The cost of breaking bulk cargo in order to interchange with standard gauge lines led the Erie to introduce a line of cars designed to operate on either broad or standard gauge trucks.The Erie Railway Report, The Railroad Gazette, Jan. 6, 1872; page 422. See final two paragraphs, column 2.
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The term break bulk derives from the phrase breaking bulk—the extraction of a portion of the cargo of a ship or the beginning of the unloading process from the ship's holds. These goods may not be in shipping containers. Break bulk cargo is transported in bags, boxes, crates, drums, or barrels. Unit loads of items secured to a pallet or skid are also used.
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There was no apparent need to create the legal fiction of breaking bulk or to consider the consequent issue of whether "safe conduct" protected the merchant whose property had been stolen from seizure as waif. The carrier had temporary possession of the goods with permission of the merchant so had no right to 'break bulk', i.e., he broke up the bales and began to sell them. The fact that he broke bulk shows the intention to commit larceny.
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In law, breaking bulk is the act of removing something from a package or parcel, or in any way destroying its entirety. It was thus important in connection with the subject of bailment, involving as it did the curious distinction that where a bailee received possession of goods in a box or package, and then sold them as a whole, he was guilty only of a breach of trust, but if he "broke bulk" or caused a separation of the goods, and sold a part or all, he was guilty of felony. This distinction was abolished by the Larceny Act 1861, which enacted that whoever, being a bailee of any chattel, money or valuable security, should fraudulently take or convert the same to his own use, or the use of any person other than the owner, although he should not break bulk or otherwise determine the bailment, should be guilty of larceny (s. 3). Breaking bulk may be used for bulk material ordered broken up in part shipment and shipped to location in different cargo.
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The English courts henceforth adopted the "breaking bulk" doctrine. If someone transporting a bulk or bale (bundle) of merchandise (the carrier) on behalf of someone else, and breaks it open without permission, express or implied, (thus converts them to the carrier's own use), it is the crime of larceny. The case was significant because in common law at that time, larceny required a trespass by force and arms (vi et armis) or against the peace, which did not occur if the person was willingly handed the bulk or bales of items. The breaking of the bulk was found to be the required force needed in the element of trespass.
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Upton, Maritime Law and Prize, p. 445 (citing the federal district court case of the Louisa Agnes which noted indecorous treatment like putting the captured crew in irons might well be defensible as necessary, under the circumstances). Officers restrained the crew to prevent pillaging defeated adversaries, or pilfering the cargo known as breaking bulk. Francis Upton's treatise on Maritime Warfare cautioned: > Embezzlements of the cargo seized, or acts personally violent, or injuries > perpetrated upon the captured crew, or improperly separating them from the > prize-vessel, or not producing them for examination before the prize-court, > or other torts injurious to the rights and health of the prisoners, may > render the arrest of the vessel or cargo, as prize, defeasible, and also > subject the tort feasor for damages therefore.
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