Court Opinion

ID: 9858888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 17:06:54.661491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:57:29.383519
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached by the court, but add my own remarks because little guidance appears offered the trial court if it must apportion liability between Montgomery Ward and McGraw-Edison. The majority invokes the rule of Tolbert v. Gerber Industries, Inc., Minn., 255 N.W.2d 362 (1977), that liability is to be apportioned according to the relative culpability of joint tortfeasors. The ambiguity of the rule in these circumstances prompts this concurrence.
It might be thought that the majority intends that each party’s negligence in failing to warn plaintiffs of the danger of using the space heater in their house trailer is the culpability to be compared. We affirm a directed verdict that Montgomery Ward was negligent in selling a space heater to plaintiffs because of its imputed knowledge of the dangers inherent in plaintiffs’ proposed use of the heater. If McGraw-Edison was negligent, its failing consisted of omitting from its owner’s guide and venting instruction manual a warning against use of the space heater in a confined area. Thus, even if plaintiffs had purchased the heater intending its use in their house trailer, such a warning might have caused them to return their purchase and thereby avert the damages suffered. The negligence of the parties in this respect is relatively clear and comparable. But a comparison of the parties’ conduct vis-a-vis plaintiffs ignores the relationship of the parties in the chain of distribution and arguably is not determinative of their relative culpability.
Montgomery Ward argues on appeal that McGraw-Edison breached an implied warranty of merchantability of fitness for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used by failing to warn Montgomery Ward of the dangers of using the space heater in confined spaces or by failing to provide an instruction manual containing such a warning. The Uniform Commercial Code envisions that the implied warranty of merchantability may run to a purchaser who will resell the goods.1 Moreover, defective instructions accompanying the product may breach this warranty. Reddick v. White Consolidated Industries, Inc., 295 F.Supp. 243 (S.D.Ga.1969). Other courts have found indemnity justified if a breach of warranty by a manufacturer subjects a retailer to liability. E. g., Greco v. Bucciconi Engineering Co., 407 F.2d 87 (3 Cir. 1969); Safeway Stores, Inc. v. L. D. Schreiber Cheese Co. Inc., 326 F.Supp. 504 (W.D.Mo.1971), reversed on other grounds, 457 F.2d 962 (8 Cir. 1972); Davis v. Radford, 233 N.C. 283, 63 S.E.2d 822 (1951). See, 11 Williston, Contracts, § 1355 (3 ed. 1968). Indeed, this court has so held. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. J. R. Clark Co., 239 Minn. 511, 59 N.W.2d 899 (1953).
The majority opinion is silent concerning the possibility that McGraw-Edison breached the warranty of merchantability. If Montgomery Ward’s argument went unmentioned because it was not appropriately asserted in the trial court, there is some merit in the omission. Montgomery Ward failed to assert the warranty vigorously *790during argument on the motion of McGraw-Edison for a directed verdict and the matter did not attract the attention of the court. Nevertheless, Montgomery Ward did raise the warranty issue in its answer to plaintiffs’ complaint, in its motion for a new trial, and in its brief to this court. In light of its pleading, I think that Montgomery Ward adequately preserved its contention by referring during argument on McGraw-Edison’s motion for a directed verdict to McGraw-Edison’s duty to warn it of inappropriate uses.2
I assume that because of an absence of a statement to the contrary in the majority opinion, if liability is to be apportioned Montgomery Ward will be permitted on remand to prove a breach of an implied warranty by McGraw-Edison. It should also be permitted to demonstrate that as between McGraw-Edison and itself very little or no culpability is attributable to Montgomery Ward in connection with plaintiffs’ damages. Indeed, were it not for the decision in Tolbert v. Gerber Industries, Inc., supra, I would hold that Montgomery Ward is entitled to indemnity from McGraw-Edi-son as a matter of law.
Retailers generally are at the mercy of manufacturers with respect to knowledge of dangers that inhere in the products they sell. Standing at the head of the stream of commerce, we may presume a manufacturer to be familiar with its product and the dangers it presents the public. Not only is it reasonable for a retailer to rely on the manufacturer’s greater knowledge of its product, but that reliance is recognized by the law of implied warranties. It would hardly be commercially expedient for a retailer to examine, test, and otherwise scrutinize a manufacturer’s products before resale. Dobias v. Western Farmers Assn., 6 Wash.App. 194, 491 P.2d 1346 (1971). Retail sales clerks often lack expertise and are subject to frequent turnover. In many instances they cannot be expected to know more about a product than the information included in the manufacturer’s instruction manual. In the instant case, it is more obvious that the average clerk in a retail store would have no conception of the dangers testified to by the expert from McGraw-Edison. As the majority opinion recognizes, McGraw-Edison had actual knowledge of the hazard plaintiffs encountered. Such knowledge could only be imputed to Montgomery Ward.3
I do not mean to imply that Montgomery Ward was not negligent as to plaintiffs. But the perspective from which one evaluates a retailer’s culpability differs with its position as a distributor or purchaser in the chain of distribution. A retailer may be liable to a consumer by breaching a duty to inspect and protect the consumer from *791goods he sells. Yet, as between the retailer and the manufacturer, there may be no negligence because of reasonable reliance on the warranties and expertise of the manufacturer.4 Indeed, in such a circumstance, the retailer would seem entitled to indemnity from the manufacturer under Rule 3 of Hendrickson v. Minnesota Power & Light Co., 258 Minn. 368, 372, 104 N.W.2d 843, 848 (1960), which provides: “A joint tortfeasor may generally recover indemnity * * * (3) Where the one seeking indemnity has incurred liability because of a breach of duty owed to him by the one sought to be charged.” The Tolbert case explicitly preserved this principle of indemnity.
The majority in Tolbert noted that the “current rule on indemnity * * * presents a trial court with a bewildering array of issues.” Unfortunately, the court has exchanged this array of issues for a single amorphous question — determination of the relative culpability of the joint tort-feasors — and failed to indicate a coherent manner in which trial judges may present the question to the jury. The dissenting opinions in Tolbert attempted to demonstrate the problems in this approach and suggest factors relevant to the determination of relative culpability. My concurrence today merely embodies an attempt to indicate additional factors that I deem relevant in this particular circumstance. It seems to me inescapable that the parties’ relative culpability can be determined only after examining their respective positions in the chain of distribution.

