Summary
The New Hampshire Supreme Court considered whether an aircraft owner could be held liable under state and federal aeronautics statutes and regulations for a pilot’s low and allegedly reckless flight that frightened a horse and caused an accident. The court held that causal violations of the applicable statutes or regulations could support liability against the aircraft owner, rejected submission of the plaintiff’s contributory negligence to the jury for lack of supporting evidence, and sustained an evidentiary objection concerning lack of notice. The court ordered new trials as to all defendants.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the New Hampshire and federal aeronautics statutes imposed responsibility on an aircraft owner or other person authorizing operation for causal violations of applicable aircraft-operation rules by the pilot, even when the owner lacked operational control.
- Whether the minimum-altitude and related aircraft-operation rules applied during the aircraft's takeoff and protected persons and property on the ground, not merely against collisions or accidents in the air.
- Whether the evidence supported submitting the plaintiff's contributory negligence to the jury.
- Whether testimony that airport officials and a former airport manager had received no complaints about horses being frightened by aircraft was admissible to show that Skyhaven lacked notice of the danger.
Holdings
- Under the applicable New Hampshire and federal aeronautics statutes, a person who causes or authorizes the operation of an aircraft is deemed engaged in its operation, and the owner may be held liable for the pilot's causal violation of applicable statutes, rules, or regulations even without the owner's operational control, absent the plaintiff's contributory negligence.
- The aircraft-operation rules requiring reasonable care, prohibiting careless or reckless operation, and generally requiring a 500-foot altitude over noncongested areas applied to the takeoff circumstances at issue and were intended to protect persons and property on the ground as well as those in the air.
- The plaintiff's contributory negligence should not have been submitted to the jury because the evidence did not support a finding that he failed to exercise the care of an ordinary person under the circumstances.
- Testimony that airport officials and a former airport manager had received no complaints about horses being frightened by aircraft was inadmissible hearsay when offered to show that Skyhaven lacked notice of the danger, because those witnesses were neither Skyhaven owners nor agents.
Key quotations
“It seems to us from reading our act that the intent of our Legislature is clearly to place responsibility on the owner, even though he be without control, for the conduct of one to whom he entrusts the plane.” (172)
“Accordingly we hold the Trial Court correctly charged that causal violation of the state or federal statutes or any rules or regulations thereunder by the pilot of the plane would, in the absence of the plaintiff's contributory negligence, render the defendant Skyhaven liable.” (172)
“The meaning which the defendant would have us adopt here has been rejected in principle elsewhere.” (173)
“In short, we discover no evidence to warrant reasonable men finding that the plaintiff failed to use as much care as an ordinary person should in the situation here” (174)
Factual background
A horse was allegedly frightened by an aircraft operated at a low altitude near the Laconia Airport and caused the accident underlying the plaintiff's claims. The evidence supported findings that Skyhaven, which owned or authorized operation of the aircraft, knew the area contained farms with horses and that the pilot used the north-south runway and flew approximately 388 feet above the horse despite applicable runway, altitude, and careless-or-reckless-operation rules. The plaintiff had left his nearly two-year-old child with his wife and had gone nearly one-quarter mile away to hay with two other men, including the horse's owner; the court found no evidence warranting a finding that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent. Airport officials and a former airport manager testified that they had received no complaints of horses being frightened by planes, although they were not Skyhaven agents.
Procedural history
The trial court ruled that state and federal aeronautics statutes and regulations could support liability against Skyhaven, Inc., submitted contributory negligence to the jury, and admitted testimony that airport officials had received no complaints about horses being frightened by aircraft. The Supreme Court sustained the plaintiff's exceptions concerning contributory negligence and the hearsay evidence, upheld submission of causal statutory and regulatory violations as a basis for liability, and ordered new trials as to all defendants.
Remand instructions
New trials as to all defendants. The opinion specifically sustains the plaintiff's exceptions to submission of contributory negligence and admission of the lack-of-complaints testimony, while permitting causal statutory and regulatory violations to be submitted as a basis for liability.