ASSIGNMENT QUESTION:
Steve is an alpaca breeder and carer. He owns a large farm in Mundaring, Western Australia. As part of his services, Steve charges alpaca owners $100 per week to care for their alpacas. For this amount Steve ensures that the alpacas are kept in a secure enclosing and feeds them as well as provides fresh clean water each day. At night Steve locks all the alpacas in his large barn.
One morning Steve notices that one of the pregnant alpaca is off its food and displaying respiratory problems and producing nasal secretions. Steve attempts to call the alpaca’s owner, Bianca, by calling the contact number left by Bianca when she registered her details. The telephone is answered by Bianca’s housemate who explains that Bianca has gone to Ecuador for 3 weeks and is uncontactable for that period.
Steve starts to explain to Bianca’s housemate about the alpaca’s condition but she hangs up and Steve is unable to get through again.
Steve decides to keep an eye on the alpaca and the next morning the alpaca is a lot worse and had contracted a fever and was dehydrated. Steve fears that the alpaca may be suffering from a disease known as Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) and he again tries to telephone Bianca but the phone goes unanswered. Steve rings the veterinarian who attends and confirms that the alpaca is suffering from BVD and had a prenatally infected five-month-old foetus, which had already died, and needed to be aborted via emergency surgery.
The veterinarian seeks Steve's permission and Steve agrees, knowing that without this surgery the alpaca will die. The alpaca is transported to the veterinarian’s surgery. The surgery is a complete success and the alpaca is back with Steve 3 weeks later. One day after this Bianca returns to collect her alpaca. Bianca is very pleased that the alpaca is alive but refuses to pay the extensive veterinarian’s bill and transportation costs adding up to $3500 and claims that since Steve authorised the surgery, he should be liable for its payment.
Required:
Advise Steve if he is liable for this $3500 bill or is there something Steve can argue to avoid this liability? (20 Marks)
Restrict your analysis to legal principles and cases covered in Agency Law only.