Opinion ID: 1138073
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: relevance of contract provisions to standard of care

Text: Plaintiff requested an instruction reading as follows: In determining the standard and duties of care owing by the Defendants to the Plaintiff to safeguard and protect Plaintiff's property from hazard of fire, the contracts between Plaintiff and MHS, between MHS and Colby and between Colby and Lord may all be considered by you as affording some evidence of their responsibility and duties in this connection. While these contracts are not controlling in determining this duty of care, they do constitute evidence which you may consider. Provisions in any of them concerning responsibility for loss, methods of operations and precautions to be taken are thus matters entitled to receive your consideration in determining whether the Defendants or any thereof have been guilty of negligence toward the Plaintiff in the particulars charged in the Amended Complaint. The court refused to give the instruction and the ruling is assigned as error. [7] The question whether in a tort action the agreement of one of the parties to a contract to take specific precautions for the protection of person or property is relevant, was considered by this court in Larson v. Heintz Const. Co. et al, 219 Or 25, 345 P2d 835. That case arose out of a personal injury sustained by a passenger in an automobile who was injured when the car in which she was riding collided with a truck operated by the defendants. The defendants were contractors engaged at the time in highway construction work for the state. The contract obligated them to take certain safety measures, among others, to provide, keep and maintain such danger lights, signals and flagmen as may be necessary or as may be ordered by the engineer to insure the safety of the public as well as those engaged in connection with the work. We held that a construction contract which requires the use of warning signals is, by the weight of reason and authority, admissible in evidence against the contractor and while the contractor's duty even in the face of such a contract as this remains a duty to use reasonable care still reasonableness depends on the circumstances, and here the contract was a circumstance. It is evidence of what the contractor conceived the measure of his duty to be. 219 Or at 37, 52-53. It was further held, however, that the clause in question was not intended as protection against the particular danger encountered by the plaintiff and therefore the trial court did not err in striking from the complaint a paragraph which pleaded the contract. While it might well be argued that in view of the final disposition of the question what was said about it in the opinion was dictum, still the conclusion announced was arrived at only after deliberation and thorough consideration of the authorities. We adhere to the views expressed in Larson v. Heintz . That case was cited with approval and with extensive quotation from the opinion in Foster v. Herbison Construction Co., 263 Minn 63, 69, 115 NW2d 915 (1962), where the court said:    The ultimate question still is: What would an ordinarily prudent person have done under the same or similar circumstances? But here we might well say that an ordinarily prudent person, having agreed to perform certain acts for the protection of the public, would have recognized the necessity of complying therewith and that, when injury results from a condition which develops due to the failure to perform according to the contract, it could be found that the failure to perform constitutes a lack of due care. We think that, whatever the reasoning may be, the better rule, and that now followed by the weight of authority, is that such contract provisions should be admitted for the jury's consideration, together with all other evidence, in determining the question of defendant's negligence. We are not dealing here with an agreement to perform acts for the protection of the public, but it would seem that there is stronger reason for applying this rule to a contractor who expressly agrees, as in the present case, to take certain precautions for the protection of the owner's property from the danger of fire. Additional support for such a rule is found in Louisville Cooperage Co., Inc. v. Lawrence, supra, and Turner v. Robbins et al, 276 Pa 319, 120 A 274. Welter, Adm'x v. M & M Woodworking Co., 216 Or 266, 338 P2d 651, cited by the defendants, is not in point. In that case the plaintiff, an invitee on the defendant's property, operating heavy equipment over a logging road constructed by the defendant was killed as a result of the road giving way. Evidence showed that the road was defectively constructed. The defendant sought to escape liability by showing that the road was constructed in exact compliance with the specifications in a contract between the defendant and the state of Oregon. In other words, defendant claimed that its contract with a third party established the standard of care. We rejected this contention. Plaintiff cites Presser v. Seisel Construction Co., 19 Wis 2d 54, 59, 119 NW2d 405, and Patterson v. Sinclair Refining Co., 20 Wis 2d 576, 585, 123 NW2d 479, which hold that the contract may impose an absolute standard of care. We are unwilling to go so far. The objections to that view are well stated in Randall v. Moen Co., 206 Iowa 1319, 1323, 221 NW 944, and Hanna v. Central States Elec. Co., 210 Iowa 864, 871, 232 NW 421. Several provisions of the General Conditions contained in the MHS Purchase Order to Colby for the cargo lifts are relied upon by the plaintiff as having a bearing on the standard of care. Defendants contend that they were waived by MHS along with other General Conditions heretofore considered on the issue of waiver of the insurance clause. Colby did, it is true, after it received the Purchase Order, ask MHS to waive all the General Conditions, but MHS categorically refused. At the same time, however, it indicated its willingness to review particular items and Colby then objected specifically to 14 items, 9 of which MHS agreed to waive. Of the 14 items to which Colby specifically objected only one had any relevance to Colby's duty of care and none of the General Conditions upon that subject was waived by MHS. 18. Plaintiff was entitled to an instruction along the lines of that requested, though the reference to provisions concerning responsibility for loss might better be omitted, as they are foreign to the purpose of the instruction. In the view we take of this question the court erred in withdrawing the contracts from the consideration of the jury, at least insofar as their provisions may properly be considered by the jury as bearing on the standard of care.