Source: https://m.openjurist.org/310/f2d/291/grey-v-hayes-sammons-chemical-co
Timestamp: 2020-04-01 18:47:03
Document Index: 238721426

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 6', '§ 395', '§ 195', '§ 84', '§ 84', '§ 5']

310 F2d 291 Grey v. Hayes-Sammons Chemical Co | OpenJurist
310 F. 2d 291 - Grey v. Hayes-Sammons Chemical Co
310 F2d 291 Grey v. Hayes-Sammons Chemical Co
310 F.2d 291
F. O. GREY, Appellant,
HAYES-SAMMONS CHEMICAL CO., Appellee.
Walter R. Bridgforth, Bridgforth & Love, Yazoo City, Miss., for appellant.
W. F. Goodman, Jr., Jackson, Miss., J. D. Thames, Vicksburg, Miss., Elizabeth W. Grayson, Jackson, Miss. (Voller & Thames, Vicksburg, Miss., Watkins & Eager, Jackson, Miss., of counsel), for appellee.
F. O. Grey, a cotton grower in Yazoo County, Mississippi, filed suit in the state court against the Hayes-Sammons Chemical Company, a Texas manufacturer of insecticides, for $11,423.75 for damage to his 1957 crop allegedly caused by a harmful herbicide contained in a sealed can of insecticide purchased from Hayes-Sammons through a distributor, T. A. Quinn Chemical & Fertilizer Company. Hayes-Sammons removed the suit to the federal court. The plaintiff predicates his claim on (1) breach of warranty, (2) negligence, and (3) an agreement to settle. The defendant contends (1) that there can be no recovery on breach of warranty because there was a lack of privity; (2) that the plaintiff failed to allege negligence in the complaint and failed to try the case on the theory of negligence; (3) that there was no agreement to settle. The district judge withheld from the jury the question whether the parties had entered into a settlement agreement, on the grounds that the evidence failed to show consideration and the alleged agreement was too indefinite to be a valid contract. He did not expressly instruct the jury on negligence1 and refused to instruct on res ipsa loquitur. The court gave instructions on the implied warranties of fitness and merchantability2 without referring to privity.3 It is fair to say that the jury had to decide only one issue: causation. In his charge to the jury the district judge summed up the case: "Now the case, of course, narrows down to the proposition, `Where did the poison come from that damaged this crop?'" The jury decided that it came from the defendant and returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the amount of $8,750. On the defendant's motion, the district court granted judgment for the defendant notwithstanding the verdict. The court ruled, first, that a disclaimer or non-warranty clause on the insecticide cans relieved Hayes-Sammons of any liability: "It follows from that warning to the plaintiff that he assumed all risks, and under the law of Mississippi this is a valid provision." Second, although the court did not in terms refer to privity, it held that in Mississippi, except for food products, no warranty runs from a manufacturer to a consumer. We reverse and render.
About July 25 the cotton blooms were turning black, drying up, hanging on the stalks. The squares began to turn red and burst open. New leaves grew in distorted patterns. The damage was uniform throughout the 45.6 acre tract and the North Quarter of the 19-acre tract; the remainder of the 19-acre tract was only slightly damaged. Grey notified John Book, an employee of Quinn's in charge of the Satartia Warehouse. Book notified another Quinn employee who reported the matter to Andrew White, manager of the Dixie Division of Hayes-Sammons. White was in charge of all Hayes-Sammons operations outside of the state of Texas. He and one of the defendant's entomologists examined the plaintiff's crop. They agreed that the damage resulted from some type of growth hormone herbicide, such as 2-4D or 2-4-5T. They inspected Potato Hill Bayou and found no evidence of contamination there. They noted that there was no damage to growth surrounding the cotton fields, an indication that the herbicide did not fall on the cotton from the air.4
The Requirement of Privity under Mississippi Law
A. Courts and commentators have exposed the historical error in making privity an essential element of warranty on the theory that warranty is contractual in concept.5 "The action for breach of warranty was originally one on the case, sounding in tort and closely allied to deceit, from which it was not distinguished".6 However, the close association of "warranties" with contracts and sales has been of such long standing that many courts which no longer require privity, when recovery is based on negligence, still require privity when recovery is based on warranty. "In products liability cases based upon the theory of breach of warranty, the Mississippi courts require privity, except where the injury-causing product is a food product." 1 Hursch, American Law of Products Liability § 6:91, p. 713 (1961). Thus, in Royal Feed & Milling Co. v. Thorn, 1926, 142 Miss. 92, 107 So. 282, the Mississippi Supreme Court said, "It is settled law in this state that, where a person warrants the soundness of his products to a dealer under the express warranty, it does not extend to the purchasers from such dealer." The rationale is: "[T]here is no contractual relation existing between the original seller, the warrantor, and a subpurchaser. They are unknown to each other in the transaction." Pease & Dwyer Co. v. Somers Planting Co., 1922, 130 Miss. 147, 93 So. 673.
