Martin v. Julius Dierck Equipment Co.

• Decision Date: 18 January 1978
• Citation: 403 N.Y.S.2d 185,43 N.Y.2d 583,374 N.E.2d 97
• Parties: , 374 N.E.2d 97 Dwight C. MARTIN, Appellant, v. JULIUS DIERCK EQUIPMENT CO. et al., Respondents. RAYMOND CORPORATION, Third-Party Plaintiff, v. WESTERN ELECTRIC CORP., Third-Party Defendant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 185

403 N.Y.S.2d 185

43 N.Y.2d 583, 374 N.E.2d 97

Dwight C. MARTIN, Appellant, v. JULIUS DIERCK EQUIPMENT CO. et al., Respondents.

RAYMOND CORPORATION, Third-Party Plaintiff, v. WESTERN ELECTRIC CORP., Third-Party Defendant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 18, 1978.

Seymour Armstrong and Lawrence M. Rosenberg, New York City, for appellant.

Jeffrey Silberfeld, Point Lookout, for Julius Dierck Equipment Co., respondent.

Sidney A. Schwartz and John T. McDonald, New York City, for Raymond Corp., respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JASEN, Judge.

The novel question posed by this appeal is whether, for purposes of CPLR 202, plaintiff's causes of action for personal injury accrued in the jurisdiction in which he was injured or in the jurisdiction in which the vehicle alleged to have caused the injury was delivered.

Plaintiff, a resident of the District of Columbia, was injured in Arlington, Virginia, on June 7, 1968, at the warehouse of his employer, Western Electric, when a forklift truck he was operating allegedly malfunctioned, throwing him from the vehicle. The forklift was manufactured by defendant Raymond, a corporation with its principal place of business in Greene, New York, and sold to Western Electric on June 26, 1967 "f.o.b. Greene, New York" through defendant Dierck, a distributor with its principal place of business in New York City.

Alleging causes of action in negligence and breach of warranty against both defendants, plaintiff commenced the present action against Dierck on May 21, 1971, and against Raymond on June 25, 1971. Defendants moved for summary judgment, contending that pursuant to CPLR 202 our "borrowing" statute New York must apply the Virginia Statute of Limitations, which provides "every action for personal injuries * * * shall be brought within two years next after the right to bring the same shall have accrued." (Va. Code (1950), § 8-24.) Defendants maintained that the causes of action for breach of warranty and negligence accrued without the State on May 6, 1969, the date of plaintiff's 21st birthday, and were, therefore, barred by Virginia's two-year Statute of Limitations.

Applying CPLR 202, Special Term held that the negligence causes of action "accrued", for purposes of the borrowing statute, in Virginia the place of the injury rather than in New York the place of manufacture and delivery. As to the breach of warranty causes of action, however, the court held that these causes of action "accrued" in New York. Consequently, since the court found the breach of warranty causes of action to have "accrued" in New York, Special Term held the borrowing statute inapplicable and plaintiff's complaint timely under New York's four-year Statute of Limitations for breach of warranty.

Although having concluded that the negligence causes of action "accrued" in Virginia and, therefore, that Virginia's two-year Statute of Limitations governed plaintiff's claim, Special Term denied defendants' motion for summary judgment in its entirety, finding that factual issues existed as to whether Virginia's Statute of Limitations was tolled due to plaintiff's alleged inability to obtain jurisdiction over the defendants in Virginia.

On appeal, the Appellate Division reversed and granted defendants' motions for summary judgment, holding that, for purposes of the borrowing statute, plaintiff's breach of warranty, as well as negligence, causes of action "accrued" in Virginia, the jurisdiction which it believed had the greater interest in the litigation. In regard to the tolling of Virginia's Statute of Limitations, the Appellate Division, finding that no question of fact existed, concluded that both defendants were amenable to jurisdiction in Virginia.

We hold that, for purposes of the "borrowing statute", the negligence causes of action as well as the cause of action which plaintiff has labeled "breach of warranty" accrued in Virginia, and are therefore barred by Virginia's two-year Statute of Limitations.

Viewed as pertaining to the remedy rather than the right, Statutes of Limitations have traditionally been characterized as procedural. (1943 Report of N.Y. Law Rev.Comm., p. 143; Goodrich, Conflict of Laws (3d ed.), § 85; Weintraub, Commentary on the Conflict of Laws 48.) Since under common-law rules matters of procedure are governed by the law of the forum, it has generally been held that the Statute of Limitations of the forum rather than that of the jurisdiction where the cause of action accrued governs the timeliness of a cause of action. (Leflar, American Conflicts Law, § 127.) To temper the rigid application of this rule, most States have enacted "borrowing" statutes which, although varying from State to State, "borrow" the foreign Statute of Limitations of the jurisdiction in which the defendant or both parties resided or the jurisdiction in which the cause of action accrued, if to do so would bar the plaintiff's cause of action. (Leflar, American Conflicts Law, § 128; see, generally, Restatement, Conflict of Laws (2d), § 142, Comment f ; Ester, Borrowing Statutes of Limitation and Conflict of Laws, 15 U.Fla.L.Rev. 33; Vernon, Statutes of Limitations in the Conflict of Laws: Borrowing Statutes, 32 Rocky Mt.L.Rev. 287; Milhollin, Interest Analysis and Conflicts Between Statutes of Limitation, 27 Hastings L.J. 1, 25-45.)

