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The Vilnius Regional Court announced that Lietuvos Paštas will have to pay his client not only 10,383 euros in compensation for lost postal shipments and 6%. annual interest from the start date of the court proceeding, but also expenses of 2,284 euros.
The panel of three judges, having examined the civil case on appeal, confirmed the decision of the Vilnius City District Court approved in March this year, which stated that international law provides for compensation for lost shipments, therefore customers must be compensated when shipments disappear.
According to the case data, it was established that Tomas B. from Klaipėda is engaged in individual activities: he sells coffee, tea, spices and other similar products on the Internet, which he sends to buyers living abroad. As a result, it is still in 2013. In October, Tomas B. entered into a service agreement with Lietuvos Paštas, under which La Poste undertook to provide the collection, sorting, transportation and delivery of correspondence articles and postal packages and additional services. related, and Tomas B. to pay for the services rendered at the time and in accordance with the agreement.
The businessman, who sent thousands of packages through the Lithuanian Post Service over several years, claimed that the company had compensated for lost packages so far, but in the spring of last year it refused to compensate and demanded documents confirming the value of the items shipped. Furthermore, the position of Lithuanian Post was supported by the Communications Regulatory Authority, whose decision states that the post office is not obliged to pay compensation to the sender for lost items.
Tom B. stated that since 2018. September to 2019 In April, 7,349 items and packages were sent to Lietuvos Paštas for shipment, and a search of 407 items was subsequently requested, of which 277 were declared lost: 272 items registered and 5 ordinary items.
Since Lietuvos Paštas refused to compensate the Klaipėda resident, he went to court and stated that the laws regulating the payment of compensation for the loss of postal items do not establish the obligation of the postal service user to prove the value of the items, they only provide specific amounts of compensation.
Tomas B. noted that Lietuvos Paštas, with whom he had cooperated for several years, paid compensation for long-lost items and was not required to justify the value of the items in the lost items, nor was he obliged to evaluate the items themselves themselves for a possible loss. He also emphasized that he wanted to receive compensation under international law: the businessman did not even claim the moral damage he had suffered due to the very high number of missing items.
At that time, Lietuvos Paštas disagreed with the claims made by its client and stated in its response to the lawsuit that in order to properly determine the amount of compensation, the sender was asked to provide the data necessary to calculate the compensation: the value of the items shipped and supporting documents.
“The customer did not agree to provide such additional data, did not indicate the value of the items shipped, for which compensation was paid, which includes only the shipping costs for lost items – 940 Eur,” the postal representatives said. They also pointed out that customers who do not provide data on the value of a package may abuse and unfairly seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the postal service provider “by sending inferior items or even empty packages and packages.”
The court that examined the dispute between the customer and the service provider at that time pointed out that Lietuvos Paštas was liable for the failure or improper performance of its obligations when delivering international shipments in accordance with the provisions of the Universal Postal Union Convention. , the Postal Correspondence Regulations and the Postal Packages Regulations.
The Parcel Post Regulations stipulate that the maximum amount of compensation for the loss of an ordinary postal item cannot exceed 40 SDR. Special drawing rights, in Lithuanian – Special Drawing Rights, is a monetary unit, whose value is determined by the International Monetary Fund, currently the amount of 1 SDR is 1.24 euros (wage rate per parcel) and 4.50 SDR per kg. The Postal Correspondence Regulation provides for a specific compensation of 30 SDR for the loss, total theft or total damage of a registered item.
Therefore, according to the court, Tomas B. rightly demanded the payment of compensation, and Lietuvos Paštas’ requirement to prove to the customer the actual losses incurred (to provide evidence of the value of the items on the lost items was found ) was unfounded and contrary to the regulations and the contract signed between the parties.
“When accepting packages from the sender, Lietuvos Paštas did not require to declare the contents of these packages, therefore it is not clear on what basis we require such information when packages are lost,” the court emphasized.
The decision also notes that prior to this dispute, Lietuvos Paštas always compensated its customers for lost packages: compensation of 30 SDR was paid for each lost package.
However, this procedure, as pointed out by the postal representative in court, in 2018. At the end of the year, internal investigations revealed that “it has been noticed that there are people who receive high compensation, it has been decided to control these people more to that there is no unjustified benefit to the postal account. “
The postal representative did not explain to the court how this control was carried out, nor did he demonstrate that the customer who sent the packages, who later disappeared, had committed dishonest actions.
“It should be noted that the assumption that the customer may have been dishonest, for example by sending low-value items, is illogical, because only for lost shipments, which accounted for only 3.8 percent. of all shipments sent during the dispute, he had paid 940.24 euros for the shipment, the court stressed. “Consequently, for all shipments sent during the disputed period, the customer had to pay multiple times as much, which means that Tom B. would not benefit from any fraudulent activity other than losses and therefore fraudulent conduct. must be rejected. “
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