JACKSON WY.- Plaintiff Heather James Jackson, LLC, the owner of an art gallery in Wyoming, facilitated for a client the purchase of 10 original framed Marilyn Monroe silk-screen prints created by Andy Warhol. Included in the collection, and making it unique, was the box that Warhol himself had selected and labeled to sell the prints in. Defendant, which specializes in storing and shipping rare fine art, was to receive the collection from Sotheby's and ship it to the Wyoming gallery. In an email notifying defendant that the collection would be arriving the next day, an employee of plaintiff advised that the prints were to be shipped to Wyoming, "along with the original box the prints came in." However, the prints arrived in Wyoming without the original box.

Day & Meyer moved for summary judgment contending that the limitation of liability (30 cents per pound) in its warehouse contract controlled and that its failure to deliver the box was not intentional, it had no liability to Heather James Jackson The court below denied Day & Meyer’s motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York held that the explanation provided by Day & Meyer for its failure to return the box to Heather James Jackson “fail[ed] to demonstrate the truth of that explanation” and affirmed the denial of summary judgment.

The photographic evidence showed that the prints and the original cardboard box were delivered to Day & Meyer, which claimed it could not tell the difference between this original box and cardboard separators and threw the box away as trash.

Experts have advised that the value of the set of the same number prints and the box is worth $250,000 more than the set of the same number prints without the box.