Beckett brought this action against the Flint & Walling Manufacturing Company to recover damages for harm done to his barn and the contents thereof, owing to the fact that the company constructed a windmill thereon in such an insufficient manner that it fell upon the roof of the barn.
The complaint contained, in substance, the following statements:—
There was an air-shaft in the centre of the barn, extending from the bottom to, and projecting through, the roof. Defendant contracted with plaintiff to erect on the air-shaft a windmill consisting of a wheel, tower, etc., to be erected in a first-class manner. The defendant erected the windmill in a negligent manner; especially in the mode of fastening the tower to the air-shaft. In consequence of this defective construction, a wind of ordinary velocity caused the windmill to break and twist the air-shaft and fall about sixty feet on the roof of the barn.
Trial in the Circuit Court. Verdict for plaintiff and judgment thereon. Defendant company appealed.[[107]]
Gillett, J.
The leading contention of appellant’s counsel is that the duty it owed to appellee arose out of contract, and that, as appellant was not engaged in a public employment, its obligation could only be enforced by an action on the contract for a breach thereof. The latter insistence cannot be upheld. It is, of course, true that it is not every breach of contract which can be counted on as a tort, and it may also be granted that if the making of a contract does not bring the parties into such a relation that a common-law obligation exists, no action can be maintained in tort for an omission properly to perform the undertaking. It by no means follows, however, that this common-law obligation may not have its inception in contract. If a defendant may be held liable for the neglect of a duty imposed on him, independently of any contract, by operation of law, a fortiori ought he to be liable where he has come under an obligation to use care as the result of an undertaking founded on a consideration.
Where the duty has its roots in contract, the undertaking to observe due care may be implied from the relationship, and should it be the fact that a breach of the agreement also constitutes such a failure to exercise care as amounts to a tort, the plaintiff may elect, as the common-law authorities have it, to sue in case or in assumpsit. It is broadly stated in 1 Comyn’s Digest, Action on the Case for Negligence, A 4, p. 418, that “if a man neglect to do that, which he has undertaken to do, an action upon the case lies.... But, if there be not any neglect in the defendant, an action upon the case does not lie against him, though he do not perform his undertaking.” Professor Pollock says: “One who enters on the doing of anything attended with risk to the persons or property of others is held answerable for the use of a certain measure of caution to guard against that risk. To name one of the commonest applications, ‘those who go personally or bring property where they know that they or it may come into collision with the persons or property of others have by law a duty cast upon them to use reasonable care and skill to avoid such collision.’... In some cases this ground of liability may coexist with a liability on contract towards the same person, and arising (as regards the breach) out of the same facts. Where a man interferes gratuitously, he is bound to act in a reasonable and prudent manner according to the circumstances and opportunities of the case. And this duty is not affected by the fact, if so it be, that he is acting for reward, in other words, under a contract, and may be liable on the contract. The two duties are distinct, except so far as the same party cannot be compensated twice over for the same facts, once for the breach of contract and again for the wrong. Historically the liability in tort is older; and indeed it was by special development of this view that the action of assumpsit, afterwards the common mode of enforcing simple contracts, was brought into use. ‘If a smith prick my horse with a nail, etc., I shall have my action upon the case against him, without any warranty by the smith to do it well.... For it is the duty of every artificer to exercise his art rightly and truly as he ought.’” Webb’s Pollock, Torts, 533–536. This general thought also finds expression in Mr. Street’s valuable work (1 Street, Foundations of Legal Liability, 92). It is there said: “The general doctrine may be laid down thus: In every situation where a man undertakes to act or to pursue a particular course he is under an implied legal obligation or duty to act with reasonable care, to the end that the person or property of others may not be injured by any force which he sets in operation or by any agent for which he is responsible. If he fails to exercise the degree of caution which the law requires in a particular situation, he is held liable for any damage that results to another just as if he had bound himself by an obligatory promise to exercise the required degree of care. In this view, statements so frequently seen in negligence cases, to the effect that men are bound to act with due and reasonable care, are really vital and significant expressions. If there had been any remedial necessity for so declaring, it could obviously have been said without violence to the principle that men who undertake to act are subject to a fictitious or implied promise to act with due care.” See also Howard v. Shepherd, (1850) 9 C. B. (67 Eng. Com. Law) 296, 321; Coy v. Indianapolis Gas Co., (1897) 146 Ind. 655, 36 L. R. A. 535; Parrill v. Cleveland, etc., R. Co., (1900) 23 Ind. App. 638; Rich v. New York, etc., R. Co., (1882) 87 N. Y. 382; Dean v. McLean, (1875) 48 Vt. 412, 21 Am. Rep. 130; Stock v. City of Boston, (1889) 149 Mass. 410, 21 N. E. 871, 14 Am. St. 430; Bickford v. Richards, (1891) 154 Mass. 163, 27 N. E. 1014, 26 Am. St. 224; Addison, Torts (3d ed.), p. 13; 1 Thompson, Negligence (2d ed.), § 5; 1 Shearman & Redfield, Negligence (5th ed.), §§ 9, 22; Saunders, Negligence, 55, 121; 6 Cyc. Law and Proc. 688.
