Liability/Legal Responsiblity of Professional Applicators

For those of you that have a semi-litigious mind set, here goes=

 

I have had several major screw-ups from the local co-op involving both spreading fertilizer and herbicides that resulted in significant losses of future hay crops.  I have settled with the co-op on those transgressions from a year ago and from this spring, but now there is a new one in play so I thought I would inquire on HT to see if my thinking is in line with others that use these services.  From the onset, I use a professional service to spread fertilizer thinking that the cost of per ac to spread is worth it to me as I do not have a gps on my tractor and don't have to go get the fertilizer.  My expectation is that I am getting what I pay for and it is properly applied.  I have not had issues with that expectation for the most part but one field was totally missed this spring however, I was charged for the fertilizer and for the spreading.

 

Herbicide application is a whole different kettle of fish.  I don't have an applicators license so I can't get some of the herbicides I use frequently.  I also don't have booms on my tractor sprayer, used for spot spraying.  Mostly, I don't want to ride a tractor in lingering spray mist.  I also don't really want a license and do my own spraying as it leads to the greater possibility of frivolous lawsuits from neighbors.  That said, last year, the Co-op sprayed paraquat instead of roundup on fields going to be seeded in new og.  I knew immediately and we finally got to a point where they agreed that is what happened but the driver never admitted to it.  A different vendor had sprayed a field the previous fall, sprayed the whole field with pasturegard and then realized he had too much liquid left in the tank so sprayed the field again having no idea if he over dosed part or not.  The truck nozzles were plugged up or something.

 

This August in prepping the same fields to go into new og, again the Co-op was to spray roundup (used touchdown) on 3 fields totaling 14 ac of existing teff.  Now teff is really easy to kill and there were a bunch of spots in the field that were already dead from lodging,  The morning after spraying, I jumped on the fields and seeded.  One of the fields was killed deader than a doornail.  The other two, sprayed before the effective kill field were not noticeably affected.  So, now I have a beautiful stand of og coming up in 14" tall teff.  My concern is that it will fall down and smother the og.  My point is that I have not had proof positive damage yet but anticipate a problem.

 

My question to HT is:  Do I have a legal right to expect that  the professional applicator who is in that express business to effectively deliver the service I contract for and does that entity owe me damages for their respective failure?  I have one field that the kill is complete in and the og is coming up so getting a per ac yield will be easy if I end up with a spotty stand in the other two.

 

Sorry for the long post, but the issue is important, can't believe I am the only one who has experienced this.  Felt the context was important to the reader to understand the issue.  rick

 

Liability/Legal Responsiblity of Professional Applicators