Obligation in Law: The Conditions that Warrant Compensation for Damages - Case Study Example

____________________ Obligation in Law: The Conditions that Warrant Compensation for Damages Essay Question: In the course of the 2007 Blackpool and Fylde Air Show, an annual event for plane enthusiasts in UK that features newly designed and refurbished light aircraft, a new type of executive jet went out of control and crashed into the hangar. Subsequent investigations showed that the plane was performing unauthorised aerobic manoeuvers when it happened, which suggests negligence and recklessness on the part of the pilot. Obviously, the damage was limited since a hangar usually contains only planes and one or two mechanics. The manufacturer of the ill-fated plane assumed responsibility and offered to compensate the direct victims of the crash. Other people started to come forward, claiming that the accident caused them nervous shock through various degrees of involvement. Syeed - he was working at the hangar when he saw the plane banked steeply in his direction and fled in time. Juliette - she was one of the spectators who rushed to the crash site to assist the injured. John - he lives in a village 1 kilometer near the airfield and saw the crash and the victims and left him in shock. Jack - he was watching the news at home when a live feed of the accident came on TV and realised that his wife and daughter were among the spectators. He was a nervous wreck for several weeks although he had learned earlier that his wife and daughter left the airfield 30 minutes before the accident. Anna Lucia - she is a firefighter returning to work from a leave of absence due to depression and was among those called to attend to the crash victims. The question is: Are these claimants entitled by law to compensation for damages Does the plane manufacturer have such an obligation in law Answer: The claims by the five individuals when consolidated into one imposes on the plane manufacturer an obligation in law arising ex delicto, or from the tortuous acts of negligence and recklessness (Classic Encyclopaedia, online; 'Lectric Law Library, 2001). Negligence is in fact one of the five major offenses punishable under the tort law, the other four being trespass on land, trespass against goods, trespass against person, and defamation (Street, 1999). This suggests that the plane manufacturer as respondent or defendant in the five tort cases has civil liability to compensate the claimants for the alleged damages they sustained from the crash in the form of "nervous shock." However, a careful reading of the law, specifically the assigning of civil liability and the circumstances that warrant the awarding of damages thereto, makes that proposition doubtful. Obligation Obligation is defined as an act or course of action required of a person by law or by virtue of his position, religion or the prevailing custom (Currie & Cameron, 2000). In this case, it is the law that supposedly obliges the plane manufacturer to compensate the five claimants for nervous shock, which amounts to damages difficult to quantify. The inherent difficulty of quantifying nervous shock is the first hurdle that the claimants need to overcome to prove their case against the respondent. As noted by Cabresi & Hirschoff (1972), such emotional pain and suffering, which leads to loss of enjoyment of life, is not easily quantifiable and depends on the individual circumstances of the claimants. Looking into these individual circumstances, it seems hard to believe that Jack was in shock for a prolonged period since he was not on the scene at all and he immediately learned that the family members he was worried about left the air show 30 minutes before the accident. The same question can be asked of John who lives quite a distance from the airfield, of Syeed who managed to flee from the crash site in time, as well as of Juliette and Ana Lucia who assisted the injured. Juliette is obviously a paramedic who, like the lady firefighter Ana Lucia, is used to attending to victims in accidents. So why suffer a nervous shock now Such questions will certainly be asked in court since the tort law on negligence and the four other offenses is about dissecting all possibilities in a case to make common sense values prevail (Hocking & Smith, 1996). As set in Philippine Airlines Inc. v NLRC 259 SCRA 459 (1996), the awarding of moral or exemplary damages to persons supposedly harmed by acts of negligence must be anchored on a clear showing that the claimant actually suffered mental anguish or any similar injury and that the respondent acted in a wanton or malevolent manner. The imposition of civil liability on a person requires the presence of four types of culpability - intent, knowledge, recklessness and negligence (Washington State Law, online). This means that for the compensation claims to prosper, the claimants must establish that both the manufacturer and pilot of the ill-fated plane had intended the plane to crash, knew beforehand that the accident would happen, and exhibited recklessness all along. In that case, the defendants acted in a "wanton or malevolent manner," which again may be difficult to prove. Common sense dictates that the manufacturer of the new plane gave the go-signal for the test flight with no prior intent or knowledge that it would crash and there was no other intention than to see it perform well so commercial production can proceed. In Yuen Kun Yeu v Attorney General of Hong Kong (1988) and Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire (1989), the principle was established that there is liability for the tort of negligence only when the supposed damage can be reasonably foreseen. Law on Negligence For one to be held responsible for violation of the law on negligence, the