Gantes v. Kason Corp.

651 A.2d 503, 278 N.J. Super. 473, 1993 N.J. Super. LEXIS 954
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
DecidedNovember 16, 1993
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 651 A.2d 503 (Gantes v. Kason Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gantes v. Kason Corp., 651 A.2d 503, 278 N.J. Super. 473, 1993 N.J. Super. LEXIS 954 (N.J. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

BEGLIN, A.J.S.C.

On February 27, 1991, Graciela Gonzalez, a resident of Gaines-ville, Georgia, was employed at the Dutch Quality House, a food processing plant in Gainesville. It is alleged that while working on a shaker machine used to separate chicken parts, she was struck in the head by one of the machine’s moving parts, causing her death.

Kason Corporation, the defendant, is a New Jersey corporation with its principal place of business in Linden, New Jersey. It manufactured the machine in question, a 48" Kason Vibroscreen, and sold it to Salvo Corporation, of Fall River, Massachusetts, for shipment to Synder’s Potato Chips, of Berlin, Pennsylvania in 1977. Snyder sometime after April 1985 sold the machine to Otto Cuyler Associates, who in turn sold it to Dutch Quality House. There is some question as to whether Kason manufactured the machine at its New Jersey plant or at its facility in Champlain, New York, as the Order itself is stamped “Received, September 9, [476]*4761977, Kason Corporation, Champlain, N.Y.”, but all subsequent documentation including order confirmation from both buyer and seller, and shipment instructions and order appear to have issued from the New Jersey facility. For purposes of this motion, the Court will assume the machine was manufactured by Kason in New Jersey. It should be noted, however, that the machine appears to bear a serial number with the prefix KC, indicating according to defendant that the place of manufacture was Champlain, New York.

Defendant has moved for dismissal of the complaint on conflict of laws and forum non conveniens grounds. Because the motion introduces facts outside the pleadings, it is to be treated as one for summary judgment. R. 4:6-2.

The parties agree that if this action were instituted in Georgia, it would be subject to that jurisdiction’s 10 year statute of repose:

No action shall be commenced ... with respect to any injury after ten year’s from the date of the first sale for use ... of the personal property causing or otherwise bringing about the injury. O.C.G.A 51 — 1—11(b)(2).

By its terms, the statute applies to a product liability action such as this, and the period of repose commences to run when the manufactured item is placed in the stream of commerce. Thorpe v. Robert F. Bullock, Inc., 179 Ga.App. 867, 348 S.E.2d 55 (1986) affd. 256 Ga. 744, 353 S.E.2d 340 (1987). Here, the vibroscreen was shipped to Snyder’s Potato Chips on November 1, 1977, more than ten years before plaintiffs decedent sustained her injuries. Clearly, if this motion is granted, plaintiff is barred from instituting a comparable negligence and strict liability action in Georgia. Hatcher v. Allied Products Corp., 796 F.2d 1427 (11th Cir.1986), LFE Corp. v. Edenfield, 187 Ga.App. 785, 371 S.E.2d 435 (1988).

In Heavner v. Uniroyal, Inc., 63 N.J. 130, 305 A.2d 412 (1973), a case not unlike this, residents of North Carolina brought suit in New Jersey for injuries sustained in an accident in North Carolina allegedly caused by a defective tire manufactured by a New Jersey company which was on a truck trailer purchased by the [477]*477plaintiff in North Carolina. At the time of commencement of the action, the applicable North Carolina statute of limitations had expired and any action in that state was barred. By bringing the action in New Jersey, the plaintiffs raised the choice of law question of whether New Jersey as the forum state should apply its statute of limitations or that of North Carolina. The Court decided “to discard the mechanical rule that the limitations law of this state must be employed in every suit on a foreign cause of action.”

We need go no further now than to say that when the cause of action arises in another state, the parties are all present in and amenable to the jurisdiction of that state, New Jersey has no substantial interest in the matter, the substantive law of the foreign state is to be applied, and its limitation period has expired at the time suit is commenced here, New Jersey will hold the suit barred. In essence, we will “borrow” the limitations law of the foreign state. Id. at 141, 305 A2d 412.

It is interesting to observe that in footnote 3 the Supreme Court stated “we do not believe that New Jersey has any sufficient interest in this action to call for the application of its substantive law in preference to that of North Carolina under ... governmental interest choice-of-law principles ... Our only possible interest is that Uniroyal, a national company, is incorporated here and that is not enough ... All other interests are North Carolina’s.” Id. at 135, 305 A2d 412.

The question here is whether New Jersey has any “substantial interest” in this matter, and in that regard it is appropriate to bear in mind what has often been stated by our Supreme Court:

At the outset of our analysis we accept as fundamental the notion that the essence of our civil laws is to achieve justice and, in so doing, provide redress for wrongful injury ... As the United States Supreme Court has recognized recently, this great impulse of our law applies with special force in the tort area where “... over the centuries the common law ... has developed a set of rules to implement the principle that a person should be compensated fairly for injuries caused by the violation of his legal rights.” Merenoff v. Merenoff, 76 N.J. 535 at 547, 388 A.2d 951 (1978).

This principle, in cases such as this, is intended to protect the interests of residents of the forum not the foreign state, or as was [478]*478expressed in Pine v. Eli-Lilly & Co., 201 N.J.Super. 186, 492 A.2d 1079 (App.Div.1985):

New Jersey’s overriding and predominant governmental interest in compensating domiciliaries for injuries caused by the tortious conduct of others (is) alone sufficient to apply our statute of limitations. Id. at 190, 492 A 2d 1079.

However, “New Jersey has no interest in protecting the compensation rights of a non-domiciliary resident.” Deemer v. Silk City Textile Mach. Co., 193 N.J.Super. 643 at 649, 475 A.2d 648 (App.Div.1984). When that “predominant” interest is not present, then, when the injured party is not a New Jersey resident, what governmental interest would dictate New Jersey apply its substantive law, which contains no period of repose,, rather than the statute of the place where injury occurred? The Appellate Division in Pine indicated in a statute of limitations context that this is a qualitative rather than a quantitative analysis, not a mechanical counting of the factual contacts with each respective state. “Only contacts which are likely to promote valid state policies are considered relevant.” Henry v.

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Related

Gantes v. Kason Corp.
679 A.2d 106 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1996)

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Bluebook (online)
651 A.2d 503, 278 N.J. Super. 473, 1993 N.J. Super. LEXIS 954, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gantes-v-kason-corp-njsuperctappdiv-1993.