Farmer v. Thar Process, Inc.

District Court, D. Oregon·Decided December 6, 2023·No. 1:22-cv-01076·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON

MEDFORD DIVISION

DALE FARMER; CALDERA Civ. No. 1:22-cv-01076-AA GROUP, LLC, Plaintiffs and Counterclaim Defendants, OPINION & ORDER v.

THAR PROCESS, INC.,

Defendant and Counterclaimant,

v.

PACIFIC WEST MANUFACTURING, LLC,

Counterclaim Defendant. _______________________________________

AIKEN, District Judge.

On November 21, 2023, this Court entered an order of default against Defendant Thar Process, Inc. (“Thar”) in which Thar was defaulted as to all claims against it and all of Thar’s counterclaims were dismissed. ECF No. 41. This case now comes before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Default Judgment. ECF No. 42. The Court held an evidentiary hearing on the issue of damages on December 5, 2023 at which Plaintiff Dale Farmer testified on behalf of Plaintiffs. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is GRANTED as to all claims except Plaintiffs’ claim for unjust enrichment and DENIED as to Plaintiffs’ claim for unjust enrichment. Final

judgment shall be entered accordingly. LEGAL STANDARD For purposes of default judgment, all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint, except those relating to damages are assumed to be true. Geddes v. United Fin. Grp., 559 F.2d 557, 560 (9th Cir. 1977). “The district court’s decision whether to enter a default judgment is a discretionary one.” Aldabe v. Aldabe, 616 F.2d 1089, 1092 (9th Cir. 1980).

In exercising this discretion, courts consider the factors discussed in Eitel v. McCool, 782 F.2d 1470 (9th Cir. 1986). The Eitel factors are (1) the possibility of prejudice to the plaintiff; (2) the merits of the plaintiff’s substantive claims; (3) the sufficiency of the operative complaint; (4) the sum of money at stake in the litigation; (5) the possibility of dispute over material facts; (6) whether the default was due to excusable neglect; and (7) the strong policy favoring decision on the merits. Eitel, 782

F.2d at 1471-72. The court’s analysis begins with “the general rule that default judgments are ordinarily disfavored,” and cases should be decided upon their merits whenever reasonably possible Id. at 1472 (citation omitted). BACKGROUND Plaintiffs sought to purchase a supercritical fluid extractor (“Extractor”) from Thar to extract cannabinoids from hemp plants. Farmer Decl. ¶ 3. ECF No. 42. On June 22, 2018, Plaintiffs and Thar entered into a purchase agreement (“Agreement”) describing in detail the design and quality specification of the Extractor to be manufactured and delivered by Thar to Plaintiffs. Id. at ¶ 4; Farmer Decl. Ex. 1.

ECF No. 28-2. In the Agreement, Thar warranted the proper mechanical performance of the Extractor and guaranteed that it would be free from material defects in workmanship for a period of eighteen months after start-up or two years after shipment. Farmer Decl. ¶ 5; Ex. 1, at 4. The total contract price was $2,413,000. Farmer Decl. ¶ 7. Plaintiffs paid half the purchase price before the Extractor was shipped from Thar’s facilities in Pennsylvania. Id. at ¶ 9. Thar was to deliver the Extractor by August 2018 to allow Plaintiff Caldera to

fill pending orders. Farmer Decl. ¶ 35. Thar was aware of the pending orders and the need for timely delivery. Id. Thar failed to meet the delivery date and, in breach of the Agreement, shipped the Extractor to Plaintiffs in Oregon before any representative of Plaintiffs could confirm that the Extractor was in working order. Id. at ¶ 10; Ex. 1, at 11. Plaintiffs later learned that the Extractor had not been functional at any time prior to being shipped from Pennsylvania, which is why Thar

forwent inspection prior to shipping. Farmer Decl. ¶ 40. The Extractor was not ultimately delivered to Plaintiffs until March 2019 and Plaintiffs were unable to fulfill customer orders from 2018 through early 2019. Id. at ¶¶ 37-38. Contrary to the specifications of the Agreement, Thar sourced the Extractor’s components from refurbished and mismatched equipment, which Thar employees referred to as a “Frankenstein.” Farmer Decl. ¶ 11. Contrary to the Agreement, the Extractor was made of galvanized steel, rather than the contracted-for stainless steel. Id. ¶ 41. Thar again breached the Agreement by failing to provide competent supervision for the installation and start-up of the Extractor at Plaintiff’s facility in

Oregon. Farmer Decl. ¶¶ 12, 43; Ex. 1, at 12. The documents and blueprints provided by Thar were materially inaccurate, causing additional delays. Farmer Decl. ¶ 12. When Thar representatives did eventually arrive at Plaintiff’s facility, “it became abundantly clear” that the representatives were not qualified and, even with guidance from Thar headquarters, the representatives “incorrectly wired the Extractor on several occasions.” Id. at ¶¶ 45-46. The “Frankenstein” Extractor eventually arrived at Plaintiff’s facility in

Oregon in March 2019 and Plaintiffs “immediately began experiencing significant issues with both the Extractor’s capability and reliability, necessitating constant repair and resulting in major delays in their ability to get their product to market. Farmer Decl. ¶ 13. “Thar’s refusal and/or inability to adequately supervise the installation and start-up of the Extractor—which, again, it was contractually bound to do—created legitimate safety risks to the Caldera team, resulted in significant

delays, caused facility damage (including gas releases, high-voltage electrical exposure, and fire-risk exposure) and necessitated expensive equipment rentals in order to move and position the Extractor.” Id. at ¶ 46. Plaintiffs found that, after Thar’s “haphazard and improper installation and set-up,” the Extractor “failed to meet even the most basic standards of workmanlike conditions, let alone the specifications required under the Agreement.” Farmer Decl. ¶ 47. Thar had failed to provide a 40kg/m pump, as agreed upon, and had shipped the Extractor with only a “well-worn, used 20kg/m pump,” which Thar attempted to rectify by adding a second 20kg/m pump, “fundamentally altering the specification

that the Parties had agreed upon.” Id. at ¶ 49. This alteration also required Thar to bypass the Extractor’s safety measures and alarms, unbeknownst to Plaintiffs, with the result that the Extractor ran both inefficiently and unsafely. Id. at ¶ 50. “In the initial eight months following the Extractor’s delivery and installation, it failed to run at the 40kg/min flow rate that the Plaintiffs had contracted for, and more often than not, it failed to run at all.” Id. at ¶ 48. The Extractor’s computer control system would randomly shut down the

pumps, which Thar representatives attempted to remedy by “mashing the Extractor’s on and off buttons until the pumps restarted.” Farmer Decl. ¶ 51. The Extractor’s poor construction also resulted in “significant and alarming quantities of crude oil” to be found in the Extractor’s pumps, “endangering anyone handling the Extractor.” Id. at ¶ 52. Additionally, the Extractor “did not incorporate an in-line wax mitigation device as agreed upon, drastically increasing Plaintiff’s costs as they were required

to spend more than $100,000 to purchase equipment to manually remove wax from the final product on the back end, a challenging and time-consuming task.” Id. ¶ 53.

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