claimant must prove that there is a duty of care and this duty has been breached to cause damage or loss to the claimant that needs to be compensated by an award of damages. The duty of care of the plane manufacturer and pilot was to see that no harm comes to the spectators and the general public during the air show. There is a breach of the duty-of-care principle if the defendant failed to do what a reasonable person will do in the situation presented (Honore, 1995). A tort is intentional if the act is done against another's person, such as inflicting emotional distress. One commits an intentional tort if he can reasonably foresee that his act would cause harm to another individual and yet he still do it (Metaphysics Research Lab, 2000). From the facts of the case, the pilot acquitted himself well when at the last minute of losing control he guided the plane into the hangar instead of plowing it into the crowd of spectators or the more populated neighbourhood. Thus, the pilot took "reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions that would likely injure his neighbors," which reduces his culpability based on the precedent-setting Caparo Industries v Dickman (1990) case. On the possibility that the plane manufacturer and pilot were held responsible for violation of the tort law on negligence, the persons who sustained damage or loss from this act need to be compensated by an award of damages, which are interchangeably known as moral or exemplary damages. Under this type of damages, the claimants should be entitled to general damages, which are compensations assigned to non-monetary aspects of specific harm usually termed as "pain, suffering and loss of amenity (Fletcher, 1972)." The problem for the claimants is that they bear the burden of proof since moral damages are categorised in law as an award designed to compensate claimants for the actual injury suffered and not to impose penalty on the wrongdoer, which principle was set in Keirulf v Court of Appeals 269 SCRA 433 (1997). Since damages are limited to those reasonably foreseen by the defendant, it follows that there is no such liability if the respondent could not have reasonably foreseen that someone might be hurt by his action. In law, this is known as "remoteness" (Christie, 1995). Tests of Liability In Governors of Peabody Donation Fund v Sir Lindsay Parkinson & Co. Ltd. (1985) and Rowling v Takaro Properties Ltd. (1988), a series of tests is set forth to determine if someone is liable for the tort of negligence and recklessness. First, the supposed damage can be reasonably foreseen, as earlier noted. Second, there is a relationship of proximity or neigbourhood between the two parties. Finally, it should appear that imposing a duty of care on the defendant is fair, just and reasonable. On the first test, the crash and the resulting damage could not have been reasonably foreseen, unless the pilot had a latent death wish and the manufacturer deliberately developed the new plane for the purpose of destroying it and harming people in the process. Using the common sense argument, such human behaviour would appear to be theoretically impossible. Once the case is heard in court, the track record of the pilot and the past performance of the manufacturer in the development, production and commercialisation of airplanes are critical because these would indicate their attention to aviation safety. If they had unsavory records in this aspect, then the defendants could fail the first test of liability for negligence. The claimants will have to abandon all their expectations for compensation of damages if it turns out that the plane pilot and manufacturer have spotless and consistent records on safety, as again set in Philippine Airlines Inc. v NLRC 269 SCRA (1997). On the second test, it seems that no relationship of proximity or neighbourhood could be established between the two parties - the plane manufacturer on one end and the five claimants at the other. Except for Syeed, who works at the hangar, and Juliette, who was among the spectators at the air show, the four other claimants work and live elsewhere when the accident happened. As such, the defendant had no duty of care for the claimants. On the last test of liability for negligence, imposing a duty of care on the defendant would hardly seem fair, just and reasonable again because of the principle that no reasonable person should be held liable for tort unless he had foreseen the damage in the circumstances prevailing at the time of the alleged breach and went on to perform the damaging act anyway (Roe v Minister of Health, 1954). Moreover, it would not be fair, just and reasonable for the plane manufacturer to be penalised for an act that was evidently unplanned and accidental, which would effectively destroy his reputation and business. Considerations A judgment finding a respondent liable for damages is based on the following considerations: (1) The defendant is liable only if a reasonable person would have foreseen the damage or loss in the circumstances prevailing at the time of the alleged breach of duty (Honore, 1995). (2) The degree of the risks involved. The greater the risk of harm that can be inflicted, the greater the precautions the defendant is required to undertake (McLeod, 2002). (3) How practical the precautions were. If the precautions are deemed impractical or unwarranted by the situation, the entity involved is under no obligation to take them. In Wilson v Governor of Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School (1997), someone got hurt at the school playground after the close of school hours but the school was absolved of negligence for not employing someone to supervise the place at those hours. (4) Social importance of a defendant's activity. In the precedent setting Watt