2005 California Commercial Code Sections 7401-7404 OBLIGATIONS

7401.  The obligations imposed by this division on an issuer apply
to a document of title regardless of the fact that
   (a) The document may not comply with the requirements of this
division or of any other law or regulation regarding its issue, form
or content; or
   (b) The issuer may have violated laws regulating the conduct of
his business; or
   (c) The goods covered by the document were owned by the bailee at
the time the document was issued; or
   (d) The person issuing the document does not come within the
definition of warehouseman if it purports to be a warehouse receipt.
7402.  Neither a duplicate nor any other document of title
purporting to cover goods already represented by an outstanding
document of the same issuer confers any right in the goods, except as
provided in the case of bills in a set, overissue of documents for
fungible goods and substitutes for lost, stolen or destroyed
documents.  But the issuer is liable for damages caused by his
overissue or failure to identify a duplicate document as such by
conspicuous notation on its face.
7403.  (1) The bailee must deliver the goods to a person entitled
under the document who complies with subdivisions (2) and (3), unless
and to the extent that the bailee establishes any of the following:
   (a) Delivery of the goods to a person whose receipt was rightful
as against the claimant;
   (b) Damage to or delay, loss or destruction of the goods for which
the bailee is not liable, but the burden of establishing negligence
in case of damage or destruction by fire is on the person entitled
under the document;
   (c) Previous sale or other disposition of the goods in lawful
enforcement of a lien or on warehouseman's lawful termination of
storage;
   (d) The exercise by a seller of his right to stop delivery
pursuant to the provisions of the division on sales (Section 2705);
   (e) A diversion, reconsignment or other disposition pursuant to
the provisions of this division (Section 7303) or tariff regulating
such right;
   (f) Release, satisfaction or any other fact affording a personal
defense against the claimant;
   (g) Any other lawful excuse.
   (2) A person claiming goods covered by a document of title must
satisfy the bailee's lien where the bailee so requests or where the
bailee is prohibited by law from delivering the goods until the
charges are paid.
   (3) Unless the person claiming is one against whom the document
confers no right under subdivision (1) of Section 7503, he must
surrender for cancellation or notation of partial deliveries any
outstanding negotiable document covering the goods, and the bailee
must cancel the document or conspicuously note the partial delivery
thereon or be liable to any person to whom the document is duly
negotiated.
   (4) "Person entitled under the document" means holder in the case
of a negotiable document, or the person to whom delivery is to be
made by the terms of or pursuant to written instructions under a
nonnegotiable document.
7404.  A bailee who in good faith including observance of reasonable
commercial standards has received goods and delivered or otherwise
disposed of them according to the terms of the document of title or
pursuant to this division is not liable therefor.  This rule applies
even though the person from whom he received the goods had no
authority to procure the document or to dispose of the goods and even
though the person to whom he delivered the goods had no authority to
receive them.