Zell v. Dunkle

Citations

• 156 Pa. 353
• 27 A. 38
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1356

Syllabus

<p>[Marked to be reported.]</p> <p>Bailment — Loeatio operis — Duty of bailee.</p> <p>The obligations imposed by a loeatio operis and capable of enforcement by an action on the contract are as follows: (a) To do the work which is the subject of the undertaking; (&) to do it within the time agreed on, or within what may be, in view of all the circumstances, a proper time; (c) to do it in a proper manner; (d) to surrender the property on which the labor has been expended on payment for the work done.</p> <p>The bailee in a loeatio operis also subjects himself to an undertaking, implied from the nature of the express contract for repairs, to do what in good faith and common fairness ought to be done for the protection of his customer’s goods.</p> <p>Demedies — ■Assumpsit—Trespass—Tort.</p> <p>If the goods in the hands of the bailee under a loeatio operis are lost by the fraud, or by the willful or wanton conduct of the bailee, the bailor has a right either to an action of assumpsit on the contract, or to an action ex delicto for the tort.</p> <p>Bailment — Measure of care to be observed by bailee.</p> <p>If a bailee under a loeatio operis stores and cares for his customer’s goods in the same manner that ho has stored and cared for his own, and a common disaster destroys both, the bailee will not be liable for the loss, in the absence of clear proof of the omission of precautions commonly taken by other persons in the same or similar trade.</p> <p>Defendant, who was engaged in the business of repairing boilers, received plaintiff’s boiler for repairs, and stored it in a building used for the storage of engines and boilers belonging to defendant, and cared for in the same manner that his own property of the same kind was cared for. No watchman was employed in the storage building, but there was no proof that it was customary to employ a watchman in such a building by other persons engaged in the same business. The storage building was burned down by an incendiary fire, a