v Hertfordshire CC (1954), a defendant's actions are justified if these serve a socially useful purpose. (5) The defendant's action is part of a common practice. Based on Gray v Stead (1999), a defendant accused of harming his neighbors is not negligent if his actions being complained about represent a set of customs and practices common to others in the same trade or business. Considerations 2, 3, 4 and 5 are also relevant to this case in many ways. The claimants may argue that, as specified in No. 2, the defendant could have taken greater precautions since a possible plane crash involves greater risks. This particular issue, however, is not a concern of the defendant but of the organisers of the annual air show who are in charge of security and the safety of spectators. Consideration No. 3 is related because it suggests that any precautions are impractical since nobody at the air show was expecting a plane crash. As for Nos. 4 and 5, it can be argued that the air show serves a socially useful purpose, if not for the general public then to all plane enthusiasts, and the crash is inevitable in a public show that conducts test flights for experimental planes. In these cases, the defendant is not negligent of his duty of care towards the public. In Watt v Hertfordshire CC (1954), a spectator at a ballgame brought a tort case against the event organisers after he was hit and injured by an errant ball. The case did not prosper because the spectator was assumed to have taken that risk when he bought a ticket to watch the ballgame. This invokes the principle of volenti non fit injuria (a willing victim cannot claim for damages), which can absolve a defendant of liability if he can adduce that the claimant had consented to the risk of damage, implicitly or explicitly. Damages When the manufacturer of the ill-fated plane assumed liability for the damages caused by the crash, it concerned only the actual victims or those who sustained damages that can be easily quantified. In effect, the manufacturer would compensate only the physical damage caused by the crash of its plane and not the emotional pain or suffering of people who were away from the scene when it happened. This voluntary act of restitution for the physical victims involves money and generosity, which may have encouraged people not directly affected by the accident to come forward with a claim for damages of their own. The fact is that even if Syeed, Juliette, John, Anna Lucia and Jack bring psychologists into the picture to quantify and bolster their claim that the nervous shock they suffered warrants compensation, this would still fall short of the legal requirements for an act to be considered deserving of any significant moral or exemplary damages. The most that they can expect is compensation in the form of nominal damages or punitive damages. In law, nominal damages are very minimal amounts awarded to claimants to show that the harm or loss suffered was technical rather than actual in nature ('Lectric Law Library, 2001). The claim of nervous shock, as has been shown, is a complicated technical issue that is likely to turn off the courts and work against the claimants. Nominal damages are generally awarded to the party that has been wronged but is unable to prove significant damages. For this reason, the amount of nominal damages in UK is fixed at 2 while it is a smaller $1 in the US (Wikipedia, online). As for punitive damages, these are awarded not to compensate a claimant but in order to reform or deter the defendant from pursuing the course of action that led to the claim. In other words, punitive damages are only awarded to remind the defendant about taking care and precautions the next time around. References 1. Baker, D. & Padfield, C. (1999). "Law Made Simple." ISBN 0-7506-5405-8. 2. Calabresi, G. & Hirschoff, J. (1972). "Toward a Test for Strict Liability in Tort." Yale Law Journal 85. 3. Christie, G. (1995). "The Uneasy Place of Principle in Tort Law." In Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law, D. Owen (ed), Oxford: Clarendon Press. 4. Classic Encyclopaedia. "Obligation in Law." Available at: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Obligation 5. Currie, S. & Cameron, D. (2000). "Your Law." Nelson Thomson Learning, Melbourne, 25. 6. Fletcher, G. (1972). "Fairness and Utility in Tort Theory." Harvard Law Review 85. 7. Gray, K. (1993). "Elements of Law." 2nd ed., London: Butterworth. 8. Green, L. (1960). "Foreseeability in Negligence Law." Columbia Law Review 61. 9. Hocking, B. & Smith, A. (1996). "The Potential of the Law of Tort to Assist in the Protection of Children." Queensland University of Technology, Vol. 3, No. 1. 10. Honore, T. (1995). "Foundations of Tort Law." Oxford: Clarendon. 11. Law Commission (1996). "Damages for Personal Injury: Non-Pecuniary Loss." Consultation Paper No. 140. 12. 'Lectric Law Library (2001). "Obligations." Available at: http://www.'lectriclaw.com/o001.htm 13. Metaphysics Research Lab (2000). "Theories of Tort Law." CSLI, Stanford University. 14. McLeod, I. (2002). "Legal Method." 4th ed., Palgrave Law Masters. 15. Polinsky, A. & Shavell, S. (1994). "Should Liability be based on the Harm to the Victim or the Gain to the Injurer" Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 10. 16. Ronen, P.(2004). "Relational Economic Loss: An Integrated Economic Justification for the Exclusionary Role." Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 56, No. 3, Spring 2004. 17. Street, T. (1999). "The Theory and Principles of Tort Law." Washington DC: Beard. 18. Washington State Law. "Civil Liability." Washington DC. 19. Wikipedia. "English Tort Law." Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English tort law 20. Williams, G. (1951). "The Aims of the Law of Tort." Oxford, UK. Read More