Benford v. Berkeley Heating Co., 19415

• Decision Date: 11 May 1972
• Docket Number: No. 19415,19415
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Marvin R. BENFORD, Respondent, v. BERKELEY HEATING CO., and The Trane Company, of which The Trane Company is, Appellant.

Page 841

188 S.E.2d 841

258 S.C. 357

Marvin R. BENFORD, Respondent, v. BERKELEY HEATING CO., and The Trane Company, of which The

Trane Company is, Appellant.

No. 19415.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

May 11, 1972.

Charles H. Gibbs, and Thomas G. Buist, of Sinkler, Gibbs, Simons & Guerard, Charleston, for appellant.

Augustine T. Smythe, of Buist, Moore, Smythe & McGee, Charleston, and Thomas O. Berry, Jr., St. George, for respondent.

BRAILSFORD, Justice:

Marvin Benford brought this action against Berkeley Heating Company and The Trane Company for the near-total loss of his new home in a fire caused by the gas furnace. The jury absolved Bekeley Heating, which sold and installed the furnace, but returned a verdict against Trane, the manufacturer. ¹ Trane appeals from the denial of its alternative motions for judgment Non obstante veredicto or a new trial.

The furnace was installed in the crawl space beneath the house during August, 1967. A few days after the fire, which occurred on November 30, 1967, a mechanical engineer was engaged to ascertain its cause. He found that the furnace draft hood or vent, where the flue gases exit the furnace and enter the flue, was installed only 2 3/4 inches from the pine joist where the fire originated, although Trane's installation manual required a minimum clearance of 6 inches. This manual, which was delivered to Berkeley with the furnace, required that the flue pipe, which funneled exhaust gas to the chimney, be pitched upward so as to facilitate escape of the exhaust. Instead, Berkeley installed the flue with a downward slope. The manual specified that the connection from furnace to chinney be by a 'short and direct route.' The flue pipe as installed by Berkeley was 10 feet long and made 3 ninety degree turns. Finding nothing wrong with the furnace itself, which was of a standard design, tested and approved by the American Gas Association, the recognized authority in the field, and commonly sold under such trade names as Chrysler Air Temp, Carrier, Fedders Corp., Trane and many others, this expert concluded that its maladroit installation by Berkeley caused the fire. Relying upon these findings, Benford sued Berkeley alone charging that its negligence caused his loss.

An article written by this engineer about the fire appeared in a trade magazine, American Artisan, July, 1968, in which it was stated that '(t)hree fatal errors characterized (the) installation' of the Benford furnace. The author summarized these in his testimony as being, 'Inadequate clearance was one error. Three 90 degree elbows in the vent connector was another. The third error was a down pitch of the vent connector to the chimney.'

A further investigation of the cause of the fire was made for Benford by another mechanical engineer in February, 1969. He concluded from his examination of the components of the furnace that the blower had not operated during the fire, and found by testing that the blower switch would not operate. Armed with this and other information, Mr. Benford discontinued his Charleston County suit against Berkeley alone, in which the complaint had been twice amended, and commenced this action against Berkeley and Trane in Dorchester County. The complaint, dated April 22, 1969, alleged that as a result of the failure of the blower to operate, the temperature within the furnace became much higher than normal, and that this elevated temperature combined and concurred with the faulty installation by Berkeley to cause the fire. Recovery was sought on several theories, including negligence and implied warranty. Upon the conclusion of plaintiff's testimony, the court required plaintiff to elect upon what theory he would seek recovery; whereupon, plaintiff chose breach of implied warranty.

The vendor is answerable for breach of implied warranty incident to a sale, as for any breach of contract, 'for whatever damages follow as a natural consequence and proximate result of his conduct, or which may reasonably be supposed to have been within the contemplation of the parties at the time the contract was made as a probable result of a breach of it.' National Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hoover, 128 S.C. 344, 347--348, 122 S.E. 858, 859 (1924). Hiers v. South Carolina Power Co., 198 S.C. 280, 17 S.E.2d 698 (1941). ² Thus, the breaching party's liability normally extends only to 'such consequences as would follow such a breach in the usual course of events.' 11 S. Williston, Law of Contracts, Sec. 1344 (3d ed. 1968). The Restatement of Contracts, Sec. 330, contains an oft-quoted expression of the rule:

'In awarding damages, compensation is given for only those injuries that the defendant had reason to foresee as a probable result of his breach when the contract was made. If the injury is one that follows the breach in the usual course of events, there is sufficient reason for the defendant to foresee it; otherwise, it must be shown specifically that the defendant had reason to know the facts and to foresee the injury.'

Despite the lapse of time after installation of the furnace and the intervention of the destructive fire before discovery that the blower switch would not operate, we are satisfied that the evidence was sufficient to support the finding, implicit in the verdict, that the switch was defective when it left Trane's hands. Without pausing to review the evidence on this point, we address the dispositive issue of whether the evidence raised a jury issue that Benford's loss by fire was a natural and foreseeable consequence of Trane's breach of implied warranty of fitness; that is to say, whether Trane could reasonably have foreseen the fire as a probable and natural result of the failure of the blower switch.

The Trane furnace of this type is designed to operate normally in the following manner. When the teperature falls below the thermostat setting, an electrical circuit is closed, which activates the gas burner. Heat from the burner warms a compartment called the heat exchanger. The rising temperature of air inside the heat exchanger induces a gradual twisting movement in a thermocouple called a helical spring. The movement of the helical spring causes a cam mounted on the end thereof to close the blower switch, thereby starting the blower, which propels air from the heat exchanger into the house through the ductwork. When the thermostat senses a return to the desired temperature, it breaks the circuit to the burner, shutting off the gas. Falling temperature inside the heat exchanger soon persuades the helical spring to reverse its course, reopening the blower switch and stopping the blower.

If the blower switch fails to function, the normal heating cycle is ousted by the following sequence. The blower receives no signal to operate. The air inside the heat exchanger, instead of being expelled into the dust system by the blower, grows hotter as the burner continues to transmit heat to the heat exchanger. As the temperature rises in the heat exchanger, the helical spring obediently pursues its twisting course to a point where its cam closes a safety device called the limit switch. The limit switch, countermanding the unsatisfied thermostat, turns off the burner. The air inside the heat exchanger cools; the helical spring relaxes its pressure on the limit switch; the limit switch reopens; the burner ignites again; and the cycle repeats indefinitely. When operating in this way without benefit of the blower, the furnace is said to be 'cycling on the limit switch.'

When the furnace is cycling in this fashion, the draft hood, located where the flue pipe is connected to the furnace, reaches a much higher peak temperature than it does during normal operation. Instead of its usual range in the low three-hundreds, the temperature of the draft hood may reach 500--525 . The function of the limit switch is to prevent dangerous overheating whenever for any reason the blower is not operating. ³ A properly installed furnace may cycle on it indefinitely. When operating in this fashion, the heat reaching the house is...