Birdsinger v. McCormick Harvesting Mach. Co.
| Decision Date | 06 February 1906 |
| Citation | 76 N.E. 611,183 N.Y. 487 |
| Parties | BIRDSINGER v. McCORMICK HARVESTING MACH. CO. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.
Action by Daniel Birdsinger against the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (88 N. Y. Supp. 1092,95 App. Div. 621), affirming a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
This action was brought to recover for the breach of a warranty given upon the sale by the defendant of a machine, and the damages asked were for a personal injury sustained by one of the purchasers as a result of its breaking down while in operation. Upon the issue coming on for trial, the counsel for the plaintiff made a statement to the jury of the case and the following are the facts which were stated, and which are to be taken as admitted: The plaintiff's counsel stated that the defendant sold to the plaintiff and his brother a machine of its manufacture, known as a ‘corn husker and shredder.’ In the use of this machine the plaintiff had his hand caught between the rollers, called the ‘snapping rollers,’ the office of which was to take the corn from the stalks as the stalks passed between the rollers. His hand was so mutilated that it was required to be amputated. The contract of sale contains the following provision: etc.
This action is brought upon this warranty; the plaintiff claiming to be entitled to recover for his injuries as consequential damages for a breach thereof. In operating the machine the plaintiff stood upon a platform directly in front of the machine, about three feet back of these snapping rollers, into which he pushed the corn stalks. These rollers at times became clogged, and, in order to clean them, it is necessary to stop the rollers. This is done by means of what is called, in the book of instructions, a ‘safety lever,’ the arm of which is placed directly in front of the man operating the machine and underneath the board over which the corn stalks are pushed into the machine. By pushing forward slightly with his body upon this lever, the gearing to which these snapping rollers are attached is thrown off, so that they cease to revolve and may be safely cleaned. Upon the day in question, the rollers having become clogged, the plaintiff pressed upon the lever, the gearing was thrown off, and the rollers ceased to revolve. He thereupon proceeded to clean out the rollers with his hand. Suddenly, without warning, the rollers began to revolve, his hand was caught, and the injury occasioned. We will show that a part of this gearing, by which the rollers were made to revolve, had become broken; that this caused a bolt to slip out of its place, which thereupon became wedged in the gearing in such a way as to render ineffective this safety lever; that these rollers were thereby set in motion, notwithstanding the proper use of the safety lever. Upon this opening of the plaintiff's counsel and upon the pleadings, which presented an issue upon similar allegations, the defendant's counsel moved for the dismissal of the complaint. The motion was granted, upon the ground that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover consequential damages for ‘personal injuries growing out of a defect of the machine.’ The judgment dismissing the complaint has been unanimously affirmed by the Appellate Division in the Third Department, and the plaintiff has further appealed to this court.
William J. Roche and Charles I. Webster, for appellant.
Edwin Countryman, William S. Dyer, and Jacob L. Ten Eyck, for respondent.
GRAY, J. (after stating the facts).
The question is sharply presented in this case whether the warranty, as expressed, covered anything more than the quality of the machine and its capacity, by reason of good construction, to do the work, properly, for which it was sold. Did it assure the purchaser as to anything more than was stated? I think not. The defendant warranted the machine ‘to do good work, to be well made, of good materials, and to be durable, if used with proper care.’ The warranty was an engagement, collateral to the contract, by which the seller assured to the buyer that the subject of the transaction of sale was as it was stated therein to be, and the ordinary rule of damages upon the breach of a general warranty awards the difference between the value of the article as it had been represented to be and its actual value. The right to recover consequential damages-that is to say, those which are not the direct result of the breach, and do not arise naturallytherefrom-will depend upon the terms of the warranty, considered in connection with the character of the article sold. The warranty may be special in its undertaking and entitle the purchaser to recover for the remoter consequences flowing necessarily from the breach; or the article sold may be of such a character as that its answering the purpose of its sale is of the essence of the warranty, and a failure in that respect will render the seller liable for the necessary consequences. For instances, sufficiently illustrative of such warranties, reference may be had to Hoe v. Sanborn, 36 N. Y. 98, where circular saws were warranted to be ‘of a good quality,’ and proved to be entirely worthless. It was held that ‘the warranty, whether considered as express or implied, was nothing more than a warranty of quality, and the rule of damages for the breach of such a warranty is well settled to be the difference between the value of the goods, if they had coresponded with the warranty, and their actual value.’ In Passinger v. Thorburn, 34 N. Y. 634, 90 Am. Dec. 753, where the defendant sold cabbage seed, warranted the same to produce Bristol cabbages, and the warranty was untrue, the rule of damages was held to be the value of a crop of Bristol cabbages, such as ordinarily would have been produced that year, deducting the expense of raising the crop, and also the value of the crop actually raised therefrom. The opinion contains a review of the authorities upon the subject of the rule of damages, and it was held that ‘the damages must be such as may fairly be supposed to have entered into the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract; that is, must be such as might naturally be expected to...
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...deemed to have been in contemplation of the parties at the time of making their contract. Mark v. Cooperage Co., 204 Mo. 265; Birdsinger v. Mfg. Co., 183 N.Y. 487; v. Roydhouse, 267 Pa. 368. (6) Defendant's alleged breach of warranty was not the proximate cause of the accident. Kennedy v. C......
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...deemed to have been in contemplation of the parties at the time of making their contract. Mark v. Cooperage Co., 204 Mo. 265; Birdsinger v. Mfg. Co., 183 N.Y. 487; Railroad v. Roydhouse, 267 Pa. 368. (6) Defendant's alleged breach of warranty was not the proximate cause of the accident. Ken......
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