Court Opinion

ID: 9671151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:31:58.277696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:08.356608
License: Public Domain

Weaver, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the majority’s decision to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the order granting summary disposition to defendant Dec International. However, I dissent from the major*258ity’s affirmance of the Court of Appeals with regard to defendant Tri County. I would hold that installation is not a prerequisite to tender of delivery, and that in this case tender of delivery was made when the component parts were delivered to plaintiffs’ farm. Accordingly, as to defendant Tri County, I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court’s order granting summary disposition as to both defendants.
I agree with the majority that the cause of action accrued at the time of delivery, and that “tender of delivery” is defined at MCL 440.2503(1); MSA 19.2503(1):
Tender of delivery requires that the seller put and hold conforming goods at the buyer’s disposition and give the buyer any notification reasonably necessary to enable him to take delivery.
The majority states that tender has not occurred until the defendant offers conforming goods under MCL 440.2106(2); MSA 19.2106(2), which would require that the goods be installed. Subsection 2106(2) provides:
Goods or conduct including any part of a performance are “conforming” or conform to the contract when they are in accordance with the obligations under the contract.
The majority contends that “ [i]f installation were a term of the contract, then mere physical delivery would not fulfill defendant’s contractual obligation.” Ante, p 254.
The difficulty with this reasoning is that installation is part of the defendant’s conduct under the contract, *259not a definition of a characteristic of the goods.1 For example, if a contract provided that defendant would install a machine and that defendant would provide a yearly service call on that machine for three years, the majority’s reasoning would lead one to say that the goods were not conforming until they were both installed and serviced for three years.
I also find the majority’s conclusion to be incorrect in light of the contract between the parties. Even if, as the majority suggests, there were an installation exception to the tender of delivery rule in the UCC, it could only be triggered by a provision in the contract that clearly provides for installation. Review of the appendix shows that there was no such provision.
Of course, parties to a contract involving the sale of a system requiring installation could avoid § 2725, e.g., with an express contract provision specifically designating that “tender of delivery” would not be complete until the system was installed, or otherwise explicitly set a different time of accrual to avoid § 2725’s accrual provisions. But there is no evidence of such a contractual provision here.
Where a contract requires a seller both to provide goods and to install them, tender of delivery still occurs upon tender of delivery of the component parts under § 2725. Therefore, I would hold that tender of delivery does not require that the goods be installed.
*260The majority complains that this rule “reach[es] ‘the perverse conclusion that the statute of limitations began to ran before the breach occurred.’ ” Ante, p 249, n 4 (emphasis added). This is a misstatement. Under the ucc, “A cause of action accrues when the breach occurs, regardless of the aggrieved party’s lack of knowledge of the breach. A breach of warranty occurs when tender of delivery is made . . . .” MCL 440.2725(2); MSA 19.2725(2). Thus, although plaintiffs may not have discovered the defect at the time the statute of limitations began to ran, the breach has nevertheless occurred, according to the UCC, upon tender of delivery.
Section 2725 specifically provides that the aggrieved party’s lack of knowledge of the breach is irrelevant. The ucc limitation provision at issue, § 2725, turns on “tender of delivery,” not on inspection or acceptance/rejection. We should interpret § 2725 to give meaning to this choice. With respect to sales of goods that require installation, there might be merit in a statute of limitation that would not begin to run until installation or licensing of a system, but the language of § 2725 does not contemplate such a rule. The ucc will cease to be uniform if we depart from its plain language and create a rule that the limitation period does not begin to ran until a system is installed or licensed.
I recognize that there is case law supporting a rale that, with respect to sales of goods requiring installation, “tender of delivery” does not occur until the goods are installed. Williston criticizes one such authority as improperly “mix[ing] into its reasoning the thrust of the discovery rule, stating that only after installation was completed was the buyer in a posi*261tion to determine whether or not the equipment was conforming.” 3 Foran, Williston on Sales (5th ed), § 25-55, p 717. White & Summers state that under § 2725, “the clock ticks even though the buyer does not know the goods are defective.” 1 White & Summers, Uniform Commercial Code (4th ed), § 11-9, p 607. White & Summers also distinguish § 2725 from tort statutes of limitation that do not run until the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the breach. Id. A rule that, with respect to sales of goods requiring installation, tender of delivery does not occur until goods are installed, appears to rest on the rationale that the buyer cannot inspect or test the goods until they are installed. This rationale is unpersuasive in the context of § 2725’s provision that a cause of action accrues when the breach occurs (i.e., upon tender of delivery in breach of warranty actions) “regardless of the aggrieved party’s lack of knowledge of the breach.” On this basis, I disagree with the authorities suggesting that tender of delivery does not occur until installation with respect to sales of goods that require installation.
This rule is consistent with many other jurisdictions’ interpretations of the ucc.2 The lead case dis*262cussing installation is Long Island Lighting Co v Transamerica Delaval, Inc, 646 F Supp 1442 (SD NY, 1986). There the court held that the tender of delivery was made when the diesel engines were shipped to the buyer, not when they were installed, even though the seller had continuing responsibility for supervising the installation.
Although there is not a unanimity of result among the other courts,* *3 I would find those cases holding that installation is not a prerequisite to delivery repre*263sent the better-reasoned line of cases. The statute of limitations adopted by the ucc is designed to provide a point of finality for businesses, after which they could destroy their business records without the fear of a subsequent breach of warranty action arising from the past. See Hawkland, Uniform Commercial Code, § 2-725:02.
The plaintiffs had a remedy against defendants for four years, but failed to use it in a timely manner. Plaintiffs have now asked this Court to change the clear language of the ucc because they filed their suit over a month late. I cannot write to modify the UCC language, despite my sympathy for these plaintiffs.
Accordingly, I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court’s order granting summary disposition.
Mallett, C.J., and Taylor, J., concurred with Weaver, J.
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 As in Neibarger v Universal Cooperatives, Inc, 439 Mich 512; 486 NW2d 612 (1992), the overall thrust of the dealings between the parties reveals that the transaction was a sale of goods, and that the installation and training services were incidental to the contract for the purchase of the milking system.

