Johnson v. Cadillac Motor Car Co.

• Decision Date: 11 March 1912
• Citation: 194 F. 497
• Parties: JOHNSON v. CADILLAC MOTOR CAR CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

194 F. 497

JOHNSON v. CADILLAC MOTOR CAR CO.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. New York.

March 11, 1912

Henry V. Borst, for plaintiff.

Hun &amp Parker, M. D. Reilly, and William Van Dyke, for defendant.

RAY District Judge.

The plaintiff is a liveryman and purchased an automobile for use in his livery and running about the country of a firm dealing therein, which firm obtained same from the defendant company for sale in the market for use by the purchaser. The defendant company is a manufacturer of automobiles, but not of all the parts thereof, and makes and sells same to others for use or for resale and use by the purchaser. The defendant does not actually make its own wheels used in making its automobiles, but purchases them of a reputable concern engaged in making and selling wheels for automobiles. When shipped and when received by the defendant company they are covered with a coat of paint known as the priming coat. This priming coat is put on to protect the wheels from moisture and not for concealment of defects or improper material. Not long after purchasing this machine, and while using it in a proper manner on an ordinary good country road and running at ordinary speed, one of the front wheels collapsed by reason of one or more defective spokes therein and used in the original construction thereof, and the car overturned pinning the plaintiff thereunder, and he received serious and permanent injuries.

The evidence was sufficient to sustain the following:

(1) The automobile broke down solely by reason of these defective or dead wood spokes in the wheel while running at ordinary speed for an automobile and on the highway of suitable construction and character for such use.

(2) By reason of the presence of this (or these if more than one) defective, or dead wood spoke in the wheel the automobile in the hands of the owner and user and when properly sued and run at ordinary speed for an automobile, was liable to break down, overturn, and seriously injure, if not kill, the persons riding therein. In short, this automobile, in fact was a machine or instrumentality imminently dangerous to human life when under ordinary circumstances and conditions put to the use for which intended by the defendant company.

(3) This condition of this wheel, and consequently of this automobile, was the result of the negligence of the maker of the wheel, the Schwarz Company, which made and sold the wheel to the defendant company. The automobile was a heavy machine and made to carry from 4 to 6 persons or even more, and as the front wheels are turned to the right or to the left as the case may be in directing the course of the machine, the wheels are subjected to great sidewise or lateral pressure, and hence the well-known necessity for strong and sound spokes in the wheels. If the wheels are not of this character, and this fact is known, or in the exercise of ordinary care ought to be known, to the maker and seller, he properly may be said to have known the dangerous character of the machine itself.

(4) The defendant company had no actual knowledge of the defective spoke or spokes in this wheel, and was not shown to have had actual knowledge that the Schwarz Company used defective spokes or wood in making its wheels; but there was evidence tending to show that the defendant company might have ascertained this fact by the exercise of extraordinary care and inspection of wood used in the construction of wheels at the Schwarz factory.

(5) The evidence tended to show that the defendant company on receiving its wheels from the Schwarz Company used all known and ordinary tests for ascertaining and determining their sufficiency and strength and tested the machines thoroughly after construction and before putting them on the market for the purpose of discovering defects or weakness, if any.

(6) There was evidence pro and con that the defendant company might have discovered the character of the wood in the spokes of this wheel (or others) by scraping off the priming coat of paint referred to. The defects might have been discovered by taking the wheels to pieces or by sawing into or boring into the spokes; but, as this would have been tantamount to the destruction of the wheel, the jury was instructed that the defendant company was not obligated to make such tests.

(7) The jury was told that, while the defendant company had the right to rely on the good reputation and character of the Schwarz Company as a maker of wheels and on the high character and reputation of the Schwarz wheels, still its duty did not end there, and that it was bound to use all known and ordinary tests for determining the character and strength of the wheels.

The jury found: (1) That the car was being carefully and properly driven by the plaintiff; (2) that the breaking down of the wheel was caused solely by the dead and dozy and consequently weak condition of the wood in the spokes of the wheel; (3) that such wood was not put in the wheel with the knowledge or consent of the defendant company; (4 and 5) that the defendant company did not know the Schwarz Company used such wood in the construction of its wheels generally, or in the construction of those it sold to it (the defendant). The jury also found (6) that the defendant company did not know of the weakness or defect in this wheel, and that such defects could not have been discovered in the exercise of ordinary care by any proved and known test or method of inspection, and that the defendant company did not willfully omit or neglect to exercise ordinary care in inspecting or testing the wheel in question after it came from the Schwarz Company by omitting to use ordinary and usual or known methods of inspecting or testing same. The jury expressly found that the defendant company did not 'put the car in question on the market with knowledge that the wheel in question was in a weak or defective condition by reason of unsuitable, weak, or dozy wood in the spokes. ' To the following questions submitted to the jury it answered, 'No,' viz.:

'Did the Cadillac Company use or exercise due and proper care, that is, ordinary care, in purchasing its wheels of the Schwartz Company and finishing and putting same on its automobiles and giving them the test it did and then putting them (the automobiles) on the market'? Under the evidence in the case and the charge of the court, and in view of the other findings, the jury must have found that the defendant company was negligent in failing to ascertain the fact that the Schwarz Company did sometimes use defective spokes by omitting, either (1) to make proper inquiries and examination at the Schwarz factory in Philadelphia, or (2) to scrape off the priming coat before finishing the wheels and putting them on an automobile.

There was uncontradicted evidence that the defendant company did send a man to the plant of the Schwarz Company. There was no evidence he failed to make proper inquiry and examination, or that he discovered any defect in the wheels, wood used, or in methods employed. His report was favorable to the Schwarz wheel.

Assuming that there was negligence-- legal negligence-- in not scraping off the priming coat of paint from these wheels, and that such scraping would have disclosed the bad wood, will it (such finding) support this verdict under the decisions and the complaint?

First, the jury expressly found there was no negligence in omitting to use any 'ordinary and usual' or known method of testing or inspecting; and, second, it expressly found that the defective condition could not have been discovered 'in the exercise of ordinary care by any proved and known test or method of inspection. ' It follows that the jury found that scraping off the paint from a primed wheel was not a known test or method of inspection and was an extraordinary and unknown method of inspection or testing in the trade. As stated, the jury expressly found the defendant company had no actual knowledge of the defective condition, and hence the question resolves itself into this: Can the defendant company be held liable because it failed to use an 'unproved' or an 'unknown test or method of inspection' which if used would have disclosed the defective condition?

To manufacture an automobile or to purchase and assemble into a car from different makers the parts of a car or automobile and put same on the market for sale by dealers to third persons for use, any essential part of which is known to be defective or in the exercise of ordinary care ought to be known to be defective and so defective as to make the car dangerous to those using it for the purpose for which designed and intended by the maker, is a wrongful act, and the person or corporation so manufacturing or assembling the car or automobile and placing it on the market is liable in damages to the third person who purchases it from the dealer in ignorance of such defect and is injured while properly using same. The common sense of this proposition is evident and the legal liability in such cases has been declared in numerous decisions. While there is no contractual relation between the maker and such third person, the law imposes a duty and attaches the legal liability. If the complaint charges such an act, it charges an illegal or wrongful act, and it neither adds to nor detracts from the sufficiency of the complaint to clothe the language used in describing it with superfluous phrases or adjectives. The ferocity of the language adds nothing and detracts nothing, provided the wrongful act be actually alleged. So if the ferocious...