Howie v. Atlantic Home Inspection, Inc.

62 Va. Cir. 164, 2003 Va. Cir. LEXIS 298
CourtNorfolk County Circuit Court
DecidedJune 17, 2003
DocketCase No. (Law) CL02-379
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 62 Va. Cir. 164 (Howie v. Atlantic Home Inspection, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Norfolk County Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Howie v. Atlantic Home Inspection, Inc., 62 Va. Cir. 164, 2003 Va. Cir. LEXIS 298 (Va. Super. Ct. 2003).

Opinion

By Judge Lydia Calvert Taylor

Plaintiff Jeff E. Howie, III, sued the inspector he had hired to inspect the house he had contracted to purchase, claiming that the home inspection was negligent in that the inspector failed to discover foundational damage of the Florida Room and that the inspector’s failure to properly inspect and report on the condition of the house constituted a breach of contract. Plaintiff also sued the inspector for breach of warranty, claiming that the inspector warranted that the house was in good structural condition despite the foundational damage under the Florida Room. Plaintiff seeks to recover $5,822.00, the cost of repair, plus attorney’s fees, and court costs. Defendant Atlantic Home Inspection seeks to distinguish the cases cited by Plaintiff, arguing that Defendant is not liable under these facts, as well as maintaining that, if Defendant were otherwise liable, he had effectively limited his liability by the wording of the contract and/or report.

The case was tried to the Court, which found the facts of the case to be as follows. Plaintiff, an appraiser and a real estate broker for more than thirty years, entered into a contract to buy 124 East Severn Road, Norfolk, Virginia; the contract allowed Plaintiff to employ his own inspector to inspect the [165]*165condition of the property prior to the closing or completion of his purchase of that property.1 Plaintiff hired Defendant to inspect the property on March 27, 2000, for which Plaintiff paid $195.00.2 Two days later, on March 29, 2000, Defendant inspected the property. His written report of the inspection failed to reflect any problems in the foundation of the Florida Room addition. After buying the property and moving in,3 Plaintiff began to notice problems with the Florida Room, including cracks in the brick skirt and in the interior walls of that room. Fie consulted with a contractor, who stated that the foundation of the Florida Room was inadequate. Plaintiff, who filed suit against Defendant inspector, claims that such problems with the foundation should have been apparent during Defendant’s inspection of the property had Defendant not failed “to perform the inspection with the standard of care required of home inspectors” and provided false representations and warranties about the condition of the Florida Room. The Court’s initial finding was that the deficiencies in the Florida Room foundation were such that a reasonably competent home inspector, meeting the standard of care in Virginia for home inspectors, should have seen and reported those deficiencies in his report. [166]*166However, that left two issues to resolve: whether the inspector was liable to the buyer, and, if so, had he effectively limited his liability by the disclaimers in the inspection contract.

Defendant’s Liability

Plaintiff Howie first cites Baird v. Dodson Brothers Exterminating Co., 217 Va. 745 (1977), for the proposition that he should be able to recover on these facts. In Baird, the plaintiff hired a termite inspection company to inspect the home in which he had resided for twenty-two years. Id. at 746. When the company’s representative discovered termite damage in the dining room, the plaintiff entered into an agreement with the company to treat the plaintiffs home for termites. Pursuant to the contract, the company promised to treat the home for subterranean termites and powder post beetles and to reinspect the home once a year, providing any retreatment necessary. Id. The contract specifically disclaimed liability for all “damages except those due to its ‘neglect’.”4 Id. The inspection report stated that the company decided not to use powder post beetle spray. Subsequently, when the plaintiff experienced severe problems with his home and called the company, the company refused to return the plaintiffs phone calls until the plaintiffs attorney called the company. Baird, 217 Va. at 747. By the time the company retreated the home, extensive damage to the house had already occurred. Id. at 748. The Virginia Supreme Court in Baird held that “mere inspection, however casual or cursory and ineffectual to disclose obvious damage, [does not] insulate [the company] from liability.” Id. at 749. If mere inspection insulated the company from liability, “[it] would reward inaction or negligent performance by [the company], and would defeat the purpose of the contract to protect Baird’s residence from further insect damage.” Id.

However, this Court finds that Baird is distinguishable in several ways from this case. First, in Baird, the plaintiff owned the residence already, in which he had resided for twenty-two years before having a termite inspection done. Here, Plaintiff did not yet own and had never lived in the residence. Second, the contract in the case at bar only required that Defendant inspect the home once; it did not require any ongoing inspections, nor, importantly, any retreatment or repair, in contrast to Baird. Third, the inspection in this case [167]*167was solely for informational purposes; it was not to be used to identity problems that Defendant would later repair. The underlying purpose of the Baird contract, in contrast, was not only to repair any damage found, but “to protect Baird’s residence from further insect damage.” Id. In the case at bar, in contrast, the purpose of the contract was solely to provide Plaintiff with information about the home he was interested in purchasing in order to inform his decision. In light of that purpose, the inspection company in this case generally fulfilled its obligation to provide information about the home, although failing to provide complete information about the foundation of one room in the home, the Florida Room. That failure does not “completely defeat the major purpose of the contract,” which was to provide information about the entire home. For all of the above reasons, Baird is distinguishable from the case at bar.

Disclaimers

Plaintiff also cites Ash v. All Star Lawn & Pest Control, 256 Va. 520 (1998), which is more on point with this case than Baird. Ash specifically dealt with buyers, not homeowners, and a termite inspection, not for the purposes of determining any retreatment or repairs needed, but for information in connection with purchasing a house. The resulting damages, as claimed in the instant case, were that the plaintiff buyers had purchased a home later discovered to be defective. In Ash, the sale of the house was contingent on the seller’s providing the plaintiffs with “an approved VA/FHA wood destroying insect report from a licensed pest control operator prior to Settlement Date showing the Property’s principal dwelling and garage to be free of visible wood destroying insect infestation with no visible unrepaired damages from said infestation.” Ash, 256 Va. at 522. The seller hired a termite inspector to examine the home. Id. The inspector examined the home, but could not fit into certain places in the home because of his large size. Id. at 523. Further, the inspector wrote “that there was evidence of treated and repaired termite damage,” but he failed to indicate the location of this damage. The plaintiffs then signed the inspector’s report, but one of the plaintiffs later stated that “she would not have signed the report if she ‘had been told there was anything wrong with it’.” Id. at 524.

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62 Va. Cir. 164, 2003 Va. Cir. LEXIS 298, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/howie-v-atlantic-home-inspection-inc-vaccnorfolk-2003.