Bloomquist v. William H. Ziegler Co.
| Decision Date | 05 February 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 39174,39174 |
| Citation | 133 N.W.2d 484,270 Minn. 229 |
| Parties | Myron J. BLOOMQUIST et al., Appellants, v. WILLIAM H. ZIEGLER CO., Inc., and The Zeco Company, and Aeroquip Company, Respondents. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
In a case where a hose and attached fittings supplied by defendants separated and permitted inflammable hydraulic fluid to escape and ignite, it is held that plaintiffs' claims for relief based on negligence and breach of implied warranty were properly dismissed with prejudice when evidence failed to provide either facts or expert opinion to support a finding that the condition of the hose and attached fitting at time of delivery to user was such as to cause the hose and attached fitting to separate under circumstances existing when the separation occurred.
Robins, Davis & Lyons, and Harding A. Orren, Lawrence Zelle, Jesse & Cosgrove, Minneapolis, Faricy, Moore & Costello, St. Paul, for appellants.
Dorsey, Owen, Marquart, Windhorst & West, and Horace Hitch and John D. Levine, Minneapolis, for W. H. Ziegler Co.
Sullivan, McMillan, Hanft & Hastings, and William P. O'Brien, Duluth, for Zeco Co.
Murnane, Murnane, Battis & deLambert, St. Paul, for Aeroquip Co.
The appeal is from a judgment of the district court dismissing plaintiffs' action with prejudice.
Property damage and personal injuries resulted from a fire which occurred on January 21, 1960, at the plant of Hartzell Manufacturing Company (hereinafter called Hartzell) in St. Paul. Plaintiffs instituted an action against defendants to recover the damages sustained on the fact theory that the fire resulted because a hose and metal fittings used to connect it to a machine in the plant separated and allowed inflammable hydraulic fluid to escape and ignite. The claims of the plaintiffs against defendants sound in negligence and breach of implied warranty.
It is undisputed that on or about November 5, 1959, Hobart Allison, purchasing agent for Hartzell, ordered four hoses of the kind here involved from the Ringerud Equipment Company. Ringerud, in turn, obtained the ordered hoses with attachments from the Zeco Company (a corporation wholly owned by William H. Ziegler Company, Inc.), which in assembling hoses and attachments uses components supplied by the Aeroquip Company. The order as placed by Hartzell and, in turn, filled by Ringerud and Zeco was for four hose assemblies identified by the figures 1332--5--24 given significance by a catalog issued by Aeroquip, the number 1332 being used to describe a certain type of medium pressure hose with connections; the number 5 indicating the inside diameter of the hose to be one-quarter inch; and the number 24 indicating the hose to be 24 inches in length. In response to this order, delivery of four hoses and the connections was made to the Hartzell plant on or about November 5, 1959.
At the time of the fire it was discovered that one of the hoses had become separated from the metal socket to which it was attached upon delivery to Hartzell and, accepting the fact that it was this separation that permitted the escape of the inflammable hydraulic fluid which ignited and precipitated the fire, the crucial question in the case was whether this failure was due to actionable fault on the part of any of the defendants or a variance between the articles as supplied and as they would have been if manufactured and assembled as required by warranties express or implied.
Plaintiffs had the burden of proving that the fire resulted from a failure of the equipment supplied by defendants and that such failure was attributable to negligence or breach of warranty on the part of one or more of them. 1 At the close of plaintiffs' case, the trial court, being of the opinion that this burden had not been sustained, granted the motion of the defendants then in the case for a dismissal of plaintiffs' action with prejudice. Later it denied plaintiffs' motion for a new trial made before the judgment from which this appeal was taken was entered.
The essential question raised by the appeal is whether the evidence considered in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs would sustain a verdict against the defendants or any of them. 2 In our opinion, the decision of the trial court must be affirmed because there was no evidence presented which could support reasonably a finding that the hose separated from the attachment because of negligence on the part of any of the defendants or because of an absence of warranted properties.
Plaintiffs do not contend that the mere happening of the accident could support a finding of negligence or breach of warranty on the part of the suppliers. The 24-inch hoses with fittings attached supplied by defendants were but a part of the complete operating mechanism which consisted of a machine used to originate and control the pressure conveyed by the medium of hydraulic fluid through a system of hoses to the die-casting machine in which was located an ejector bolt actuated by the hydraulic pressure when applied. Hartzell, through its employees, was responsible for the placement of this equipment and the manner in which the hose and fittings supplied by the defendants were made a part of it. The hose and attached fittings supplied by the defendants left their hands on November 5, 1959, and had been in the exclusive possession of Hartzell between that date and January 21, 1960, when the fire occurred. The nature of the manufacturing process in which Hartzell was engaged was such as to expose the hose and fittings, attached as they were to the diecasting equipment by Hartzell, to movements and possible contacts beyond the control of the defendants, which could readily account for the separation of the hose from its metal fittings without fault or warranty breach attributable to the defendants or any of them.
Plaintiffs do contend, however, that they were entitled to take their case to the jury on the basis of evidence that an examination of the hose and fittings after the fire disclosed defects of such a nature as to permit a finding by the jury that the defects existed at the time of the fire and at the time that the hose and connections were delivered to Hartzell on November 5. The evidence on this phase of the case consisted principally of the testimony of Harold Cartier who, acting in behalf of the plaintiffs, made an analysis of the fitting supplied by the defendants to which the hose was attached at the time of delivery to Hartzell. An understanding of his findings as a result of this analysis makes necessary this description of the connecting mechanism:
The fitting, called a J.I.C. swivel fitting, consists before assembly of three parts identified as a nut, nipple, and a socket, to be put together in the manner illustrated below:
NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE
The first step in the assembly involves insertion of the hose in the socket. This is done by screwing the hose into it with a counterclockwise turn. Instructions contained in a catalog issued by Aeroquip direct that the hose should be screwed in until it bottoms and then backed off onequarter turn. The next step in the process is to insert the nipple in the nut so that the shaft of the nipple emerging from the body of the nut is...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Marshall v. Co-Operative Oil Co. of Olmsted County
...upon plaintiff to do more than suggest the possibility that defendant's negligence caused the fire. See, Bloomquist v. William H. Ziegler Co., Inc., 270 Minn. 229, 133 N.W.2d 484. Where other causes are equally probable, there must be evidence which will permit the jury to discount or elimi......