Opinion ID: 1987527
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: protection of work, property & persons.

Text: The Contractor shall adequately protect the work, adjacent property and the public and shall be responsible for any damage or injury due to his act or neglect. Although the quoted clause could not relieve Center of responsibility for injuries negligently inflicted upon third persons as a result of Randall's work, there is no reason in law or public policy why contracting parties cannot agree between themselves that the contractor would assume and agree to perform the contractee's non-delegable duty, as well as his own separate common law duty, to protect third persons against such harm. When a compact of that type is made, obviously the parties have in contemplation that the damages reasonably to be expected from its breach are those which would be imposed by law upon the party burdened with the nondelegable duty, i.e. the monetary award to the injured person in the negligence action. Thus, where such an agreement exists, failure of the contractor to exercise due care in the performance of the work which causes injury to a third person, constitutes a breach of it. If the injured person subsequently recovers a damage judgment against his invitor (the contractee) based wholly upon the contractor's negligence, the judgment must be deemed to arise from the breach of the assumption clause of the contract. This follows because the contractee's liability flows from the negligence of the contractor, which, by imputation of law, also constitutes a violation of the contractee's nondelegable duty. In such situation, as between themselves, the contractor becomes obligated to reimburse the contractee for, or to relieve him from, payment of the judgment. See, Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S.S. Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 130-135, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133 (1956); Schwartz v. Merola Bros. Construction Corporation, 290 N.Y. 145, 48 N.E. 2 d 299 ( Ct. App. 1943); San Francisco Unified School District v. California Building Maintenance Co., 162 Cal. App. 2 d 434, 328 P. 2 d 785 ( D.Ct. App. 1958); Alisal Sanitary District v. Kennedy, 180 Cal. App. 2 d 69, 4 Cal. Rptr. 379 ( D.Ct. App. 1960); Ring v. The Dimitrios Chandris, 43 F. Supp. 829 ( E.D. Pa. 1942); Garden City Floral Co. v. Hunt, 126 Mont. 537, 255 P. 2 d 352 ( Sup. Ct. 1953); Midvale Coal Co. v. Cardox Corp., 157 Ohio St. 526, 106 N.E. 2 d 556 ( Sup. Ct. 1952); Restatement, Contracts, § 330 (1932); Corbin on Contracts (1951), §§ 1007, 13, 14. In Ryan, supra, the stevedoring company agreed with Pan-Atlantic, the shipowner, to perform all stevedoring operations required by Pan-Atlantic in its coastwise service. This included loading ships with mixed cargo. Ryan's employees loaded a hatch negligently with the result that, at the unloading in a different port, a roll of corrugated paper broke loose and injured one of Ryan's longshoremen. The injured man obtained a judgment against Pan-Atlantic because of a jury finding that it had failed to furnish him with a safe place to work. Pan-Atlantic then sued Ryan for the amount of the judgment alleging breach of the stevedoring company's contractual obligation to stow the cargo properly in the hatch. In sustaining a finding against Ryan, the United States Supreme Court said: The shipowner's action here is not founded upon a tort or upon any duty which the stevedoring contractor owes to its employee. The third party complaint is grounded upon the contractor's breach of its purely consensual obligation owing to the shipowner to stow the cargo in a reasonably safe manner. [Italics contained in opinion.]