Court Opinion

ID: 9597400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:58:22.144209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:27:07.779025
License: Public Domain

Justice Meyer
concurring.
While I concur in the final result reached by the majority, I disagree with its reasoning in reaching that decision. The case at bar is not a product liability action and was correctly tried as an ordinary negligence action. Defendant failed in his duty to deliver the proper product about which he had given instruction as to its use, and this alone, not a defect in the product, resulted in damage to plaintiff.
N.C.G.S. § 99B~2(a) of the North Carolina Products Liability Act states as follows:
No product liability action, except for an action for breach of express warranty, shall be commenced or maintained against any seller when the product was acquired and sold by the seller in a sealed container or when the product was acquired and sold by the seller under circumstances in which the seller was afforded no reasonable opportunity to inspect the product in such a manner that would have or should have, in the exercise of reasonable care, revealed the existence of the condition complained of, unless the seller damaged or mishandled the product while in his possession; provided, that the provisions of this section shall not apply if the manufacturer of the product is not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of this State or if such manufacturer has been judicially declared insolvent.
N.C.G.S. § 99B-2(a) (1989) (emphasis added).
N.C.G.S. § 1-50(6) provides the statute of repose for actions to which chapter 99B applies. Bernick v. Jurden, 306 N.C. 435, 293 S.E.2d 405 (1982). This section provides that:
No action for the recovery of damages for personal injury, death or damage to property based upon or arising out of any alleged defect or any failure in relation to a product shall be brought more than six years after the date of initial purchase for use or consumption.
N.C.G.S. § 1-50(6) (1983) (emphasis added).
*465When these two statutes are read in pari materia, it becomes clear that the intention of the legislature in enacting chapter 99B was to protect buyers of defective products. Since “condition” is not defined in N.C.G.S. § 99B-2(a), it is necessary to interpret the legislative meaning by referring to related statutes. Section 1-50(6) refers to a defect in the product itself or the product’s failing in its specific purpose. Using the language of N.C.G.S. § 1-50(6) to analyze the meaning of the words “existence of conditions complained of” in N.C.G.S. § 99B-2(a), it becomes apparent that the “condition” must be a “defect or failure in relation to a product” for a product liability action to be brought under chapter 99B. In the case sub judice, the product itself was neither defective nor did it fail in its purpose. Rather, the defendant’s delivery of the wrong product was the cause of the harm to the plaintiff.
The defendant instructed the manager of the plaintiff’s store on the use of the product “Dust Command,” which would help remove dust from the plaintiff’s premises. However, upon promise to deliver “Dust Command,” the defendant negligently delivered “Carbo Solv,” a carburetor cleaner. When the plaintiff’s manager received the misdelivered product, she followed the directions given by the defendant as to the use of the requested dust control cleaner. The plaintiff suffered damages as a result of the delivery of the carburetor cleaner. Because there was no statutorily required defective “condition” of the carburetor cleaner that caused the damages, no product liability action should have been allowed.
Admittedly, N.C.G.S. § 99B-H3) defines a product liability action as including
any action brought for or on account of personal injury, death or property damage caused by or resulting from the manufacture, construction, design, formulation, development of standards, preparation, processing, assembly, testing, listing, certifying, warning, instructing, marketing, selling, advertising, packaging or labeling of any product.
N.C.G.S. § 99B-K3) (1989) (emphasis added).
Although the act of “selling” may provide a cause of action under chapter 99B, this act does not automatically make it a product liability claim. “It is well settled . . . that in interpreting the meaning of a statute, all parts of a single statute will be read and construed as a whole to carry out the legislative intent.” Martin *466v. Thornburg, 320 N.C. 533, 547, 359 S.E.2d 472, 480 (1987). Reading the above-quoted statutes together, it is clear that in order to have a cause of action under chapter 99B, there must be a “defective” product. The action before us is simply not a “product liability action.” It is an ordinary negligence action, and it was correctly tried as such in the trial division.
Prior to the enactment of chapter 99B, this Court recognized the principle that the product must be defective in order to sustain a cause of action. This Court stated that, “ ‘[t]he necessity of proving defectiveness of the product applies no matter what theory governs the particular action.’ ” Transportation, Inc. v. Strick Corp., 286 N.C. 235, 243, 210 S.E.2d 181, 186 (1974) (quoting 63 Am. Jur. 2d, Product Liability § 9 (1972)). The Court of Appeals has also held that for a plaintiff to recover damages, he must show a defect in the product. Sutton v. Major Products Co., 91 N.C. App. 610, 372 S.E.2d 897 (1988). In Sutton, the plaintiff failed to show that a “potato whitener” was defective when it left the defendant’s plant, and the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendant.
This case was correctly tried as an ordinary negligence action, and it is for that reason I vote to remand this case to the trial court for reinstatement of its judgment.