Magliozzi v. P&T Container Service Co., Inc.

614 N.E.2d 690 (1993)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Magliozzi (P) sought the shortest path to a coffee truck on the premises of Crusader Paper. P was an employee of Crusader and walked to that truck through the inside of a large trash compactor leased to Crusader by P&T (D) under a written lease agreement. P’s foot got caught in the compactor, and he was injured and P sued D. D, in turn, brought a third-party suit against Crusader for indemnification of any costs for which D might be liable to P based upon an alleged contract for indemnification between D and Crusader. Crusader moved for summary judgment on the third-party complaint. That motion was granted on the basis that there was no valid contract of indemnification between the parties. The agreement between D and Crusader appears in a letter dated November 3, 1983. It is in the form of an offer to lease the compaction unit. There was no indemnity agreement in the letter running in favor of D, and it is also undisputed that in order to bill for the pickup and dumping services, D prepared a pickup ticket. Crusader would contact D in order to empty a compactor of rubbish. D would then generate a standard form pickup order ticket with a pickup number and a description of the containers to be emptied and dumped. A driver of D would then empty the container and get a signature from a Crusader employee leaving one of the triplicate copies with Crusader and then a copy of the ticket was also stapled to the invoice that D would later send to Crusader. There is no language on the face of the ticket calling attention to or referring in any way to the reversed side of the ticket nor is there any reference of it in the D invoices to Crusader. On the reverse side of the ticket is an indemnity provision and that provision is the basis of D’s claim against Crusader. D appealed.