The position in which appellant placed this large and heavy structure, located, as it was, upon the barn, some seventy feet above the earth, was such that it was calculated to do great harm to appellee’s property should it fall. We cannot doubt, in view of the terms of the contract, construed in the light of the practical construction which the parties gave to it, to say nothing of the extraneous agreement set forth in the complaint, that it was the duty of appellant to exercise ordinary care to secure the tower in such a manner that this heavy and exposed structure would not, under the action of ordinary winds, weave around and become detached from the body of the air-shaft. Insecurely fastened, as the complaint shows that this structure was, appellant was bound to apprehend that it might fall, and that, if it did, great injury would thereby be occasioned to appellee. It was also bound to apprehend, from the very care and skill which it impliedly held itself out as exercising (a circumstance calculated to throw appellee off his guard), and from the fact that an examination was difficult, that in all probability the defects would not be observed in time to avoid the injury. Indeed, as laid down in Mowbray v. Merryweather, [1895] 2 Q. B. 640, and Devlin v. Smith, (1882) 89 N. Y. 470, 42 Am. Rep. 311, appellee owed no duty, so far as appellant was concerned, to examine the tower. The contrivance was inherently dangerous, and the circumstances of placing it upon the barn, as shown, made it calculated to eventuate in harm. This being true, and as there was no intervening responsible agency between appellee and the wrong, so that the causal relation remained unbroken, we can perceive no reason for acquitting appellant of responsibility as a tort feasor. See Wharton, Negligence (2d ed.), § 438; 1 Beven, Negligence (2d ed.), 62; Roddy v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., (1891) 104 Mo. 234, 15 S. W. 1112, 12 L. R. A. 746, 24 Am. St. 333. It is not necessary to consider the extent to which contracts may impose obligations to exercise care for the protection of third persons, for here the relation is direct and immediate, but we quote, as showing that there is clearly a liability in tort, in such a case as this, the following general statements in 1 Shearman & Redfield, Negligence (5th ed.), § 117, with reference to the liability for selling dangerous goods: “But one who knowingly sells an article intrinsically dangerous to human life or health, such as poison, explosive oils or diseased meat, concealing from the buyer knowledge of that fact, is responsible to any person who, without fault on the part of himself or any other person, sufficient to break the chain of causation, is injured thereby. And we see no reason why the same rule should not apply to articles known to be dangerous to property.”
A number of questions are argued by appellant’s counsel which are based upon the contention that the theory of the complaint was that appellant had committed a breach of contract. The latter insistence is based on the fact that the contract is set out in full in the complaint. It is often difficult to determine whether, in the statement of such a cause of action as the one under consideration, wherein the very breach of the contract also constitutes negligence, the purpose of the pleader was to rely upon a breach of contract or to charge negligence in the violation of the implied duty which was created by the undertaking of the defendant. It is true that in an action on the case for negligence, wherein the declaration or complaint is not based on mere nonfeasance it is not necessary to plead a consideration, and, therefore, where the action is based on the manner in which an undertaking was performed, or, in other words, on some misfeasance or malfeasance, the allegation of a consideration may be regarded as one of the markings of an action ex contractu. But we do not understand that this is a controlling consideration; on the contrary, it does not appear to admit of question that if the contract or consideration be set out as a matter of inducement only, the plaintiff’s action may be regarded as one in case for a violation of the common-law duty which the circumstances had imposed upon the defendant. 1 Chitty, Pleading, *135; Dickson v. Clifton, 2 Wils. 319; Watson, Damages for Per. Inj., § 570; 21 Ency. Pl. and Pr., 913. We are especially impressed with the view that in code pleading, which was designed preëminently to be a system of fact pleading, a plaintiff, in suing in tort, may properly set out his contract, as constituting the underlying fact, instead of charging the defendant’s undertaking in general terms, and that the plaintiff does not thereby necessarily commit himself to the theory that his action is for breach of contract. Leeds v. City of Richmond, (1885) 102 Ind. 372; Parrill v. Cleveland, etc., R. Co., supra; McMurtry v. Kentucky Cent. R. Co., (1886) 84 Ky. 462, 1 S. W. 815; Watson, Damages for Per. Inj., § 570. In the complaint before us appellee not only sets out the written contract, but he pleads a supplemental or subsidiary agreement as well, so that it can hardly be said that he relied on the written contract as the foundation of the action. He charges no breach of the contract except as it can be implied from the allegations of negligence; he alleges damages “by reason of the defendant’s negligence, carelessness, imprudence, and unskilfulness in erecting, constructing, and fastening said steel tower to said air-shaft as aforesaid;” he charges, in setting forth the total amount of his damages, that they were occasioned “by reason of the defendant’s negligence and failure of duty as herein alleged,” and he avers that he “had no notice or knowledge of the faulty, negligent, and unskilful erection of said mill,” and that he himself was without fault or negligence in the premises. In view of the general structure of the complaint, and applying to it the rule that a construction of a pleading which will give effect to all of its material allegations is to be preferred, where reasonably possible (Monnett v. Turpie, [1892] 133 Ind. 424), it appears to us that it must be held that the action was for the tort. But, admitting that there is room for doubt on this subject, the fact that the court below, as the record plainly shows, tried the cause on the theory that it was an action ex delicto, must settle the question against the contention of appellant. Lake Erie, etc., R. Co. v. Acres, (1886) 108 Ind. 548; Diggs v. Way, (1899) 22 Ind. App. 617.