This year we rented land from a local beef farmer and harvested silage.
The farmer hired a local contractor to do the harvest, and one of the young lads working for the contractor hit an old stone pier on his way out of the field.
A traditional solid stone pier was left a little in the ground.
This pier has supported the gates to our fields and to our neighbors’ farms for generations. My neighbor is not happy and wants the pier to be rebuilt as soon as possible.
But a deadlock has arisen as to who is to blame, with cattle farmers and contractors pointing fingers at each other.
The beef farmer said he didn’t knock on it, and the contractor said the gate wasn’t wide enough for his trailer and wasn’t his fault.
Who is responsible here? Who should bear the cost of rebuilding the pier?
Answer: Accidents of this type are not uncommon at this time of year when yard and road traffic is high.
For negligence to occur, farm or not, all of the following elements must be present each time an accident occurs:
â– Duty of Care: This is when a person has a duty of reasonable care to another person.
â– Violation of this duty of care: This means that someone has to do something or omit something without paying due attention to the person to whom he or she owes the duty.
â– loss or damage to either party;
â– Causality between breach of duty of care and loss and damage suffered.
In this case, it is important to ascertain whether the “young youth” is an employee or an independent contractor, as the employer may be held vicariously liable for the employee’s conduct.
Not sure if this contractor has cut silage in this area before.
Nor does it mention whether the pier collapsed when the silage was first loaded from the ranch.
Since the pier was struck on the way out of the field, it is believed that the machine was able to enter the field. Tenant farmers can reasonably expect their drivers to exercise due diligence so as not to cause damage on their farms.
Assuming the silage has been successfully cut previously by this contractor (or another) using their (or similarly sized) trailers, the driver will exercise due diligence with the tenant farmers. I have an obligation.
That duty of care was breached and the resulting loss and damage was the destruction of the pier.
There appears to be a causal relationship between the destruction of the jetty and the driver’s failure to care for the tenant farmers.
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that if the driver is responsible and he is the contractor’s employee, the contractor is responsible for rebuilding the pier.
Deirdre Flynn comes from a farming background and works as a solicitor in Tralee, County Kerry.
The information in this article is intended as a general guide only. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, Deirdre accepts no liability whatsoever for any errors or omissions.
