American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. v. Titan Valve & Manufacturing Co.

246 F.2d 947, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 536
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJune 10, 1957
DocketNo. 13043
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 246 F.2d 947 (American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. v. Titan Valve & Manufacturing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. v. Titan Valve & Manufacturing Co., 246 F.2d 947, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 536 (6th Cir. 1957).

Opinions

OPINION

Per CURIAM.

This appeal arises out of an action for indemnity brought by plaintiff-appellant, American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation, hereinafter called American, against defendant-appellee, The Titan Valve & Manufacturing Company, hereinafter called Titan.

American, a manufacturer of radiators and heating apparatus, had [537]*537sold one of its hot-water heaters to Raymond P. Fix, and had installed it in Fix’s home in Rock Rapids, Iowa. As Fix was endeavoring to light the pilot light on the heater an explosion occurred and Fix was seriously injured. He recovered judgment against American in an action filed in the District Court of South Dakota, which was reversed in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 200 F. (2d), 529. On retrial the jury reached the same verdict as on the first trial, namely, $30,000 in favor of Fix, the plaintiff, and no appeal was taken from the second judgment.

The thermal unit in Fix’s heater had been manufactured by Titan at its factory in Cleveland, Ohio, and delivered to American at its plant in Buffalo, N. Y., where it was incorporated by American into its heater. American paid the judgment and later sued Titan for the amount of the judgment, attorneys’ fees and other expenses, claiming that Titan’s negligence caused the injury. The parties waived jury trial and the case was tried to the court.

American asserts that it is entitled to recover under an implied warranty of fitness established in §1315.16(A) R. C., which provides:

- “When the buyer, expressly or by implication, makes known to the seller the particular purpose for which the goods are required, and it appears that the buyer relies on the seller’s skill or judgment, whether he is the grower or manufacturer or not, there is an implied warranty that the goods shall be reasonably fit for such purpose.”

American also relies on the Restatement of the Law of Torts, the Restatement of the Law of Restitution, page 407, Section 93(1), which provides:

“Where a person has supplied to another a chattel which because of the supplier’s negligence or other fault is dangerously defective for the use for which it is supplied and both have become liable in tort to a third person injured by such use, the supplier is under a duty to indemnify the other for expenditures properly made in discharge of the claim of the third person, if the other used or disposed of the chattel in reliance upon the supplier’s care and if, as between the two, such reliance was justiable.”

The District Court found that American did not rely on Titan’s skill or judgment, that it would not have been justified in relying on Titan’s skill or judgment, that American was negligent in not detecting the defect in the pilot valve and entered judgment for defendant, dismissing the complaint.

The principal ground for the court’s decision on the question of American’s reliance on Titan’s skill or judgment was that American, which over a long period had purchased thermal units from Titan for its heaters, after receiving the units from Titan, without exception checked them in an elaborate series of tests. All damaged cartons received from Titan were immediately checked. Spot checks were made of all other thermal units and every thermal unit incorporated in a heater was subjected to an extended functional test devised to determine whether the heater operated properly. The supervisory employees of American testified that no heater was sent out without being subjected to this functional test. American’s witnesses testified that the purpose of the functional test was [538]*538to determine, among other things, whether the pilot valve would function and would automatically shut off the flow of gas to the burners when the pilot light was out. In the course of these tests many defective units wm'j ciRKo/v-reu and at once rejected and Titan accepted such rejection without question.

The particular thermal unit which caused the injury to Fix was tested ty Professor Lee J. Amidon of South Dakota State College, an expert for American, who concluded that the defect which caused the explosion was due to faulty adjustment. This test was made without unsealing the paivs. Later, after disassembling the parts, Amidon determined that the íaulty, adjustment which prevented the safety valve from stopping the flow of gas to the main burner when the pilot was off, was due to improper calibration. The actual defect in calibration could not be ascertained by visual inspection of the unit. For that purpose the sealed portion of the thermostat of the safety valve had to be opened and the parts examined. However, if a safety pilot is improperly adjusted so that gas can flow to the burners when the pilot light is out, that fact is easily discovered by simple tests. This was in substance the testimony of American’s witnesses and was the specific conclusion of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corporation v. Fix, supra, 200 F. (2d), 536. The fact that the safety pilot was improperly adjusted was also discoverable by American’s functional test. As American’s chief inspector testified, “We designed the test on our tank to make sure that our unit was an operating unit.” He said that the valve “functioned in that we tested it for its ability to shut off itself, that no gas would flow through it when it was not supposed to. * * *”

While American employed printed tags which it attached to its heaters bearing the statement that the safety pilot was properly calibrated at the factory, the court considered it a fair inference that American made this statement in reliance upon its own and not upon Titan’s tests.

The jury in the South Dakota case, in answer to special interrogatories, found that the safety valve which caused the injury was defective at the time it reached American’s factory at Buffalo, N. Y. It also found that the same defect existed at the time the safety valve left American’s factory. These special findings were incorporated in and made a part of the second judgment entered by the District Court of South Dakota, from which no appeal was taken.

American contends that since its overall test of the heater is functional and since this test does not open the sealed unit of the safety valve, it could not have discovered improper calibration and thus could not have located the particular defect in the safety pilot involved. However, Amidon testified in substance that a test similar to the one he made, by connecting the gas, turning it on, lighting it, heating it, letting it cool off, and turning the gas on again, would have revealed that the gas continued to flow, that this unit was not functioning, that the safety valve was not serving the purpose for which it was intended and in that condition was not fit for the intended purpose. By thus making a simple test which did not involve the opening of the sealed unit, Amidon determined that the unit did not function properly and was not properly adjusted.

[539]*539In view of the fact that American regularly and systematically inspected Titan’s valves and rejected them in large numbers, we conclude that the findings of the District Court are not clearly erroneous. It is a reasonable inference from the record, based upon substantial evidence, that American in assemblying its heater failed to rely upon Titan’s skill or judgment, but relied upon its own tests.

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104 N.W.2d 607 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1960)

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Bluebook (online)
246 F.2d 947, 76 Ohio Law. Abs. 536, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-radiator-standard-sanitary-corp-v-titan-valve-manufacturing-ca6-1957.