Source: https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/35982
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 14:22:40+00:00

Document:
YUBA POWER PRODUCTS, INC., Defendant and Appellant; THE HAYSEED, Defendant and Respondent.
After a trial before a jury, the court ruled that there was no evidence that the retailer was negligent or had breached any express warranty and that the manufacturer was not liable for the breach of any implied warranty. Accordingly, it submitted to the jury only the cause of action alleging breach of implied warranties against the retailer and the causes of action alleging negligence and breach of express warranties against the manufacturer. The jury returned a verdict for the retailer against plaintiff and for plaintiff against the manufacturer in the amount of $65,000. The trial court denied the manufacturer's motion for a new trial and  entered judgment on the verdict. The manufacturer and plaintiff appeal.plaintiff seeks a reversal of the part of the judgment in favor of the retailer, however, only in the event that the part of the judgment against the manufacturer is reversed.
The notice requirement of section 1769, however, is not an appropriate one for the court to adopt in actions by injured consumers against manufacturers with whom they have not dealt. (La Hue v. Coca- Cola Bottling, Inc., 50 Wn.2d 645 [314 P.2d 421, 422]; Chapman v. Brown, 198 F. Supp. 78, 85, affd. Brown v. Chapman, 304 F. 2d 149.) "As between the immediate parties to the sale [the notice requirement] is a sound commercial rule, designed to protect the seller against unduly delayed claims for damages. As applied to personal injuries, and notice to a remote seller, it becomes a booby-trap for the unwary. The injured consumer is seldom 'steeped in the business practice which justifies the rule,' [James, Product Liability, 34 Texas L. Rev. 44, 192, 197] and at least until he has had legal advice it will not occur to him to give notice to one with whom he has had no dealings." (Prosser, Strict Liability to the Consumer, 69 Yale L. J. 1099, 1130, footnotes omitted.) It is true that in Jones v. Burgermeister Brewing Corp., 198 Cal.App.2d 198, 202-203 [18 Cal.Rptr. 311]; Perry v. Thrifty Drug Co., 186 Cal.App.2d 410, 411 [9 Cal.Rptr. 50], Arata v. Tonegato, 152 Cal.App.2d 837, 841 [314 P.2d 130], and Maecherlein v.  Sealy Mattress Co., 145 Cal.App.2d 275, 278 [302 P.2d 331], the court assumed that notice of breach of warranty must be given in an action by a consumer against a manufacturer. Since in those cases, however, the court did not consider the question whether a distinction exists between a warranty based on a contract between the parties and one imposed on a manufacturer not in privity with the consumer, the decisions are not authority for rejecting the rule of the La Hue and Chapman cases, supra. (Peterson v. Lamb Rubber Co., 54 Cal.2d 339, 343 [5 Cal.Rptr. 863, 353 P.2d 575]; People v. Banks, 53 Cal.2d 370, 389 [1 Cal.Rptr. 669, 348 P.2d 102].) We conclude, therefore, that even if plaintiff did not give timely notice of breach of warranty to the manufacturer, his cause of action based on the representations contained in the brochure was not barred.
Although in these cases strict liability has usually been based on the theory of an express or implied warranty running from the manufacturer to the plaintiff, the abandonment of the requirement of a contract between them, the recognition that the liability is not assumed by agreement but imposed by law (see e.g., Graham v. Bottenfield's, Inc., 176 Kan. 68 [269 P.2d 413, 418]; Rogers v. Toni Home Permanent Co., 167 Ohio St. 244 [147 N.E. 2d 612, 614, 75 A.L.R. 2d 103]; Decker & Sons v. Capps, 139 Tex. 609, 617 [164 S.W. 2d 828, 142 A.L.R. 1479]), and the refusal to permit the manufacturer to define the scope of its own responsibility for defective products (Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc., 32 N.J. 358 [161 A. 2d 69, 84-96, 75 A.L.R. 2d 1]; General Motors Corp. v. Dodson, 47 Tenn.App. 438 [338 S.W. 2d 655, 658-661]; State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. Anderson-Weber, Inc., 252 Iowa 1289 [110 N.W. 2d 449, 455-456]; Pabon v. Hackensack Auto Sales, Inc., 63 N.J. Super. 476 [164 A. 2d 773, 778]; Linn v. Radio Center Delicatessen, 169 Misc. 879 [6 N.Y.S. 2d 110, 112]) make clear that the liability is not one governed by the law of contract warranties but by the law of strict liability in tort. Accordingly, rules defining and governing warranties that were developed to meet the needs of commercial transactions cannot properly be invoked to govern the manufacturer's liability to those injured by its defective products unless those rules also serve the purposes for which such liability is imposed.
We need not recanvass the reasons for imposing strict liability on the manufacturer. They have been fully articulated in the cases cited above. (See also 2 Harper and James, Torts, 28.15-28.16, pp. 1569-1574; Prosser, Strict Liability to the Consumer, 69 Yale L.J. 1099; Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co., 24 Cal.2d 453, 461 [150 P.2d 436], concurring opinion.) The purpose of such liability is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves. Sales warranties serve this purpose  fitfully at best. (See Prosser, Strict Liability to the Consumer, 69 Yale L.J. 1099, 1124-1134.) In the present case, for example, plaintiff was able to plead and prove an express warranty only because he read and relied on the representations of the Shopsmith's ruggedness contained in the manufacturer's brochure. Implicit in the machine's presence on the market, however, was a representation that it would safely do the jobs for which it was built. Under these circumstances, it should not be controlling whether plaintiff selected the machine because of the statements in the brochure, or because of the machine's own appearance of excellence that belied the defect lurking beneath the surface, or because he merely assumed that it would safely do the jobs it was built to do. It should not be controlling whether the details of the sales from manufacturer to retailer and from retailer to plaintiff's wife were such that one or more of the implied warranties of the sales act arose. (Civ. Code, 1735.) "The remedies of injured consumers ought not to be made to depend upon the intricacies of the law of sales." (Ketterer v. Armour & Co., 200 F. 322, 323; Klein v. Duchess Sandwich Co., Ltd., 14 Cal.2d 272, 282 [93 P.2d 799].) To establish the manufacturer's liability it was sufficient that plaintiff proved that he was injured while using the Shopsmith in a way it was intended to be used as a result of a defect in design and manufacture of which plaintiff was not aware that made the Shopsmith unsafe for its intended use.
 In this respect the trial court limited the jury to a consideration of two statements in the manufacturer's brochure. (1) "When Shopsmith Is in Horizontal Position--Rugged construction of frame provides rigid support from end to end. Heavy centerless-ground steel tubing insures perfect alignment of components." (2) "Shopsmith maintains its accuracy because every component has positive locks that hold adjustments through rough or precision work."
 Any affirmation of fact or any promise by the seller relating to the goods is an express warranty if the natural tendency of such affirmation or promise is to induce the buyer to purchase the goods, and if the buyer purchases the goods relying thereon. No affirmation of the value of the goods, nor any statement purporting to be a statement of the seller's opinion only shall be construed as a warranty."
Original Item: "Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc."
Lineage of: Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc.

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