At the time Ford Motor Co. v. Myers was decided, although there was a strong trend in the direction pointed by MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., there were still a number of states which adhered to the requirement of privity in negligence actions. Today that decision "is all but universal law in the United States", and the doctrine extends to damage to property as well as to injury to person.7 In 1946 the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, a court reluctant to give up the requirement of privity, said: "The time has come for us to recognize that that asserted general rule [requiring privity] no longer exists." Carter v. Yardley & Co., 1946, 319 Mass. 92, 64 N.E.2d 693, 164 A.L.R. 559. The authors of a leading casebook on torts state flatly that the MacPherson doctrine "is now accepted in all of the American courts".8
In 1954 in E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. v. Ladner, 221 Miss. 378, 73 So.2d 249, 254, the Mississippi Supreme Court went out of its way to show its approval of the MacPherson doctrine. That was an action for damage to the plaintiff's cattle as a result of feeding soybean meal processed with a chemical compound manufactured by the defendant. The court pretermitted the question of privity and decided the case in favor of the manufacturer on the ground of lack of causation. Nevertheless, the court said:
"Whatever the rule may have been originally, the principle seems now to be well established by the decisions of many courts that a person who has had no direct contractual relations with a manufacturer may nevertheless recover from such manufacturer for damages to property caused by the negligence of the manufacturer in the same manner that such a remote vendee or other third person can recover for personal injuries. `The modern doctrine may be regarded as allowing recovery for injury or damage to property in all instances where a case in tort law of negligence can be made out against the manufacturer — that is, where the requisite elements of foreseeability and breach of duty are established, where the manufacturer can be found to have been negligent, and such negligence was the proximate cause of the property damage.' Annotation 164 A.L.R. 593. See Ellis v. Lindmark, 1929, 177 Minn. 390, 225 N.W. 395; Hunter v. Allied Mills, 1937, 184 S.C. 330, 192 S.E. 356; Ebers v. General Chemical Co., 1945, 310 Mich. 261, 17 N.W. 2d 176; E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Baridon, 8 Cir., 1934, 73 F. 2d 26."
"MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., supra, started a new trend in this particular field of the law, and its substantive result has found favor in § 395 of the American Law Institute Restatement of Torts. If the Supreme Court of Mississippi had recently reconsidered the rule it applied in Ford Motor Co. v. Myers, supra, and had decided to adhere to it on the ground of stare decisis, no doubt the federal courts would have had to accept the local law as so declared. But it would be gratuitous and unwarranted to assume that the Supreme Court of Mississippi would now so hold, when we bear in mind the readiness of other courts, in conservative jurisdictions at that, to overrule their earlier holdings and to bring their jurisprudence into accord with what is now the overwhelming weight of authority. See, for instance, Carter v. Yardley & Co., 1946, 319 Mass. 92, 64 N.E.2d 693, 164 A.L.R. 559."
