McPherson+v+Buick+Motor+Co.


 * NB: Anja thinks this was misclassifed by Adams (or Van Praagh) as "commentary" when it is in fact a case...

1916, NY Court of Appeal

Facts:** Buick Motor Co. sold a car to a retail dealer, which in turn sold the car to MacPherson. One of the wheels was of defective wood and the car collapsed and the passenger was thrown out and injured. The wheel was bought by Buick from another manufacturer. The defects could have been discovered by Buick by reasonable inspection, but inspection was omitted. Buick did not know about the defective wheel, so it is a claim in negligence rather than fraud.


 * Issue:** Did Buick owe a duty of care to anyone but the immediate purchaser?
 * Held:** YES, Buick is liable in negligence.

//- Thomas v. Winchester// (a poison falsely labeled was sold to a druggist who sold it to a customer) had the ratio: manufacturers __of inherently dangerous objects__ are liable to injured consumers. - The rule extended in //Devlin v. Smith// (a contractor built a scaffold for a painter and the scaffold broke) and in //Statler v. Ray Mfg. Co.// (a coffee urn exploded) to objects that are __not inherently destructive instruments, unless improperly constructed__. "If the nature of a thing is such that it is reasonably certain to place life and limb in peril when negligently made, it is then a thing of danger." (CB, 24) - "Whenever one person supplies goods or machinery ... for the purpose of their being used by another person under such circumstances that every one of ordinary sense would, if he thought, recognize at once that unless he used ordinary care and skill with regard to the condition of the thing supplied, or the mode of supplying it, there will be danger of injury to the person or property of him for whose use the thing is supplied, and who is to use it, a duty arises to use ordinary care and skill as to the condition or manner of supplying such thing" (CB, 23) - Where there is neglect of such ordinary care, the appropriate remedy is an action for negligence. - The right to enforce this liability is not to be confined to the immediate buyer. "If...there is added knowledge that the thing will be used by persons other than the purchaser, and used without new tests, then, irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully." (CB, 24) - The proximity and remoteness of the relation is a thing to be considered. Here we are dealing with a manufacturer of a finished product, who puts it on the market to be used without inspection by his customers. - The manufacturer who sells the automobile to the retail dealer invites the dealer's customers to use it. There is nothing anomalous in a rule that imposes upon A, who has contracted with B, a duty to C and D according to whether he knows or does not know that the subject-matter of the contract is intended for their use.
 * Majority (Cardozo J.):**

Precedent says there is an absence of any liability for negligence on the part of the original vendor of an ordinary car to any one except his immediate vendee.
 * Dissent (Willard Bartlett C.J.):**

Anja's favourite quote: ♫ "A large coffee urn may have within itself, if negligently made, the potency of danger, yet no one thinks of it as an implement whose normal function is destruction."