Otis Crooker v. Warren Graft

With jurisdiction founded on diversity of citizenship, appellee has brought suit for damages sustained by his aircraft allegedly through appellant’s negligence.

Appellee, attempting to take off from appellant’s private field, first became airborne and then aborted his take-off, believing he could not obtain sufficient altitude to clear obstructions. After he relanded his plane it rolled into an unusable area of the field and ground-looped, suffering damage.

Issues presented in the District Court were essentially factual. In resolving them the court found negligence on the part of appellant in failing adequately to delineate the usable from the unusable portions of the field and in failing to give warning. It further found negligence on the part of appellee in attempting to fly a light plane equipped with amphibious gear from a rough airport under the conditions of loading and weather which made the take-off risky. It held the negligence of the appellant to be the proximate cause of the accident and negligence of appellee not to be a proximate cause of the accident. It found no other acts of negligence on the part of appellee and judgment was rendered in his favor, from which…