Griebel v. Andersen Corp.

489 N.W.2d 521, 1992 Minn. LEXIS 243, 1992 WL 226372
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedSeptember 18, 1992
DocketC6-90-2322
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 489 N.W.2d 521 (Griebel v. Andersen Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Griebel v. Andersen Corp., 489 N.W.2d 521, 1992 Minn. LEXIS 243, 1992 WL 226372 (Mich. 1992).

Opinions

COYNE, Justice.

Defendants-petitioners Andersen Corporation and the Radford Company obtained review of an unpublished decision of the court of appeals reversing the judgment of dismissal of the plaintiff James Griebel, et al.’s complaint. We entertain review for the sole purpose of clarifying the scope and applicability of the 2-year statute of limitations for claims of damages or injury resulting from “defective and unsafe” improvements to real property, Minn.Stat. § 541.051 (1988), and reverse and remand to the court of appeals for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs James and Paula Griebel purchased a 5-acre parcel of Lake Superior shoreline near Lutsen, Minnesota and thereafter in January 1986 entered into a contract with Isak Hansen & Sons, Inc. for the construction of a lake home on the remains of foundational concrete left after a fire destroyed an original structure. Defendant Andersen Corporation designs, manufactures and sells windows and patio doors, and defendant Radford Company is an Andersen distributor. Hansen is an authorized retailer of Radford. At plaintiffs’ insistence, the construction specifications required the use of Andersen doors and windows and all were accordingly installed by the time the home was substantially completed in the summer of 1986. Upon [522]*522taking occupancy of the residence at that time, plaintiffs first discovered what later became a continual accumulation of “hundreds of unsightly dead flies.” They reported the problem of the entry of the flies through the patio door to the general contractor, which in turn reported to Radford. While Hansen agreed to attempt to correct the problem by replacing the weather stripping, the work was not performed until April 1988. That fall, plaintiffs again experienced the collection of cluster flies near the doors and throughout the basement. Wheii the parties were unable to agree on the proper corrective method, plaintiffs commenced this action in November 1989, seeking to recover damages on the basis that defendants negligently designed and manufactured the patio doors to allow entry of cluster flies, that they negligently failed to warn that the flies could enter the home through the doors and that they breached express and implied warranties.

On defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint on the basis that the action was time barred by operation of Minn.Stat. § 541.051 (1988), the trial court awarded summary judgment to defendants. Recognizing that there existed disputes as to whether the doors indeed caused the problem and as' to the nature and extent of plaintiffs’ claimed damages, the trial court held that the patio doors constituted improvements to real property and that the injury is claimed to have resulted in the diminution or reduction in value of the home as a result of the claimed defective door. It concluded that plaintiffs’ failure to commence this action within two years of their admitted discovery of the defective condition in the fall of 1986 was dispositive. See Wittmer v. Ruegemer, 419 N.W.2d 493 (Minn.1988).

In reversing, the court of appeals relied upon its own earlier decision in Sherbrook Co. v. E & H Earth Movers, Inc., 419 N.W.2d 818 (Minn.App.1988), pet. for rev. denied (Minn., filed April 20, 1988) to conclude that Minn.Stat. § 541.051 (1988) is inapplicable because the plaintiffs did not allege that the defective doors caused any “injury to property, real or personal, or for bodily injury or wrongful death arising out of a defective and unsafe condition.” It focused first on the apparent agreement of the parties that the entry of the flies constituted no health hazard and then on what it characterized as the plaintiffs’ limited claim in their complaint for money damages for replacement costs relative to the alleged defective patio doors.

Minn.Stat. § 541.051, subd. 1(a) (1988)1 provides in pertinent part as follows:

Except where fraud is involved, no action by any person in contract, tort, or otherwise to recover damages for any injury to property, real or personal, or for bodily injury or wrongful death, arising out of the defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property * * * shall be brought against any person performing or furnishing the design, planning, supervision, materials, or observation of construction or construction of the improvement to real property * * * more than two years after discovery of the injury. * * *

We first observe that despite the arguments of the plaintiffs to the contrary, this action centers upon an improvement to real property, namely the construction of a home and its integral parts including the patio doors. See, e.g., Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Thompson-Yaeger, Inc., 260 N.W.2d 548 (Minn.1977). Moreover, a reading of the plaintiffs’ complaint demonstrates that they seek damages, not only for the replacement costs of the patio doors as suggested by the court of appeals, but also for the loss and diminution of the market value of the home, to fall within the scope of the “injury to property, real or personal” provision of section 541.051, subd. 1(a). See Wittmer v. Ruegemer, 419 N.W.2d 493, 497 (Minn.1988). What then remains is whether the alleged injury to the property arises out of a “defective and unsafe” condition of the improvement.

[523]*523We have not had the occasion to specifically construe the phrase “defective and unsafe condition” as it appears in Minn. Stat. § 541.051 (1988), but we have used the phrase as a collective, with its individual terms often interchanged depending upon the facts or circumstances in which the statute has been invoked. See, e.g., Wittmer v. Ruegemer, 419 N.W.2d 493 (Minn.1988); Frederickson v. Alton M. Johnson Co., 402 N.W.2d 794 (Minn.1987); Bulau v. Hector Plumbing and Heating Co., 402 N.W.2d 528 (Minn.1987); Capitol Supply Co. v. City of St. Paul, 316 N.W.2d 554 (Minn.1982).

In our view, the question of whether injury to property or bodily injury or wrongful death arises out of a “defective or unsafe condition” is one which turns on the individual facts alleged in the complaint. Relying upon its own earlier decision in Sherbrook Co. v. E & H Earth Movers, Inc., 419 N.W.2d 818 (Minn.App.1988), the court of appeals appears to have narrowed the inquiry, at least with regard to the term “unsafe”, to a consideration of whether a health hazard exists, an imper-missibly restrictive inquiry. It then concluded that, since the parties here agreed that no health hazard was presented by the accumulation of large numbers of cluster flies, the condition here could not be considered both “defective” and “unsafe.”

This rationale is unsatisfactory in two respects.

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Griebel v. Andersen Corp.
489 N.W.2d 521 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1992)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
489 N.W.2d 521, 1992 Minn. LEXIS 243, 1992 WL 226372, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/griebel-v-andersen-corp-minn-1992.