Appeals Court -- January 17, 2012
Facts: The plaintiff was the developer of a subdivision of a town known as Windchime. The defendant was hired by the town board to perform inspections and reviews of the subdivision development. There was no contract between the plaintiff and the defendant. Throughout the duration of the development, defendant kept in close communications with the plaintiff. Plaintiff was aware of all the daily written statements regarding the plaintiff’s contractors. Towards the end of the development, it was discovered that plaintiff’s contractors had improperly installed some underground infrastructures. The ground had to be dug up to redo the contractors’ works. Plaintiff claimed that if the defendant would have done the inspection properly and in a timely fashion, far less cost would have been spent to correct the contractors’ works.
Issue #1: Whether or not the defendant owed a duty of care as a professional under contract to a third party, the town.
No. Under the Craig doctrine, whether a consequence is foreseeable is measured by an objective standard and calls for consideration whether the injured party's reliance on the services performed by the negligent party was reasonable. In this case, the defendant had no responsibility for the methods or the procedures of construction chosen by the contractor. In addition, the plaintiff hired its own project engineer for the town. While the engineer failed to honor the contractual obligation with the plaintiff this did not justify plaintiff’s reliance on the work performed by the defendant. (YN)