It is, of course, unusual for a federal court to base an Erie decision on pure dicta in preference to a firm holding to the contrary.9 But we agree with the First Circuit.10 We must decide the case as if we were sitting as a Mississippi court. The court's strong language in E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Ladner, the reference to recent authorities, and the court's consciousness of the fact that its discussion of the "modern doctrine" was not necessary to the decision, compel us to say that the Mississippi Supreme Court was putting litigants on notice that it no longer considered Ford Motor Co. v. Myers to be the law of Mississippi.
Under Mississippi law, as we read E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Ladner and as the First Circuit held, privity is not required when the action is against the manufacturer for breach of his duty of due care.
The Claim on the Theory of Negligence
"We will submit and urge to you that these poisons came to Mr. Grey with a warranty of a merchantable quality and that no poison could be sold in commerce that was so contaminated as was a portion of this poison; and, further, that any poison so concocted or so packaged, was packaged, must have been packaged, in a negligent manner." The defendant met the issue by evidence that there was no negligence in the manufacture and packaging of the insecticide. Finally, the plaintiff requested that the court instruct the jury on the res ipsa loquitur doctrine, making it evident that he persisted in his claim that the defendant was negligent.11
"The evidence is clearly sufficient to satisfy the requirement of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur that the accident must be of such a nature that it probably was the result of negligence by someone, since it may be assumed that an insecticide such as the product involved here, which is designed for use on plants, will not ordinarily damage cotton crops if it is properly manufactured and applied. The evidence also meets the requirement that it must appear that the defendant is probably the one who is responsible. The fact that an accident occurs after the defendant relinquishes control of the instrumentality which causes the accident does not preclude application of the doctrine provided there is evidence that the instrumentality had not been improperly handled or its condition otherwise changed after control was relinquished by the defendant. Zentz v. Coca Cola Bottling Co., 39 Cal.2d 436, 444, 247 P. 2d 344. In the present case the co-defendants are the only persons likely to have been responsible for any alteration of the insecticide after the sealed drums were delivered by Sherwin Williams to the cooperative, and these defendants gave explanations of their activities which would indicate that they had not mishandled or improperly changed the condition of the spray which damaged plaintiffs' crop. Moreover, as we have seen, there is evidence that unopened drums of the insecticide in the warehouse of the cooperative also contained sufficient 2, 4-D to injure cotton plants. Under all the circumstances the evidence warrants the conclusion that the damage to the crop was probably due to some negligent conduct on the part of Sherwin Williams in allowing its product to become contaminated or in failing to discover the contamination before it relinquished control of the product. The trial court, therefore, was justified in giving instructions on the doctrine."
On proper instructions from the court and subject to the limitations laid down by Mississippi courts, the plaintiff should have had the benefit of res ipsa doctrine in this products liability case.12
Submission of the Issue of Privity to the Jury
The cases cited in the defendant's brief to support its argument that Quinn was not Hayes's agent are not very helpful. Most of these do not involve privity at all. Rather, cases such as Shell Petroleum Corp. v. Linham, 163 So. 839 (Miss. 1935) and Crescent Baking Co. v. Denton, 147 Miss. 639, 112 So. 21 (1927) are concerned with the existence vel non of a master-servant relationship essential in order to hold an employer liable for a tort committed by his servant. The Mississippi case which comes closest in point to our present situation is Anticich v. Motor Car Inn Garage, 124 Miss. 822, 87 So. 279 (1921). In that case the purchaser of an automobile sued the regional distributor for breach of warranty, on the ground that the car was second-hand. The contract between the defendant and the dealer from whom the plaintiff had bought the car provided that the dealer would have the exclusive right to sell cars in a certain area; that he would display a sign advertising his dealership in Roamer cars and not sell any other make of automobile; that he was to sell at a price fixed by the defendant and receive a fifteen per cent discount upon all cars; and that title was to remain in the defendant until the dealer paid for the cars which he sold. Although the contract stipulated that "the dealer hereby agrees to buy * * * and the company agrees to sell to the dealer" a specified number of cars and although the word "agent" or "representative" was no-where used, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the dealer was a selling agent with authority to bind his principal in warranting that the car was new.