 “Tender of delivery” is not contingent upon inspection, testing, or acceptance. Cincinnati, Ohio v Dorr-Oliver, Inc, 659 F Supp 259 (D Conn, 1986). The plaintiff buyer and the defendant seller entered into a contract for the purchase of sixteen centrifuges for the thickening of excess activated sludge at plaintiffs waste water treatment plant. The centrifuges were delivered on July 22, 1974. The parties’ contract required extensive testing before and after installation. The equipment was not accepted by the plaintiff until November 5, 1981.
In H Sand & Co, Inc v Airtemp Corp, 738 F Supp 760 (SD NY, 1990), the court held that even the delivery of nonconforming goods can constitute a tender of delivery and that within the meaning of the ucc “tender and delivery” occurred upon the shipment of the goods and not upon installation and inspection. The plaintiff ordered four centrifugal chillers *262from the defendant for installation in a local Port Authority Bus Terminal. The plaintiff came into physical possession of the goods by March of 1978, but contended that “tender and delivery” did not occur until the installation and inspection of the fourth and last centrifuge in January of 1979.

 In Dreier Co, Inc v Unitronix Corp, 218 NJ Super 260; 527 A2d 875 (1986), the court held that when dealing with computer systems the cause of action for a breach of warranty cannot occur until the entire system, hardware and software, is delivered and completely installed. “Tender and delivery” in terms of computer software must be viewed in the context of the complexity of computer systems. Plaintiff purchased a computer system from the defendant, consisting of hardware and “custom programmed software” for the plaintiff’s needs. The defendant warranted that the equipment would be in good working order following installation within a period of 180 days.
City of Willmar v Short-Elliott-Hendrickson, Inc, 475 NW2d 73 (Minn, 1991). Defendant sold plaintiff a series of rotating biological contractors (rbc’s) for its wastewater treatment facility. The defendant argued that the statute of limitations began to run on the date of delivery of the goods. The Court held that until the rbc’s had been fully installed and tested, there could be no tender of delivery of goods, but once the goods failed to meet the standards after installation and testing, the statute of limitations began to run.
Dowling v Southwestern Porcelain, Inc, 237 Kan 536; 701 P2d 954 (1985). The plaintiff purchased a silo from the defendant and a third party in 1978. The parties stipulated that the third party would “assist [the plaintiff] in setting up and in training your erection and service people.” The plaintiff found that the sEo was not keeping the stored grain weE. The third parly was out of business, so plaintiff asked defendant to correct the problem. The defendant attempted to do so, unsuccessfuUy. The court held that the statute of limitation did not begin to run until the installation of the sEo was complete, because the plaintiff purchased a “package deal” and not just the raw material needed to buEd the sEo. Id. at 543.