Alloy Computer Products v. Northern Telecom
Decision Date | 29 March 1988 |
Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 86-3263-T. |
Citation | 683 F. Supp. 12 |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Parties | ALLOY COMPUTER PRODUCTS, INC., Plaintiff, v. NORTHERN TELECOM, INC., Defendant. |
George C. Caner, Jr., Brien T. O'Connor, Ropes & Gray, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.
John G. Fabiano, Hale & Dorr, Boston, Mass., for defendant.
Plaintiff designs and manufactures equipment to expand the capacity and improve the performance of personal computers. One of plaintiff's products is the "QICTAPE" line of tape drive systems for IBM personal computers.
Defendant manufactures "tape drive units", which plaintiff used in making its QICTAPE systems. According to the amended complaint,1 defendant had represented that its tape drives were equipped with ceramic-coated magnetic heads having a minimum life of 1500 hours. Without informing plaintiff, defendant allegedly provided cheaper, non-ceramic "soft" heads that would not last longer than 500 hours. Plaintiff and its customers claim to have experienced serious problems with the QICTAPE units, as a result of this unauthorized substitution.
Plaintiff's amended complaint charges defendant with common law fraud (Count I); fraud in the sale of personal property under Mass.Gen.L. ch. 231, § 85J (Count II); unfair and deceptive practices under Mass.Gen.L. ch. 93A (Count III); breach of express warranties (Count IV); breach of implied warranties (Count V); and breach of the contractual duty of good faith (Count VI). Defendant has counterclaimed for breach of contract and violations of Chapter 93A.
Both parties have moved for partial summary judgment on plaintiff's warranty counts. For the reasons stated below, defendant's motion will be granted, and plaintiff's will be denied.
Throughout their two and one-half year relationship, plaintiff and defendant followed the same procedure for each purchase and sale of tape drives. Plaintiff would submit to defendant a purchase order specifying the number of drives to be purchased, and the price. Defendant would then ship the tape drives to plaintiff, enclosing with each shipment its "General Terms and Conditions of Sale", and a letter stating that "all products are shipped under the General Terms and Conditions".2
Defendant's Terms and Conditions contained an explicit limitation on warranties, reading as follows:
At issue is whether those terms became part of the contract between plaintiff and defendant. The controlling statute is the UCC's "battle of the forms" provision, Mass.Gen.L. ch. 106, § 2-207, which states:
Plaintiff argues that defendant's warranty limitation was ineffective because it proposed "additional or different terms" that materially altered the contract. But, in Roto-Lith, Ltd. v. F.P. Bartlett & Co., 297 F.2d 497 (1st Cir.1962), the Court of Appeals ruled that § 2-207 did not make additional terms, such as those proposed in the instant case, part of the contract, because:
It would be unrealistic to suppose that when an offeree replies setting out conditions that would be burdensome only to the offeror he intended to make an unconditional acceptance of the original offer, leaving it simply to the offeror's good nature whether he would assume the additional restrictions. To give the statute a practical construction we must hold that a response which states a condition materially altering the obligation solely to the disadvantage of the offeror is an "acceptance ... expressly ... conditional on assent to the additional ... terms."
Roto-Lith, 297 F.2d at 500. Under Roto-Lith, whenever an offeree's acceptance contains terms that materially alter the contract by burdening the offeror, the offeree has conditioned his participation on the offeror's acceptance of such terms. The offeree's response becomes a counteroffer, to be accepted or rejected by the offeror, rather than an acknowledgment of the original offer. Performance by the offeror may constitute an acceptance. Thus, in the instant case, defendant's warranty limitation became part of the contract between the parties, because defendant is considered to have made plaintiff's acceptance a precondition to its participation.
Plaintiff points out that Roto-Lith has been subjected to academic and judicial criticism, because it reverses the outcome that the plain language of § 2-207 would lead parties to expect. See, e.g., Luria Bros. & Co. v. Pielet Bros. Scrap Iron, 600 F.2d 103, 113 (7th Cir.1979) ( ); Leonard Pevar Co. v. Evans Products Co., 524 F.Supp. 546, 551 (D.Del. 1981) (); J. White & R. Summers, Handbook of the Law Under the Uniform Commercial Code 26-28 (1972) ( ).
Nevertheless, Roto-Lith continues as binding precedent within this circuit, and its interpretation of § 2-207 has been cited several times, without suggestion that its holding has been modified or abandoned.3See Teradyne, Inc. v. Mostek Corp., 797 F.2d 43, 55 (1st Cir.1986) (); Scott Brass, Inc. v. C & C Metal Products Corp., 473 F.Supp. 1124 (D.R.I. 1979) ( ); Gilbert & Bennett Mfg. Co. v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 445 F.Supp. 537, 546 (D.Mass.1977) ( ).
Under the teaching of Roto-Lith, plaintiff is deemed to have accepted defendant's warranty limitations when it...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Logan Equipment Corp. v. Simon Aerials, Inc.
...as long as the buyer does not object to the additional conditions or otherwise withdraw its order. Alloy Computer Products, Inc. v. Northern Telecom, Inc., 683 F.Supp. 12, 14 (D.Mass.1988); Roto-Lith, Ltd. v. F.P. Bartlett & Co., 297 F.2d 497, 500 (1st Cir. 1962). In this case, neither part......
-
Ritchie Enterprises v. Honeywell Bull, Inc.
...remedy to have failed of its essential purpose is generally considered to be a question of fact. Alloy Computer Products v. Northern Telecom, 683 F.Supp. 12, 15 n. 4 (D.Mass.1988). As a result, courts have usually assumed at the summary judgment level that the remedy of repair or replacemen......
-
Winter Panel Corp. v. Reichhold Chemicals, Inc., Civ. A. No. 85-3616WF.
...537 (D.Mass.1977); Logan Equipment v. Simon Aerials, Inc., 736 F.Supp. 1188, 1195 (D.Mass.1990); Alloy Computer Products, Inc. v. Northern Telecom, Inc., 683 F.Supp. 12, 14 (D.Mass.1988); Glyptal, 801 F.Supp. at 893; Plymouth Rubber Co. v. Uniroyal, Inc., No. 89-175WF, 1992 WL 93223 at *10 ......
-
Master Palletizer Systems v. TS Ragsdale Co., Civ. A. No. 87-B-798.
...be accepted or rejected by the offeror, rather than an acknowledgment of the original offer. See Id; Alloy Computer Products, Inc. v. Northern Telecom, Inc., 683 F.Supp. 12 (D.Mass. 1988); See also Nucla Sanitation District v. Rippy, 140 Colo. 444, 344 P.2d 976 (1959). Here, even if Master'......