BUS 206 Module 7 Project Two Example

Landing Agreements: Contract Analysis and Model Terms

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

BUS 206: Business Law I

Project Two

[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.

Landing Agreements: Contract Analysis and Model Terms

Introduction

The company's balloons cannot choose their landing spot precisely; they land where the wind takes them within a few miles of the planned area. Over twenty-five years, the company has relied on informal permission from eleven nearby farms and ranches, usually a conversation and a bottle of champagne at the end of the season. In 2025, two landings damaged chile crops, one landowner demanded payment the company thought excessive and another said he no longer wanted balloons on his land. The company now wants written agreements. This project analyzes what form those agreements should take, what they must contain and what risks remain.

The Current Arrangement

Oral permission to enter land is a license: a personal privilege that the landowner can revoke at any time, generally without notice. It is not a contract unless both sides exchanged something of value, and the champagne may not be enough to create enforceable obligations. Mallor et al. (2022) explain that a contract requires mutual assent and consideration, and that vague arrangements leave courts to fill gaps or find no contract at all. The company therefore has no assured right to land, no agreed method for paying for damage and no protection if a landowner is sued by an injured passenger.

Choosing the Form

Forms of agreement compared

A written license for a one-year term, renewing automatically unless either side gives notice, gives the company assured access during each season while leaving landowners in control of their land. A lease would wrongly give the company possession, and an easement would require landowners to give up a permanent right for occasional use, which few would accept.

Essential Terms

Permission and access: the agreement grants permission to land balloons and to drive the chase vehicle along named farm roads to retrieve them, with gates closed behind. Consideration: a $40 fee for each landing, paid monthly, gives landowners something of value and makes the promise enforceable. Notice: the company calls the landowner, or a named contact, before entering, and avoids irrigated fields during watering days. Damage: a schedule sets payments for common damage, such as $9,000 per acre for flattened chile and $300 per broken irrigation riser, with actual cost for anything else. A schedule of this kind is a form of liquidated damages, which the Restatement (Second) of Contracts treats as enforceable when the amount is reasonable in light of the anticipated or actual loss (American Law Institute, 1981).

Insurance: the company names each landowner as an additional insured on its liability policy, so that if a passenger is hurt on the land and sues the landowner, the company's insurer defends. Indemnity: the company agrees to cover claims arising from its balloon operations on the land. Termination: either party may end the agreement with thirty days' notice, or immediately for a serious breach. Disputes: the parties will first meet, then mediate, before any lawsuit.

Limits on Enforceability

Not every clause will be enforced as written. An indemnity clause that tried to make the company pay for the landowner's own negligence, such as an unmarked well a balloon basket falls into, might be limited by New Mexico courts, which have shown reluctance to let parties shift responsibility for their own carelessness (Berlangieri v. Running Elk Corp., 2003). The model agreement therefore limits indemnity to claims arising from the company's operations and leaves each party responsible for its own negligence. A damage schedule set far above actual losses could be treated as a penalty and not enforced, so the amounts should be checked against crop values each year.

Remaining Risks

Balloons will still land on property without an agreement when the wind shifts. For those landings, the company remains liable for trespass damage and should continue to pay promptly. The agreements do not change the company's duty to passengers, and they depend on the company keeping its insurance current. Finally, landowners can still end the agreement on notice, so the company should keep relationships strong and consider extra landing fees in seasons with heavy use.

Negotiation and Fairness

The agreement must be attractive to landowners, who gain little from balloons landing on their fields. Three features help. The landing fee gives a modest but regular income, about $1,600 a year for the most-used ranch. The damage schedule settles in advance what used to be argued, which several landowners said they would value. And naming landowners as additional insureds protects them from a risk many had not considered: a passenger injured on their land could sue them as well as the company. The company should present these as benefits, not demands, and be willing to adjust the fee or the notice terms for landowners with particular concerns, such as cattle that spook at low-flying balloons. One rancher may still decline, and the company should respect that and mark his land as a no-landing zone.

Rollout

The operations manager will meet each of the eleven landowners in January, explain the agreement in person and leave a copy for review by their own lawyer if they wish. The company's lawyer will review the final form. Signed agreements will be filed with the insurance broker so each landowner can be added to the policy before the spring season. The company will review the damage schedule each December against current crop prices and send landowners a short summary of every landing on their land during the year.

Conclusion

Handshake permission gave the company neither certainty nor protection. A written, renewable license with clear terms for access, fees, damage, insurance, indemnity and termination gives both sides what they need while respecting the limits New Mexico law places on shifting responsibility for negligence.

References

American Law Institute. (1981). Restatement (second) of contracts. Author.

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.