable. This is where origin photographs and a clean Bill of Lading matter: they show the goods were properly packaged when the carrier accepted them.
If the denial is wrong, the Carmack Amendment lets you file a civil lawsuit. The carrier cannot contractually require you to sue in less than two years from the date it sends written notice of the denial. A compromise offer does not start the two-year clock. Only a written disallowance with stated reasons triggers the lawsuit deadline. Contact from the carrier’s insurer doesn’t start the clock either, unless the insurer states in writing that it’s acting on the carrier’s behalf and that part of the claim is disallowed.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading
Partial Payments and Compromise Offers
Not every claim ends in a full payout or a flat denial. Carriers often offer a compromise, agreeing you suffered a loss but disputing the amount. A carrier might pay depreciated value rather than replacement cost, or reduce the payout by the salvage value of damaged items it can resell.
You don’t have to accept a compromise offer. If the carrier offers $2,000 on a $5,000 claim, you can reject it and keep negotiating or go to court. But accepting and cashing a settlement check usually ends the matter for the amount paid. Before accepting any partial offer, make sure the carrier’s letter specifies whether it closes the entire claim or only the portion being paid.
The claim amount itself should reflect the actual value of the goods at destination, not what you hoped to sell them for. The commercial invoice is the standard measure. Lost profit margins on goods destined for resale generally aren’t recoverable, because the Carmack Amendment limits recovery to the actual loss or injury to the property itself.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading
Liability Caps on the Bill of Lading
Carriers are allowed to limit their liability per pound or per shipment, and most do. Under the Carmack Amendment, a carrier can offer a lower freight rate in exchange for a cap on liability, as long as it gives the shipper the option to declare a higher value and pay a correspondingly higher rate.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 14706 – Liability of Carriers Under Receipts and Bills of Lading That’s how released value rates work in LTL (less-than-truckload) shipping.
If you shipped electronics worth $50 per pound and the Bill of Lading caps carrier liability at $2 per pound because you accepted the released rate, your recovery is capped at $2 per pound no matter what the goods were worth. The time to address this is before the freight ships. For high-value goods, declare the full value on the Bill of Lading and pay the higher rate, or buy separate cargo insurance.