Contractor liability (in U.S.) Say that you enter into an agreement with a contractor to fix something in your house. He assures you there won't be any repercussions until he can get to it in a couple of days, but before he comes the delayed repair has resulted in damage to your house. Having relied on his expertise to assess the situation, does he have liability for the damage and should his insurance or mine cover the repairs?
If the contractor's advice that delay would be safe was reasonable under the circumstances, and other contractors or skilled professionals would have given similar advice, then the contractor will not be liable just because the advice was incorrect. If the advice was negligent, and fell clearly short of what a skilled professional would advise in the circumstances, then the contractor may have liability for the additional damages. That is the detailed facts will be very important in placing liability. The contractor is not an insurer who assumes all risk, but the contractor is responsible for acting in a reasonable, professional manner.
The correct term for this insurance is personal liability insurance - it is neither compulsory nor common in common law jurisdictions. However, some aspects of it may be bundled with other insurances like homeowners, landlords and contents insurance. Liability for damage in common law flows either from a breach of contract or a tort. Of course, if you intentionally cause harm you have crossed the line from civil liability to criminality and no insurance will indemnify you. For your specific examples: [I]f, say, a candle falls over and I burn my flat? If your lease prohibited you from having open flames then this would be a clear breach of contract and you would have to pay for the damage to the flat (and your own property, of course). If your lease was silent on this, then you would be liable if you were negligent and each party would bear their own losses if you weren't (i.e. it was a pure "accident"). What if a flower pot falls from my windowsill and accidentally kills someone? The passerby has no action under contract as they don't have one. They can sue you, or the landlord, or the body corporate (or all three) for negligence - the landlord's and/or body corporate's insurance would respond and if it included a waiver of subrogation (most do), the insurer could not sue any of the other parties for their losses. What if my trolley bumps into an old lady at the supermarket and I break her hip? What if I walk on my friend's glasses and break them? You have no contract with either of these people so they cannot sue you under one. If they can prove negligence then you have to pay for the damage. If it is, instead a pure "accident" then they bear the cost. However, for the old lady, she is way more likely to sue the supermarket as they will have insurance. It is not as useful in the UK as it is in France due to the need for the plaintiff to prove a breach of contract or negligence. In the UK, you are not responsible for accidents you cause - only accidents you cause negligently.
The simple answer is, get a lawyer and explain your case, and pay him to solve the problem (or tell you that it's hopeless). The two main questions would be whether the appraiser have any duty to you, and whether his action was within the scope of what he is supposed to do. If you hired the appraiser, he has a duty to you. I will assume it was you that hired the appraiser (if it was the bank, that's a different matter). Then the question is whether his action or non-action is within the scope of the job. If the place is infested with termites, that is probably irrelevant because an appraiser is not a termite inspector. On the other hand, if he failed to measure the structure, or erred substantially in the measurement, that kind of negligence could be legally actionable. The seller (not the appraiser) is required to "disclose", so it's not obvious that there is any thing that an appraiser could disclose that relates to a map.
Contracts contain an implicit term that obligations will be carried out in a reasonable time While the situation is unusual and we obviously don't have the specific terms of the agreement, it would appear that the vendor agreed to contribute to half the cost of the roof repair and your sister was obliged to contribute the other half and arrange for the roof to be repaired. Implicit in this is that she would do this within a reasonable time. Your sister does not have the right to keep the money in limbo indefinitely. It's open to argument whether a year is a reasonable time or not. Similarly, if your sister is in breach of the agreement, the vendor would probably only be entitled to damages for what they have lost; they would not normally be entitled to terminate the contract. Their damages might be assessed as the difference between what their share costs now compared to what it would have cost a year ago - this may be nothing or a lot depending on how prices have changed - and interest lost on the balance that should have been returned to them.
The ultimate legal liability for the damage is probably theirs, although the jurisdiction where this happened would impact the result in principle. Your car insurance may or may not cover third party damage to your car, depending upon what your insurance policy says, probably with a deductible. But, your car insurance would have a right to subrogation which means a right to sue the person who is legally liable for what the insurance company paid, even if it does cover the law. The homeowner's or renter's insurance policy of the homeowner with the dog would be responsible for paying damages and hiring a lawyer for the dog owner if the dog owner was sued, but you might have to sue the homeowner to invoke his insurance policy if it refused to pay upon receiving a demand letter.
Your contract is the only relevant one in your relationship with your landlord If they have broken it you can sue for damages. However, you have to actually read the lease to see if they have broken it - if they are doing something the lease permits, they haven’t broken it.
Would I sue seller or manufacturer for a new appliance that does not function correctly? You have viable claims against both seller and manufacturer, and you may sue both of them in the same complaint. Hopefully the tech's assessment that you &quot;should get a new machine&quot; is in writing, since that evidence seems dispositive (i.e., decisive) and immune to manufacturer's potential denial. Regardless of what approach you choose, the award you might be granted is subject to the prohibition of double recovery. It seems that the seller's directions were purposefully dilatory. Coupled with its subsequent pretext about expiration of the 30 day period, seller's conduct is in violation of legislation regarding unfair and misleading practices. Your post does not specify which jurisdiction in the US you have in mind, but consumer protection laws are rather uniform all over the country. If the provision of 30-day return period is reflected in a document such as the invoice, or in seller's signs/advertisements, you also have a claim of breach of contract for seller's failure to abide by the corresponding clause or policy. A similar rationale applies with respect to the manufacturer. The manufacturer is not entitled to arbitrarily postpone compliance as to the warranty. Seller's 30-day deadline serves as comparison in your argument that the manufacturer's open-ended schedule is excessive, a schedule which is on top of the delay from the interactions with both techs. if I win, what do I do with the dishwasher? Wait for the party who reimburses you or replaces the dishwasher to determine whether it opts to take the defective dishwasher. That party is responsible for transportation costs and related expenses if it decides to pick up the appliance. If the party is not interested in retrieving the defective appliance, make sure it signs a waiver. Otherwise you would be at risk that that party maliciously tries to turn the tables by alleging that you unlawfully got a second dishwasher for free.
Let's say the trustee runs into a situation where the beneficiary demands some action, and the trustee thinks this action is a really, really bad idea. Then the trustee can either say "no". Or the trustee can say "yes" and be liable (so if the action is a really bad idea then the trustee won't do this). The trustee can NOT say "yes if you sign this paper that I'm not liable for the result of this action", because the job of the trustee is to protect the beneficiary and he wouldn't be doing that.