Court Opinion

ID: 9576833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:29:02.492441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:17:38.866182
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the result. I do not disagree with the analysis the majority makes, but I favor a different rationale.
I would hold that an action for breach of warranty in a products liability case sounds in tort when the plaintiff claims damages for personal injury or damages for injury to property other than the product covered by the warranty. That holding would activate the rule at common law and, applied in this case, the plaintiff’s release of the negligent driver would have released the negligent manufacturers and the automobile vendor as well.
I recognize that this Court has held that an action for breach of implied warranty of foodstuffs is an action ex contractu. Brockett v. Harrell Bros., Inc., 206 Va. 457, 462-63, 143 S.E.2d 897, 902 (1965). I believe that holding should be confined to the facts in that case. To apply it as a per se rule is to overlook the fact that “[ojriginally, actions for breach of warranty were tort actions.” DuPont Co. v. Universal Moulded Prod., 191 Va. 525, 534, 62 S.E.2d 233, 236 (1950). See also Standard Paint Co. v. E. K. Vietor & Co., 120 Va. 595, 602, 91 S.E. 752, 754-55 (1917); Trice v. Cockran, 49 Va. (8 Gratt.) 442, 450 (1852).
The law of warranty is older by a century than special assumpsit, and the action on the case on a warranty was in part the foundation of the action of assumpsit. An action on a warranty was regarded for centuries as an action of deceit, and it was not until the second half of the eighteenth century that the first reported decision occurs of an action in assumpsit on a warranty. And it is still generally possible where a distinction of procedure is observed between actions of tort *208and of contract to frame the declaration for breach of warranty in tort.
It is probable that most persons instinctively think of a warranty as necessarily a contract or promise, but though frequently warranties are true promises and contracts, in other cases they are merely representations which induce a sale, and if it is said that a promise or contract is implied from such representation, the implication is one of law and not of fact. It may be added that the whole law of implied warranty both of title and of quality is based on implied representations rather than on promises.
8 Williston, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 970 at 485-89 (3d ed. 1964) (footnotes omitted).
In a products liability case, the focus of the complaint is not upon a promise but upon a defect in the product. The purchaser claims damages for personal injury or damages for injury to property owned by the purchaser other than the product covered by the warranty. The purchaser alleges that his damages were the proximate result of his use of the defective product. At trial, the plaintiff attempts to show that the defect is the result of the manufacturer’s negligence in design or production; that, because the manufacturer and the seller knew or should have known that the product was not fit for its intended use, they were guilty of misrepresentation which induced the consumer to purchase and use the product; and, hence, that both the manufacturer and the seller were liable in tort for any personal injury or property damage suffered by the plaintiff which resulted from the use of the defective product.
As a general rule, actions founded upon a contract are subject to statutory time limitations different from those imposed upon actions sounding in tort. Compare Code § 8.01-243, which applies to tort actions generally, and Code § 8.01-246, which applies to “actions founded upon a contract”. The general rule does not apply, however, “in products liability actions for injury to person and for injury to property, other than the property subject to contract”. Code § 8.01-246. Thus, the General Assembly has determined that, for purposes of the statute of limitations, a breach of warranty claim in a products liability action sounds in tort; said differently, an action based upon a breach of warranty claim *209sounds in contract only when the damage claimed by the purchaser is the loss of his bargain with the seller.
The culpable conduct expressly or implicitly charged in a breach of warranty claim in a products liability case is negligence or misrepresentation and, in my view, all rules governing actions sounding in tort, whether procedural or substantive and whether invoked by the plaintiff or the defendant, should apply.
RUSSELL, J., joins in the concurring opinion.