Sublessees of airport land brought breach of contract action against county airport authority and county.
The Superior Court granted summary judgment in favor of county. Sublessees appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Review was granted.
The Supreme Court of Arizona held, as a matter of first impression, that airport authority was not county agent for purposes of imputed liability.
Statute treating nonprofit corporation that leased airport property from a county as an agency or instrumentality of the county did not establish a principal-agent relationship for imputed liability purposes between a governmental entity and its authorized airport authority, and, thus, statute did not make county airport authority an agent subjecting county to imputed liability for authority’s alleged breach of sublease, particularly considering the airport authority’s separate “body politic and corporate” status.