. Minn.St. 336.2-314, U.C.C. Comment 8, 21A M.S.A. p. 306, provides in part: “[M]erchanta-bility is also a part of the obligation owing to the purchaser for use. Correspondingly, protection, under this aspect of the warranty, of the person buying for resale to the ultimate consumer is equally necessary, and merchantable goods must therefore be ‘honestly’ resalable in the normal course of business because they are what they purport to be.” See, also, Minn.St. 336.2-607(5).

. Counsel for Montgomery Ward argued: “As to the motion of the third-party defendant McGraw-Edison Company, it’s clear from the evidence that if there was a misappropriate application, the instructions from McGraw-Edi-son Company to Montgomery Ward & Co. do not advise that such would be a misappropriate application. There is not one word in the instructions to the effect that this space heater could not be used in a trailer or in any other situation.
“On that basis, if Montgomery Ward & Co. is found negligent for failing to advise the plaintiff in this respect * * * it is the position of Montgomery Ward & Co. that the third-party defendant McGraw-Edison Company is equally liable and obligated to Montgomery Ward & Co. for the same negligence.”
Somewhat later, he added: “My position is that if the McGraw-Edison Company had a duty to, in view of their preparation and enclosure with this heater, have instructions on use, to state the improper applications of this space heater to the extent that Montgomery Ward would have such a duty.”

. The instant case is somewhat unusual in that Montgomery Ward participated in the design of the space heater. It selected the styling and control equipment features, leaving McGraw-Edison to set the design specifications. It also approved the owner’s guide and venting instructions, which were prepared by McGraw-Edison. Although it is the jury’s function under Tolbert v. Gerber Industries, Inc., Minn., 255 N.W.2d 362 (1977), to determine Montgomery Ward’s culpability, I do not perceive how Montgomery Ward’s choice of style and control features makes it any more conscious of dangers than an ordinary retailer would have been. Furthermore, mere approval of owner’s instructions not containing the warning in question hardly indicates greater culpability.

. The difference is exemplified in a strict liability case where the retailer is liable to the consumer even absent culpability on its part. Farr v. Armstrong Rubber Co., 288 Minn. 83, 179 N.W.2d 64 (1970). The instant case proceeded on the theory of strict liability until plaintiffs amended their complaint to substitute negligence near the end of trial.