Hadley V. Baxendale Summary

Hadley v. Baxendale is a case wherein Hadley, the plaintiff ,was a milling company who had suffered a shut down in their operations due to a crank shaft they needed for an extremely necessary part on their stem engine broke. The company sought out assistance from Baxendale, the defendant in this case. Baxendale was hired by Hadley to transport the broken crank shaft to an engineering company to have a new part made to the exact specifications needed for that particular part. Baxendale went into contract with the mill stating they would have the shaft delivered to the manufacture the next day. The shipping firm defaulted on the contract they entered into by not delivering part in time. With the delay of the truck driver the mill suffered a loss in production and money because they had to wait …show more content…
The courts ruled Baxendale Company was not in breach of such contract and had no idea that because they delivered the parts late and that there would be unforeseeable damages that would arise from such misfortune. A foreseeable clause is " a concept used in tort law to limit the liability of a party to those acts which carry a risk of foreseeable harm, meaning that a reasonable person would be able to predict or expect the ultimately harmful result of their actions," (US Legal, Inc). This was for the reason that when the trucking company was hired they were not specifically told this precise part was a necessity for the mill to be in operation and they would lose profit if the shipment had not been made in the allotted time. Though Baxendale did breach the contract by not having the shaft delivered as promised, they had no reason to know it would cause such damage. Therefore, the trucking company was not liable for the loss of product and profit which the mill was reasonably anticipated on being able to produce in this time period if they were in full operational