Caseflicks

Washington Supreme Court • 1987

Crosby v. Cox Aircraft Company

746 P.2d 1198 | 109 Wash. 2d 581

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Takeaway

In short, this case makes negligence—not strict liability—the governing rule for aircraft-caused ground damage in Washington, including damage from test flights.

Background

A DeHavilland Otter owned by Cox Aircraft Company ran out of fuel while returning to Boeing Field. The aircraft had recently been converted from a piston engine to a turbine engine in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration requirements, although certification of its fuel system was still pending. The pilot, Hal Joines, made a forced landing at Alki Point in Seattle, and the plane struck the roof of Douglas Crosby's garage, causing $3,199.89 in property damage.

Crosby sued the pilot and Cox Aircraft, alleging negligent operation, negligent maintenance, vicarious liability for the pilot's negligence, and strict liability for damage caused by the crash. Cox Aircraft and the pilot denied liability and brought a third-party claim against Parker Hannifin Corporation, alleging that a defective fuel-system control valve caused the fuel loss. The trial court granted Crosby partial summary judgment on strict liability without resolving the negligence claims or third-party claim. The Washington Supreme Court accepted review.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether aircraft owners and operators are strictly liable for ground damage caused by an aircraft's ascent, descent, or flight.

Holding

No. In Washington, owners and operators are liable for aircraft-caused ground damage only upon a showing of negligence.

Reasoning

The court declined to adopt Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520A, which imposes liability for ground damage from aircraft even when the operator exercised utmost care. Section 520A was developed when aviation was widely regarded as exceptionally hazardous, but the court concluded that this historical premise no longer justified a special no-fault rule for aviation accidents.

Applying the Restatement's factors for abnormally dangerous activities, the court found that aviation did not warrant strict liability. Air transportation was comparatively safe; the risk of ground harm could be substantially reduced through reasonable care, technological advances, and extensive federal regulation; aviation was commonly used, appropriately conducted over populated areas, and socially valuable.

The court also reasoned that aircraft crashes may result from many distinct sources, including engineering, maintenance, operation, manufacturing defects, weather, obstructions, and other external causes. In the court's view, liability should therefore rest on the party shown to be blameworthy rather than automatically on the owner or operator.

The court found no persuasive basis for giving ground victims greater protection than airplane passengers, who generally must establish negligence to recover for accident-related injuries. It emphasized, however, that a plaintiff may rely on res ipsa loquitur where the doctrine is appropriate to support an inference of negligence in an aviation-crash case.

Issue #2

Whether strict liability should apply at least when the aircraft was on a test flight involving a modified and not-yet-certified fuel system.

Holding

No. A test flight is not, by that fact alone, an abnormally dangerous activity subject to strict liability.

Reasoning

The relevant question was not whether test flights present more risk than ordinary flights, but whether their remaining risks are so inherently high that reasonable care cannot eliminate them. Given federal regulation governing aircraft design, development, testing, certification, and airworthiness, the court concluded that test flights did not meet that standard.

Dissents

Justice Brachtenbach

Reasoning

Justice Brachtenbach would have affirmed the trial court's strict-liability ruling. He viewed the case as a straightforward loss-allocation question: between an innocent homeowner whose property is struck by an aircraft and the owner and pilot who voluntarily created the risk for their own enterprise, fairness requires the aviation enterprise to bear the loss even if no one was negligent.

The dissent argued that the majority placed an unrealistic burden on a modest property-damage claimant. Proving negligence could require costly investigation, expert evidence, and litigation over the pilot, owner, manufacturer, and an allegedly defective aircraft part. In a claim worth only $3,199.89, those costs could effectively deny the innocent property owner a remedy. The dissent also questioned the majority's reliance on res ipsa loquitur, noting that its availability in forced-landing and test-flight cases was uncertain.

Justice Brachtenbach further argued that strict liability was justified because aviation enterprises can spread accident costs through insurance and business operations, whereas an innocent ground victim cannot. He analogized the case to strict products liability: the party that introduces a risk-producing instrumentality into the community should bear the costs of accidental injury it causes.

The dissent maintained that Restatement § 520A independently mandated strict liability for ground damage from aircraft. In his reading, § 520A was intentionally adopted as a special rule for aviation and did not require a fresh finding under § 520 that every flight is an abnormally dangerous activity. Even if § 520 applied, he believed the gravity of harm, unavoidable residual risks, limited common use of private flying, and involuntary exposure of people on the ground favored strict liability.