Marquette Cement Manufacturing Co. v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co.

Marquette Cement Manufacturing Company (plaintiff) had two divisions: Concrete Pipe, which always used air-entrained cement (visually identical to regular cement), and Rock Products, which used regular cement and added its own air. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company (L & N) (defendant) accidentally delivered a carload of air-entrained cement intended for Concrete Pipe to Rock Products instead; although the bill of lading identified the cement as air-entrained, the railroad clerk responsible for the error didn't know what that designation meant or that it differed from Rock Products' usual cement. Rock Products added its own air to the already air-entrained cement, and contractors used the resulting over-aerated cement in a construction project that later had to be removed and redone. Marquette sued L & N for consequential damages covering the cement's value, freight charges, the cost of replacing the defective concrete, and concrete-testing laboratory fees.