Those who can prove what they allege, prove it. Those who cannot prove what they allege, argue about the onus of proof. If within a number of days after goods arrive at destination, a number fixed by the relevant liability regime, the consignee of goods discovers and notifies the existence of non-apparent damage in those goods, he must then prove two things in order to establish a prima facie case against the carrier. First, he must establish that the damage existed at the time of delivery (notice alone proves nothing). Second, he must prove that the damage occurred while the goods were in the charge of the carrier. Proof on both points may present problems.

At the point of delivery the very fact that the damage is not apparent means that the consignee cannot be expected to show it to the carrier immediately. But the carrier cannot be expected to defend a claim first notified to him months or more after delivery. This conflict is alleviated in carriage conventions by requiring of the consignee the notice referred to above. For example, under the CMR (Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road, Geneva 1956) or the CIM (International Convention concerning the Carriage of Goods by Rail, Berne 1961) the consignee must send written reservations within seven days of delivery (art. 30 and art. 46 respectively); under the Hague-Visby Rules the relevant period is three days (art. III, r. 6). Such notice is not, in the English view, necessarily enough to provide the required proof that the goods were indeed damaged on delivery. In many cases, however, that will appear from the nature of the damage itself.

The consignee must also prove that the damage occurred during the transport; to do this the consignee may point again to the nature of the damage, for example, wetting by sea water, or to some other evidence in his hands of an event during carriage. If this is not possible, the consignee usually directs attention instead to the point of consignment and seeks to draw conclusions from the contents of the transport document. If the damage would have been apparent on consignment, the carrier who did not mention such damage in the document faces a prima facie case for compensation. If the carrier does mention the damage, the consignee is “bound to give very clear and cogent evidence that the damage which it sustained was traceable to causes for which the shipowners were responsible”. (The Ida (1875) 32 L.T. 541, 544, per Sir H. S. Keating.) But the document evidences only what the carrier admits therein, expressly or by implication, and the carrier can only reasonably be expected to admit what he knows or, perhaps, should know. If the damage was not apparent on consignment, the carrier cannot be taken to have admitted that such damage did or did not exist at