Court Opinion

ID: 9601879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:50:30.030605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:19.357933
License: Public Domain

HALL, Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I concur with that portion of the main opinion which remands the case for trial of *47the claims relating to warranties of future performance. However, I dissent from that portion of the opinion which holds that the damages suffered by plaintiffs are recoverable on the theory of negligence.
The main opinion aptly quotes Dean Pros-ser,1 but excerpts out the crucial language. I agree with the general rule that liability for negligence includes personal injury and damage to the chattel itself. Prosser goes on, however, to state as follows:
But where there is no accident, and no physical damage, and the only loss is a pecuniary one, through loss of the value or use of the thing sold, or the cost of repairing it, the courts have adhered to the rule . . . that purely economic interests are not entitled to protection against mere negligence, and so have denied the recovery.2
The main opinion seems to accept the notion that “purely economic interests” are not recoverable in tort, but goes on to say that deterioration of a product is properly to be treated as “property damage.”
The general rule is that when the damage to a product results from deterioration, internal breakage, or other nonaccidental causes, it is properly to be treated as economic loss.3 In Fentress v. Van Etta Motors,4 it was held that an action will lie for damages which result from an accident caused by the negligent manufacture of an article, although the damages are confined to the destruction or harm of the article itself. This holding was then explained and qualified as follows: In order to recover for the negligent manufacture of an article, an accident must have resulted;5 furthermore, the accident must be a casualty involving some violence or collision with external objects, not a mere marked deterioration, or even a complete ruin brought about by internal defects. Mere deterioration is therefore a “purely economic loss,” under commonly accepted notions of product liability.
In the instant case, plaintiffs sought to recover the following:
1. The difference between the value of siding accepted and the value it would have had if it had been as warranted;
2. Consequential damage for cost of labor and materials to replace the defective siding; and
3. Consequential damages for rental income and profits lost as a result of the deteriorated appearance of the structures on which the siding was used.
It is my opinion that because of the nature of these economic claims, plaintiffs’ recovery can be based only on warranty. As stated in Seely v. White Motor Company,6
Although the rules of warranty frustrate rational compensation for physical injury, they function well in a commercial setting. . . . These rules determine the quality of the product the manufacturer promises and thereby determine the quality he must deliver.
* * * % * *
A consumer should not be charged at the will of the manufacturer with bearing the risk of physical injury when he buys a product on the market. He can, however, be fairly charged with the risk that the product will not match his economic expectations unless the manufacturer agrees that it will.
Notwithstanding the attempt made in the main opinion to distinguish the case of Clark v. International Harvester,7 I view *48the holding in that case as having direct application in resolving the issue presented in this case. In Clark, the plaintiff buyer of a tractor urged the Idaho Supreme Court to adopt the rule that a remote manufacturer could be liable for economic damages in negligence. In ruling that recovery of economic damage will not be allowed in products liability cases sounding in tort, the Court made the following observations:
Since the turn of the century the law of tort has undergone unprecedented change as courts have endeavored to adapt it so as to satisfy the demands of the commercial, marketing and manufacturing practices of this era. However, we recognize that the courts have not been alone in working to develop laws appropriate to the field of products liability. The legislature has enacted the Uniform Commercial Code.... Chapter 2 of that act . . . contains a comprehensive and finely tuned statutory mechanism for dealing with the rights of parties to sales transactions with respect to economic losses. In the continuing development of the tort law of this state, it is important that we be cognizant of the legislature’s actions in this area.
* * * * * *
The Idaho legislature, and indeed the legislatures of nearly every state in the Union, have adopted the UCC which carefully and painstakingly sets forth the rights between parties in a sales transaction with regard to economic loss. This Court, in the common law evolution of the tort law of this state, must recognize the legislature’s action in this area of commercial law and should accommodate when possible the evolution of tort law with the principles laid down in the UCC.
For this Court to rule to the contrary, and thus allow recovery for purely economic loss in negligence actions, tends not only to confuse the basic concepts of products liability, but also circumvents the provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code,8 which amply provide the procedural method for the recovery of such losses within an appropriate time frame.
I would therefore affirm the judgment of the district court on the claim of negligence.9

. W. L. Prosser, The Law of Torts, Sec. 101 (4th ed. 1971).

. Id. at p. 665. See also, Seely v. White Motor Company, 63 Cal.2d 9, 45 Cal.Rptr. 17, 403 P.2d 145 (1965), which states that “in actions for negligence, a manufacturer's liability is limited to damages for physical injuries and there is no recovery for economic loss alone.”

. 66 Columbia Law Review 917 (1966).

. 157 Cal.App.2d Supp. 863, 323 P.2d 227 (1958).

. Citing Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 1 Misc.2d 477, 148 N.Y.S.2d 284 (1955).

. Supra, note 2.

. 99 Idaho 326, 581 P.2d 784 (1978).

. U.C.A., 1953, 70A-1-101 et seq., particularly, Chapter 2 thereof dealing with Sales.

. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on a 11 claims of negligence on the ground that the losses were not foreseeable. Plaintiffs are correct in their assertion that the foreseeability ruling should not have applied to the claims for the value of the siding and for the costs of repair. Nevertheless, we affirm the trial court if we can do so on any proper ground, even if the court below assigned an incorrect reason for its ruling. Aliphin Realty, Inc. v. Sine, Utah, 595 P.2d 860 (1979).