Malathion (O, O-Dimethyl-Dithiophosphate
of Diethyl-mercaptosuccinate) ...............   57.00%
Related Compounds ............................    2.88%
Xylene Range Aromatic
Hydrocarbon Solvent .........................   35.12%
INERT INGREDIENTS: ...........................    5.00%
Total ...........................  100.00%"
There is no Mississippi decision directly in point. There are two decisions from other jurisdictions which support our conclusions, Burr v. Sherwin Williams Co., 1954, 42 Cal.2d 682, 268 P.2d 1041 and Diamond Alkali Co. v. Godwin, 1959, 100 Ga.App. 799, 112 S.E.2d 365. In Burr v. Sherwin Williams Co. the label on a drum of insecticide gave mixing directions and recommendations for use on various products, such as potatoes, seed alfalfa and clover, onions, and other truck crops. It did not refer to cotton plants. The label described the ingredients as they are described on the Hayes-Sammons label. After giving certain cautionary instructions the label concluded with a disclaimer identical with the Hayes-Sammons disclaimer. The court construed the clause strictly against the defendant. The disclaimer was effective to exclude an implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, but only because (unlike the Hayes-Sammons label) "nowhere does the label state that the product was suitable for cotton plants". The court held that the disclaimer was ineffective as to warranty of merchantability.13 Diamond Alkali Co. v. Godwin was an action by a remote purchaser for property damage to cabbage caused by using the defendant's insecticide. The label was similar in all important respects to the defendant's label in the instant case. The language of the disclaimer was identical with the language of the Hayes-Sammons disclaimer. The court held that the plaintiff's action for property damage was not barred, because the non-warranty "did no more than negate the defendant's liability for personal injuries during operation of applying the insecticide." (Emphasis supplied.) The court said:
Unless it can be said the following instructions necessarily relate to negligence: "It must be based upon evidence showing with a reasonable degree of certainty that the plaintiff was damaged as a proximate result of a wrong of the defendant; and if the defendant permitted some type of poisonous hormone to get into this insecticide poison, then that would be a wrong and the plaintiff would be entitled to recovery * * *. If you should find that the 2-4D or 2-4-5T or other hormone was not placed in the can by the defendant nor permitted to get into the cans by the defendant, then your verdict would be for the defendant * * *. But if the defendant permitted these harmful hormones to get into a can, then it would be responsible, if the plaintiff proved that to be a fact; * * * the question for you to determine is whether or not the defendant caused it, and that resolves further into the question of whether or not the defendant permitted the hormones to get in the cans." R. pp. 240-244
"I[f] you should find from the evidence that they were not fit and suitable when sold and when applied in accordance with the directions, and that they were contaminated with a dangerous impurity that was harmful to the cotton and at a time when the insecticides were purchased by the plaintiff, and if you should further believe that as a proximate result thereof the plaintiff's cotton crop was damaged, then you would find a verdict for the plaintiff. But before the plaintiff could recover, it is necessary that he show that he followed the directions in its application and that these hormones were contained in some portion or in some can that he purchased
Unless the instruction that "Quinn was not an agent, nor by virtue of his commission sales was he permitted to bind the defendant" amounted to a charge that there was no privity of contract between Grey and Hayes-Sammons
The plane was used July 15-18. It did not spray the 19-acre field. The pilot sprayed certain fields of cotton immediately before he sprayed Grey's 45.6-acre field. The defendant's investigation disclosed no damage to the other crops and no evidence of any contamination by the plane
Bohlen, The Basis of Affirmative Obligation in the Law of Torts, 1905, 44 Am.L. Reg.,N.S.; 1 Williston, Sales § 195 (1948); Prosser, Torts, § 84 (1955). For recent discussions see Prosser, The Assault Upon the Citadel (Strict Liability to the Consumer) 69 Yale L.J. 1099 (1960); Patterson, Manufacturer's Strict Warranty: Tort or Contract? 10 Mercer L.Rev. 272 (1959). James, Green, Plant, Lucey, Noel, Strict Liability of Manufacturers: A Symposium, 24 Tenn. L.Rev. 923 (1957)
