Court Opinion

ID: 9472094
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:49:10.666295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:44.479128
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the Court. Because I believe the majority opinion may be read as holding that Chris-Craft may recover either the entire expense of the recall campaign or only that portion not attributable to its own negligence, however, I write separately.
Chris-Craft states that this case turns upon whether it must prove that Taylor & Gaskin’s breach was the sole proximate cause of its recall expenses. The dispositive issue, however, is more accurately phrased as whether Chris-Craft is entitled to recover as consequential damages those recall expenses occasioned by its own negligence or fault. In Certain-Teed Products Corp. v. Goslee Roofing & Sheet Metal, Inc., 26 Md.App. 452, 339 A.2d 302 (1975), a roofing subcontractor brought an action under the Uniform Commercial Code against suppliers of roofing material to recover losses sustained in reroofing a building allegedly caused by defects in the materials. Although that court imposed liability upon a finding that the defendant’s breach of warranty was one of two proximate causes of the plaintiff’s injuries, the following passage, taken from Baltimore Transit Co. v. Bramble, 175 Md. 334, 2 A.2d 416 (1938), is enlightening:
As a general rule, it may be said that negligence, to render a person liable, need not be the sole cause of the injury. It is sufficient if his negligence concurring with one or more efficient causes other than the plaintiff’s fault, is the proximate cause of the injury. So that where several causes combine to produce injuries, a person is not relieved from liability because he is responsible for *1280only one of them, it being sufficient that his negligence is an efficient cause, without which the injury would not have resulted to as great an extent, and that such other cause is not attributable to the person injured. Certain-Teed Product Corp., supra [339 A.2d] at 313 [emphasis added].
See also Herman v. Midland AG Service, Inc., 200 Neb. 356, 264 N.W.2d 161 (1978), wherein the Nebraska Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs negligence in using the product supplied by the defendant precluded a finding that the defendant’s breach was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury-
Of similar import, are the decisions in Signal Oil & Gas v. Universal Oil Products, 572 S.W.2d 320 (Tex.1978), and Holm v. Hansen, 248 N.W.2d 503 (Iowa 1976), which held that where the seller’s breach and the buyer’s fault or negligence operate as concurring proximate causes of the buyer’s injuries, the damage attributable to the buyer should not be found to be a proximate result of the seller’s breach.
Although research has uncovered no Michigan cases with facts analogous to those presently before this Court, I am convinced that Michigan courts would adopt the approach taken in the foregoing cases. As the majority opinion correctly points out, the rule in Michigan is that damages for a seller’s breach of warranty are intended to place the buyer in as good a position as he would have been had there been no breach. S.C. Gray, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 92 Mich.App. 789, 286 N.W.2d 34 (1979). Accordingly, a buyer of steel was allowed to recover as consequential damages the expenses it incurred in recalling its product because of the seller’s breach of warranties. Ambassador Steel Co. v. Ewald Steel Co., 33 Mich.App. 495, 190 N.W.2d 275 (1971). The Michigan appellate court reasoned that
defendant must recover these charges against him if he is to be put in as good a position as he would have been if the steel had been of commercial quality. If the steel had been of commercial quality in the first place, defendant would not have suffered these charges.
Id. at 505, 190 N.W.2d at 280 (emphasis added).
On the contrary the record before us shows rather conclusively that Chris-Craft would have suffered some recall expense even if Taylor & Gaskin had not breached any warranties. The district court found as a matter of fact that rusting was also attributable to faulty installation, the design of the support chocks, and the location of the tanks in the boat — all factors attributable to Chris-Craft. Of course these factual findings are subject to the “clearly erroneous” standard of appellate review. Chris-Craft has never asserted in this appeal that its own negligence did not contribute to its recall expenses. Accordingly, I believe that Michigan courts would not impose liability upon Taylor & Gaskin for those recall expenses attributable to Chris-Craft’s own negligence.1

. I recognize that the district court, on remand, may have some difficulty in ascertaining what portion of the cost of the recall is attributable to Chris-Craft’s own negligence due to the failure to test the tanks for the cause of rust at or near the time of removal. Because the burden of establishing consequential damages is upon Chris-Craft, I believe any hardship caused by this inability should be borne by Chris-Craft as well.