This case was instituted by Mr. Quam, who is the plaintiff suing the Nelson Ryan Flight Service for damages arising from the destruction of personal property at the hands of the defendant. This case came about due to an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant to provide parking space for the plaintiff in exchange for payment.
As such the central issues that the Court needs to arbitrate on, in this case, are two; one to determine if the defendant breached the terms of contract which destroyed the plaintiff property and by extension determine if there was a contract that existed between the parties. And two, determine whether the nature of the rope, which is central in the case was faulty as a result of the defendant’s negligence. Determination of these factors will enable the court to decide “Who is responsible for severe storm damage to an aircraft parked on the Bailee’s property?” h is the question that the jury needed to answer,
Rule
An applicable legal principle in this case is Pacta Sunt Servada, which is the principle that governs the law of contracts. An equally important application of another rule in this case is found in tort law which encompasses the duty of care laws. Like most other states in the United States, Minnesota laws provide for damages that are as a result of negligence by a defendant and allow for Assumption of Risk to be used as a defense during the hearing of the case. Finally the principle of res ipsa loquitur which governs the laws of negligence will also be used.
Application
When a contract has been broken a breach is said to have occurred, breach of contract in legal terms is used to describe actions that has been undertaken by one of the parties in contravention to the binding agreement as originally agreed between the parties. It is also used to describe cases where the terms of an agreement as entered between various parties is not honored according to the article of the agreement.
In contract law all agreements that are of commercial nature are regarded as legally binding, this is in contrast to domestic contracts that are presumed not to be legally binding. In this case the nature of contract entered between the defendant and the plaintiff is certainly commercial and it is therefore assumed that the defendant was supposed to provide good care of the plaintiff property in exchange for rental payment.
The fact that the defendant failed to do so is our first indication of breach of contract having established the existence of a contract between the parties. In any case the law does not necessarily require the articles of a contract to be expressly stated since they can be implied as was the case in the historical ruling of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1892] case where the court determined that all the elements of a contract existed despite the absence of a written contract. The next issue that the court needs to determine is the issue of the rope whose quality is directly attributed to the collapse of the hangar that led to the damage of the aircraft.
According to the principle of res ipsa loquitor negligence can be determined to have occurred during an accident through inference by assessing the circumstances of the accident based on four conditions; One, that the accident wouldn’t have occurred without the element of negligence, two, that negligence is the probable cause, three, that an instrument controlled by the defendant resulted to the accident and finally that the plaintiff did not contribute at all to the accident.
Conclusion
Of importance to note in this case is that the defendant was the sole person with the responsibility to maintain the safety of the hanger. Based on the circumstances of the accident that led to the damage of property in this case the four conditions are seen to be present given that the quality of the rope used to secure the hanger is being questioned and is the main element that is being attributed to the accident. Because the accident was largely tied to the issue of maintenance of the hanger which the Court determined would have been better safeguarded by use of a better rope, the defendant was liable to pay the damages.
It is therefore on these facts of the case that the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff by awarding the damages. It is my opinion that this decision by the court was right both in law and application as we have determined in our analysis.
Brief
In its ruling the trial court stated “As operator of a flight service that assigned to Burton Quam a place to keep his airplane, it failed to provide equipment which was safe for its intended use”. This implied that the defendant breached the terms of the contract that might have existed between them and the plaintiff of failing to provide good care of the aircraft in exchange of rental payment which we must assume the plaintiff was being charged.
In the same statement the court recognizes that the major element that caused the accident was the faulty rope which was the responsibility of the defendant to ensure that it functioned well but which they failed.
In an appeal filed in Supreme Court, the decision was upheld mainly because the court determined there was negligence that resulted to the damage which was exclusively caused by the defendant. In its ruling the Supreme Court Stated “..and it is foreseeable that damage might result from defects to it, owes a duty to use reasonable care to provide equipment which is safe for its intended use and free from defects of which the person has knowledge, or which could have been discovered by use of reasonable care”.
The crux of the ruling by the Supreme Court is seen to be based on the law of negligence which the Court rules that it has been established because of the breach in duty of care. In fact, breach of duty of care is an important element that must be established before any negligence claim can be instituted. In this case, the trial Court relied on a jury to decide whether the nature of rope was indeed the major contributory factor to the accident which they did find so.
The inclusion of a jury in this determination was fair and just since determination of whether a rope is defective or not is a relative issue in the absence of established standards of determining the same. Finally note that the issue of existence of a contract between the plaintiff and the defendant was not really a legal issue that required determination, but rather an important side issue that must have been addressed.