Prosser, Assault Upon the Citadel (Strict Liability to the Consumer), 69 Yale L.J. 1099, 1126 (1960)
Prosser, Torts § 84, p. 500 (1955)
Smith and Prosser, cases on Torts 854 (1952)
The importance of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Ladner as reflecting a change of attitude of the Mississippi Supreme Court has been recognized by all of the writers who have considered the case. "The further and more important inference is that the court intends to allow suit against remote manufacturers in a much more liberal manner than before." Note, 28 Miss.L.J. 250, 252 (1957). "The few courts which still hesitate to recognize the MacPherson doctrine explicitly, are apt to indicate by dicta that they are about ready to do so. So in E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Ladner the Mississippi court referred with approval to the `decisions of many states' abolishing the privity requirement and extending liability to remote purchasers to property damage." Noel, Manufacturers of Products — The Drift Toward Strict Liability, 24 Tenn.L.Rev. 963, 965 (1957). See also Prosser, Assault on the Citadel (Strict Liability to the Consumer), 69 Yale L.J. 1098, 1100 (1960); 1 Frumer & Friedman, Products Liability, § 5.03 [1], n. 17 (1961)
"Of course it is not necessary that a case be explicitly overruled in order to lose its persuasive force as an indication of what the law is. A decision may become so overloaded with illogical exceptions that by erosion of time it may lose its persuasive or binding force even in the inferior courts of the same jurisdiction. And where, as in Ford Motor Co. v. Myers, the Supreme Court of Mississippi, twenty or thirty years ago, applied an old rule which has since been generally discredited elsewhere, it is relevant to consider what the Supreme Court of Mississippi has subsequently said on the point. See `Note on the Ways of Ascertaining State Law,' Hart & Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 628-30 (1953)."
The plaintiff requested the court to charge as follows: "The court instructs the jury for the plaintiff that although the burden rests upon the plaintiff to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was guilty of negligence, which was the sole and proximate cause of the damage, if any, which the plaintiff sustained, and that this burden never shifts to the defendant, yet if you believe from a preponderance of the evidence that the poison which the plaintiff bought was manufactured, packaged and delivered by the defendant for use in poisoning growing cotton to prevent insect damage, and that the plaintiff received the containers in which said poison was placed by the defendant intact with seal unbroken, and that the plaintiff opened the containers before the poison was applied to the cotton, the containers when opened, being then sealed as he originally secured same, that he mixed the poison with water as directed and mixed and applied said poison in accordance with directions given by the defendant and in the approved manner for the application of such poison, and that as a result of said application his cotton was damaged, and that, if you further believe from a preponderance of the evidence, that said damage does not occur in the ordinary course of things if the manufacturer uses reasonable care and caution in the manufacture, packaging and delivery of such poison, then the situation, if and when so found by you, affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation, that the damage to the plaintiff's cotton crop was the result of the want of due care on the part of the defendant in its manufacture, packaging or delivery and you should find for the plaintiff and assess his damages in the amount you find, from the preponderance of the evidence, his crop was damaged by the application of the poison." (See Peerless Supply Co. v. Jeter, 218 Miss. 61, 65 So.2d 240, and cases there cited.) 65 So.2d pp. 250, 251
"It is true that [the plaintiff] has the burden of proof on the issue of negligence. It is true also that he seldom, if ever, has any direct evidence of what went on in the defendant's plant. But in every jurisdiction, he is aided by the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, or by its practical equivalent. In all jurisdictions this at least gives rise to a permissible inference of the defendant's negligence, which gets the case to the jury * * *. [n.] The cases are legion." Prosser, The Assault Upon the Citadel (Strict Liability to the Consumer), 69 Yale L.J. 1099, 1114 (1960)