Quigley v. Spano Crane Sales & Service, Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 January 1967
• Docket Number: No. 38582,38582
• Citation: 422 P.2d 512,70 Wn.2d 198
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: Glenn QUIGLEY, doing business as Spokane Neon Sign Company, Respondent, v. SPANO CRANE SALES AND SERVICE, INC., also known as Garland Crane Company, Appellant.

Page 198

70 Wn.2d 198

422 P.2d 512

Glenn QUIGLEY, doing business as Spokane Neon Sign Company, Respondent, v. SPANO CRANE SALES AND SERVICE, INC., also known as Garland Crane Company, Appellant.

No. 38582.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 1.

Jan. 5, 1967.

Rehearing Denied March 9, 1967.

Sharpe, Twigg, Bennett & Deglow, Riner E. Deglow, Spokane, for appellant.

Robert D. McGoldrick, Spokane, for respondent.

HALE, Judge.

The long arm of the law reaches far and, thus extended, becomes a force for good. But stretched too far, it may become a powerful instrument of oppression and injustice.

We are to decide if the courts of Washington, under the long-arm statute (RCW 4.28.185), have jurisdiction of an action arising from defects in a crane manufactured in California by a California resident and sold in a casual sale to and used by a Washington resident in this state.

Defendant, Spano Crane Company, a California corporation, manufactures cranes in its plant at Long Beach. As manufacturers go, it is a small company having but one plant and about 20 employees. Its owners personally direct and manage the company's activities and they participate physically in the manufacturing process. The company maintains no offices, warehouses, plants or facilities and has no agents, officers or employees stationed in Washington. Although not regularly engaged in doing business here, it has in the past sporadically sent its representatives into this state to sell and service several cranes. Altogether, the company has sold about 2,000 cranes throughout the United States, but only a few in the state of Washington and these were merely casual, if not isolated sales.

In April, 1964, plaintiff, by telephone, ordered a rebuilt crane from defendant's president. Defendant broke the crane down into three components for shipping and sent it on an order bill of lading from California to itself in Spokane, retaining title until acceptance and payment of its sight draft. On payment of the draft, defendant delivered the crane to plaintiff. The gear train, which later proved to have a cracked gear, arrived wholly assembled within one of these three major components. Plaintiff's employees put the three components together to completely assemble the crane and began operating it in his sign business.

After plaintiff had used the crane for about a week and while engaged in lowering a Richfield sign at a service station in Deer Park, Washington, the crane failed and the sign fell to the ground from a height of some 19 feet, damaging both sign and crane.

The crane failed because several teeth in one of the gears of the gear train had broken loose. From substantial evidence on all three points, the trial court found (1) that plaintiff suffered damages of $1,073.35; (2) that the gear failure was due to defendant's 'negligence in improperly selecting said gears' which were 'fatigued and cracked,' and (3) that defendant in delivering the crane with a cracked and fatigued gear breached both its express and implied warranties as to quality and fitness. The court in its conclusions of law attributed plaintiff's damages to both the commission of a tort and a breach of warranty by defendant.

Because the court, as trier of the facts, had abundant evidence to support its findings, we need not look further into assignments of error directed to the facts. The surviving and, of course, overriding question concerns the jurisdiction of Washington courts over a California resident corporation arising from a contract made in California with a Washington resident for the sale and delivery of a mechanical device which failed in Washington and there produced the damages described.

Plaintiff, filing the action in Spokane County, had personal service of the summons and complaint on defendant corporation in Long Beach, California, asserting jurisdiction in Washington under RCW 4.28.185, commonly called the long-arm statute, which provides:

(1) Any person, whether or not a citizen or resident of this state, who in person or through an agent does any of the acts in this section enumerated, thereby submits said person, and, if an individual, his personal representative, to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state as to any cause of action arising from the doing of any of said acts:

(a) The transaction of any business within this state;

(b) The commission of a tortious act within this state;

(c) The ownership, use, or possession of any property whether real or personal situated in this state;

(d) Contracting to insure any person, property or risk located within this state at the time of contracting.

(2) Service of process upon any person who is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state, as provided in this section, may be made by personally serving the defendant outside this state, as provided in RCW 4.28.180, with the same force and effect as though personally served within this state.

(3) Only causes of action arising from acts enumerated herein may be asserted against a defendant in an action in which jurisdiction over him is based upon this section.

(4) Personal service outside the state shall be valid only when an affidavit is made and filed to the effect that service cannot be made within the state.

(5) In the event the defendant is personally served outside the state on causes of action...