Court Opinion

ID: 9548298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:01:13.197793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:46.880460
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(concurring specially)—The .plaintiff and his predecessors in interest owned certain real.property in the unincorporated town of Bellevue, Washington, upon which they erected several buildings. They let a contract on bids to Navarre Plumbing & Heating Co. for the installation of a central steam-heating system, the plans and specifications for which were prepared by Lincoln Bouillon & Associates. *775The Ric-Wil Company manufactured and supplied the material, consisting chiefly of underground pipes, in accordance with a blue print it prepared for the job.
This is an action against (1) the Navarre Plumbing & Heating Co., who, as independent contractors, installed the heating system; (2) the Lincoln Bouillon & Associates, who, as engineers, prepared the plans and specifications; and (3) The Ric-Wil Company, who manufactured and supplied the material for the job. Damages are claimed on a breach of warranty for alleged defects which developed in the steam-heating plant within two years after its installation.
At the end of plaintiff’s case, the trial court dismissed the action as to The Ric-Wil Company, upon the ground that there was no privity between them. The jury returned verdicts for the other defendants, and judgment was entered accordingly.
Plaintiff’s appeal is from the judgment of dismissal of The Ric-Wil Company only, and presents but one question: Is there privity between the parties upon which appellant can maintain this action against respondent, The Ric-Wil Company?
In this case, involving specially prepared building material for a particular building, the question of privity is determined by statute. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 1129 [cf. RCW 60.04.010], provides, inter alia:
“Every person . . . furnishing material to be used in the construction ... of any . . . building . . . has a lien upon the same for the . . . material furnished by each, respectively, whether . . . furnished at the instance of the owner of the property subject to the lien or his agent; and every contractor, subcontractor, architect, builder or person having charge of the construction . . . shall be held to be the agent of the owner for the purposes of the establishment of the lien created by this chapter: . . . ” (Italics mine.)
There are no equities in the case that create an exception or weaken the logic of the statute, because respondent knew who the user and ultimate buyer was, and furnished the material for this job according to particular specifica*776tions. It was immaterial to it whether the Navarre Plumbing & Heating Co. was an ordinary agent or a statutory agent.
If respondent had not been paid, it would have invoked the statute and the privity incident to foreclosure proceedings. This would have been just and equitable, because appellant became the immediate vendee under the statutory agency of the independent contractor.
The principle of respondeat superior is always limited by the course and scope of the agency, and, in the instant case, is confined to the agent’s purchase of the building materials for its principal.
A statutory materialman’s lien foreclosure is an action in rem. This, however, is immaterial, since even an action in rem is subject to defenses. The most common kind of a defense to such an action is that of breach of warranty for defective material. Hence, had it been necessary for respondent to foreclose its materialman’s lien, appellant could have defended upon the ground that the materials were defective, provided, of course, he knew about it in time. Indeed, it is not unlikely that, had appellant known immediately of the claimed defects, the material would not have been paid for, and the breach of warranty would have been interposed as a defense to lien foreclosure thereby made necessary.
Privity is predicated upon the relationship of the parties, not upon the pendency of an action. A breach of warranty action, where an unwitting payment for building material was made before defects therein were discovered, should not be defeated simply because no foreclosure was commenced. Privity is never a one-way street. The relationship of privity runs both ways; either party can always predicate an action upon it according to the merits.
The judgment should be reversed.