Court Opinion

ID: 9845336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:19:19.30505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:01.619170
License: Public Domain

HiggiNS, J.,
dissenting:
I am unable to agree with the trial court’s conclusion of law “that the defendants were not prevented from performing the scheduled agreement within the meaning and intent of the (escape) clause in the contract as set out in paragraph 3 of the foregoing Findings of Fact.” The contract provided: “The agreement of the employees to perform is subject to proven detention by sickness, accidents, or accidents to means of transportation, riots, strikes, epidemics, acts of God, or any other *101legitimate conditions beyond the control of the employees (defendants) .”
The trial court found these facts: The performance was to begin at 8:00 p.m. The plaintiff not only knew the troupe would travel by air from Baltimore to Roanoke, arriving at about 4:30 p.m., but actually had busses at the airport to meet them. When the plane arrived at Roanoke, federal authorities refused permission to land due to local weather conditions. The defendant’s pilot, in this emergency, ascertained the nearest open airport was Charlottesville, approximately 100 highway miles from Roanoke. A bus trip to Roanoke would delay the performance at least an hour. In the meantime, -the pilot ascertained weather conditions had improved at Roanoke sufficient to permit a landing there in time for the performance to begin on schedule. The defendants, in this emergency, (not of their making) chose to take to the air again in order to meet their obligation. The decision to fly would appear to be the wiser choice. After take-off an oil leak developed in one of the engines. Report of this trouble resulted in a federal order for the plane to return to Charlottesville.
These accidents were to the means of -transportation. These findings made by the trial judge not only do not support the conclusion of law No. 1, but compel a contrary conclusion. The decision must rest squarely on the facts found. Additional facts may not be assumed. When the facts are not in dispute, decision becomes a matter of law, and a judgment not supported by the facts will be reversed. Strong’s North Carolina Index, Vol. 1, Appeal and Error, § 21, pp. 93-94, n. 225. I vote to reverse.
PaeKBR, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.