Opinion ID: 1790126
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: duty under contract

Text: In Pinnix v. Toomey, 242 N.C. 358, 362, 87 S.E.2d 893, 897-898 (1955), a suit against a plumber, the North Carolina Supreme Court held: ... Actionable negligence presupposes the existence of a legal relationship between parties by which the injured party is owed a duty by the other, and such duty must be imposed by law... . The duty may arise specifically by mandate of statute, or it may arise generally by operation of law under application of the basic rule of the common law which imposes on every person engaged in the prosecution of any undertaking an obligation to use due care, or to so govern his actions as not to endanger the person or property of others... . Moreover, while this duty of care, as an essential element of actionable negligence, arises by operation of law, it may and frequently does arise out of a contractual relationship, the theory being that accompanying every contract is a common-law duty to perform with ordinary care the thing agreed to be done, and that a negligent performance constitutes a tort as well as a breach of contract... . But it must be kept in mind that the contract creates only the relation out of which arises the common-law duty to exercise ordinary care. Thus in legal contemplation the contract merely creates the state of things which furnishes the occasion of the tort. 65 C.J.S. Negligence, § 4(6), pp. 494, 496 (1966) states the general rule: ... The question as to when and to what extent a recovery for negligence may be based on the breach of a contract obligation has been declared to be one of the moot questions of law. [p. 494] ..... ... Where a person contracts to do certain work he is charged with the common-law duty of exercising reasonable care and skill in the performance of the work required to be done by the contract, and the parties may not substitute a contractual standard for this obligation. (Emphasis added) [p. 496] ... Accompanying every contract is a common law duty to perform with care, skill and reasonable experience, and a negligent failure to observe any of these conditions is a tort as well as a breach of contract. Davis v. Anderson, 501 S.W.2d 459, 462 (Tex.Civ.App. 1973).