Article 7: Documents of Title

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted the 2003 revisions of Article 7. There have been two new adoptions since last year's report, in New York and Wyoming. One state -- Vermont -- has a bill pending as of this writing. In OEC Freight (NY) v. KT Superwin Corp, the court was faced with a motion to amend an answer to plead a counterclaim concerning a purportedly unreasonable sale of goods to satisfy a carrier's lien. In that case, the carrier remained unpaid and sold $80,000 of goods in its custody to partially satisfy its lien. In KTAV Publishing House Inc v. Mercedes Distribution Center, the court was faced with a situation in which the end of a long-term storage relationship revealed, perhaps, a shortfall in the amount of inventory stored in a warehouse. While not arising under Article 7, Libby v. Lichte is an interesting case involving liability in a bailment context.