New York's version of the borrowing statute, CPLR 202, provides: "An action based upon a cause of action accruing without the state cannot be commenced after the expiration of the time limited by the laws of either the state or the place without the state where the cause of action accrued, except that where the cause of action accrued in favor of a resident of the state the time limited by the laws of the state shall apply." (Emphasis added.) Critical to the application of the borrowing statute is the determination of the jurisdiction in which a cause of action "accrues". Before this determination can be made, however, it is necessary to characterize correctly the plaintiff's cause of action. Although denominated as a breach of warranty cause of action, plaintiff's claim in this case, in addition to his negligence claim, is in reality one in strict products liability. (See Victorson v. Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 37 N.Y.2d 395, 401-402, 373 N.Y.S.2d 39, 41-42, 335 N.E.2d 275, 277-278.) Consequently, it is the jurisdiction in which plaintiff's strict products liability causes of action, as well as negligence causes of action, accrued that must be ascertained for purposes of applying the borrowing statute.

In reaching this conclusion, we observe that a cause of action for breach of warranty is a contractual remedy a remedy which seeks to provide the parties with the benefit of their bargain. It is, in essenc a remedy designed to enforce the agreement, express or implied, of the parties and to place them, should one of the parties fail to perform in accordance with the agreement, in the same position they would have been had the agreement been performed. (See Victorson v. Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 37 N.Y.2d 395, 401, 373 N.Y.S.2d 39, 41, 335 N.E.2d 275, 277, supra ; Wade, Is Section 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts Preempted by the UCC and Therefore Unconstitutional, 42 Tenn.L.Rev. 123, 127.)

On the other hand, a cause of action for negligence or for strict products liability seeks to provide a remedy for an individual injured because of another's violation of an obligation imposed not by contract, but by law. It does not attempt to afford the injured party the benefit of any bargain, but rather endeavors to place him in the position he occupied prior to his injury. In other words, negligence and strict products liability causes of action seek to make the injured party "whole". (See Victorson v. Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 37 N.Y.2d 395, 401, 373 N.Y.S.2d 39, 41, 335 N.E.2d 275, 277, supra ; Prossor, Torts (4th ed.), § 92, p. 613; Wade, Is Section 402A of the Second Restatement of Torts Preempted by the UCC and Therefore Unconstitutional, 42 Tenn.L.Rev. 123, 127.)

Consequently, a plaintiff who is not in privity with the seller of the product which is alleged to have caused his injury possesses a cause of action in negligence or strict products liability as opposed to what has often been incorrectly labeled breach of warranty. In this regard, we have stated on a previous occasion: "Whatever may have been earlier doubt and confusion, the authorities are now in general agreement that strict products liability sounds in tort rather than in contract. 'It has been said over and over again that this warranty if that is the name for it is not the old sales warranty, it is not the warranty covered by the Uniform Sales Act of the Uniform Commercial Code. It is not a warranty of the seller to the buyer at all, but it is something separate and distinct which sounds in tort exclusively, and not at all in contract; which exists apart from any contract between the parties; and which makes for strict liability in tort.' " (Victorson v. Bock Laundry Mach. Co., 37 N.Y.2d 395, 402, 373 N.Y.S.2d 39, 43, 335 N.E.2d 275, 278, supra, quoting Prosser, Spectacular Change: Products Liability in General, 36 Cleveland Bar Assn. J. 167-168.)

The effect of the rule in the Victorson case, supra and the analysis in this case is not to raise again the "citadel of privity". On the contrary, the rule announced in that case and the analysis in the present case manifests the flowering in New York of the doctrine of strict products liability making unnecessary the distortions previously required to permit injured plaintiffs to recover from those who put defective products into the stream of commerce. The doctrine was presaged long before the Victorson case. (E. g., Goldberg v. Kollsman Instrument Corp., 12 N.Y.2d 432, 436-437, 240 N.Y.S.2d 592, 594-595, 191 N.E.2d 81, 82-83; Codling v. Paglia, 32 N.Y.2d 330, 345 N.Y.S.2d 461, 298 N.E.2d 622; Restatement, Torts 2d, § 402A.) It was followed in Micallef...