BUS 206 Module 3 Torts Assignment Example

Tort Analysis of the September 14 Flight

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

BUS 206: Business Law I

Module Three Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Tort Analysis of the September 14 Flight

Introduction

On September 14, 2025, one of the company's pilots launched a morning flight with eight passengers from the company's field. The National Weather Service forecast and the pilot's own briefing showed surface winds rising to gusts of 18 miles per hour by mid-morning. The company's written operations manual sets a launch limit of 12 miles per hour forecast for the landing period. About an hour into the flight, winds increased, and the pilot chose an open field to land. The basket struck the ground hard, tipped and dragged about thirty feet through a field of green chile before stopping. One passenger, a Texas resident, fractured her ankle. The farmer's crop was flattened across about a third of an acre. This paper analyzes the company's liability for both harms.

Negligence: Duty

Negligence requires a duty, a breach, causation and damages (Mallor et al., 2022). A business that carries paying passengers owes them a duty of reasonable care, and some courts have treated commercial balloon operators like other carriers of passengers, which raises the standard to the highest degree of care practical. Whether a New Mexico court would apply that higher standard to balloon rides is unsettled, but the company owes at least reasonable care in deciding whether and how to fly.

Negligence: Breach

Breach is a failure to act as a reasonable operator would. The strongest evidence is the company's own manual: it set a 12-mile limit because its pilots and owners judged that flights in stronger wind risk hard landings, and the pilot launched with 18-mile gusts forecast. Industry practice and the pilot's training point the same way. The pilot's own logbook shows that he canceled two flights earlier in the month under similar forecasts, which suggests he knew the risk and launched this time because the flight was fully booked with a hotel group. That fact, if it came out at trial, would make the breach look worse rather than better, because it suggests the company's commercial pressure overrode its safety rule. A jury could find breach without expert testimony, because the company's own standard defines what reasonable care meant here.

Negligence: Causation and Damages

Causation has two parts. The breach was a cause in fact, because without the launch in high wind the hard landing would not have occurred. It was also a proximate cause, because a hard landing and passenger injury are exactly the foreseeable risk that makes high wind dangerous. The classic proximate cause test limits liability to harms within the risk the conduct created (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 1928), and this harm sits squarely within it. Damages include medical costs of about $46,000, lost wages of about $18,000 and pain and suffering, for a claim of about $140,000. Her lawyer may also seek damages for future care if her ankle requires further surgery, which could raise the claim, while the company's lawyer will test whether all of the lost wages are linked to the injury.

Defenses

The passenger was briefed to bend her knees and hold the handles in the landing position. Two other passengers recall that she was standing upright and filming at touchdown. New Mexico applies pure comparative fault, under which a plaintiff's damages are reduced by her share of fault even if it exceeds the defendant's (Scott v. Rizzo, 1981). A jury might assign her 10 to 20 percent of the fault, reducing her recovery accordingly, but not eliminating it.

The signed release is weaker protection than the company assumes. The New Mexico Supreme Court refused to enforce a release for a commercial horseback ride, reasoning that a business offering a recreational activity to the public should not escape liability for its own negligence (Berlangieri v. Running Elk Corp., 2003). The same reasoning would likely apply to a balloon ride, so the release may help show that the passenger understood the risks but probably will not bar her claim.

The Chile Field

Trespass to land is an intentional tort, but the intent required is only the intent to enter the land, not to cause harm. The pilot chose the field and meant to land there, so the entry was intentional. The company may argue private necessity: in an emergency, a person may enter another's land to avoid serious harm. Necessity can excuse the entry itself, but under the traditional rule the person who benefits must still pay for actual damage caused. The farmer can therefore recover the value of the destroyed crop, about $3,800, even if the landing was justified.

The Company's Liability for Its Pilot

The pilot is a salaried employee who was flying a scheduled commercial ride. Under respondeat superior, a business answers for wrongs its workers commit while doing the job they were hired to do. Launching and landing a passenger flight is the core of the pilot's job, so the company is liable for both harms, whatever claim it might have against the pilot.

Summary of exposure

Recommendations

The company should make its wind limit a firm rule that requires the operations manager's sign-off to exceed, record every launch decision with the forecast, add a video briefing with a practice of the landing position before boarding, and negotiate landing agreements with nearby farmers that set compensation in advance. It should also report the claim to its insurer at once and keep the pilot's logbook, the forecast records and the passenger statements, since all of them will be evidence.

Conclusion

The company is likely liable in negligence for the passenger's injury because its pilot ignored the company's own wind limit, with her recovery reduced somewhat for her failure to take the landing position. It is liable for the crop damage in trespass despite the emergency, and it answers for its pilot under respondeat superior. Its release offers little protection under New Mexico law, so the practical protections lie in how the company decides to fly and in its insurance.

References

Berlangieri v. Running Elk Corp., 2003-NMSC-024, 134 N.M. 341, 76 P.3d 1098 (2003).

Mallor, J. P., Barnes, A. J., Bowers, L. T., & Langvardt, A. W. (2022). Business law: The ethical, global, and e-commerce environment (18th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928).

Scott v. Rizzo, 96 N.M. 682, 634 P.2d 1234 (1981).