Court Opinion

ID: 9696127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:37:43.510013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:18.771766
License: Public Domain

Thompson, J.
(dissenting) — I am unable to agree with the conclusions reached by the majority and must dissent. The vital question in the case is whether the defendant furnished the replacement part as a manufacturer or merely as a vendor. The trial court in its instructions and by other rulings permitted the jury to find that it was in the position of a manufacturer. With this I disagree.
It is well settled that a manufacturer who uses parts made by another in assembling its finished product is responsible for defects in such parts if they cause injury. It is equally well settled that a mere vendor is ordinarily not so liable. The problem here is to determine in which category the defendant should be placed. No authority is cited for the proposition that an original manufacturer who furnishes replacement parts, made by another, is still a manufacturer as to those parts. The rule has never, until now, been so extended. The trial court in its Instruction No. 18 told the jury, “The undisputed record in this ease discloses * * * that said Wigman Company had ordered and secured said safety pilot valve unit from defendant American Radiator and paid American Radiator for same; * * P. C. Cosner, purchasing agent for Wigman Company, testified he could not say whether the unit in question came directly from Titan at Cleveland or from the defendant’s plant at Buffalo. The valves were shipped to them by enclosing each separately in a small box or carton, sealed. Valves similar to the one involved here were manufactured by Titan for several large companies in addition to the defendant. Each package bore *18the Titan number B114-22, and the name “Titan” was embossed upon tlie valve itself.
The reason why a manufacturer is liable for defects in parts made by others but assembled by it and installed in its finished product is not difficult to understand. It is putting out the product as its own; it has an opportunity to inspect it, and has a duty to do so. But when the article is sold, free from defects, its liability should end. If it offers service to purchasers of its original product in the way of replacement parts made by another manufacturer, under the circumstances here I think it does so merely as a jobber or wholesaler. It is in no different position than Wigman or any other middleman. The task of inspecting the valves as they come from Titan, each sealed in its own container, would be an extremely, perhaps prohibitively, heavy one. The point is well made at page 717, Restatement, Torts, 1948 Supplement, as follows: “The burden on the vendor of requiring him to inspect chattels he reasonably believes to be free from hidden danger outweighs the magnitude of the risk that a particular chattel may be dangerously defective.”
The authorities cited by the plaintiff all deal with the original manufactured product. No case has gone so far as the majority takes us here; that is, SO' far as the plaintiff’s brief goes, no court has heretofore held that an original manufacturer who furnishes a service of selling replacement parts made by another owes a duty to inspect, absent any reasonable basis for suspecting defects. Titan is, under the record, a large manufacturer of these valves; it furnished them to several other large companies. The defendant had a right to rely upon Titan to make tests, or otherwise furnish safe products. Division III of the majority opinion seems to shift the burden of showing negligence from the plaintiff to the defendant to show it was not negligent. It was not necessary for defendant to show it relied upon the manufacturer of the valve to make necessary tests; the law, as I understand it, gives it that right, and the burden should be upon the plaintiff to show a reason, if any there was, why it could not so rely.
I would hold the defendant in furnishing the replacement part was not a manufacturer, but merely a jobber or other *19intermediary between Titan, tbe actual maker of tbe valve, aud the other middlemen and tbe ultimate purchaser. The majority is creating a precedent not supported by any decided authority or by logic. I would reverse with directions.
Garfield, J., joins in the dissent.