K & M ENTERPRISES v. Richland Equipment Co.

700 So. 2d 921, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 2269, 1997 WL 592503
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 19, 1997
Docket96 CA 2292
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 700 So. 2d 921 (K & M ENTERPRISES v. Richland Equipment Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
K & M ENTERPRISES v. Richland Equipment Co., 700 So. 2d 921, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 2269, 1997 WL 592503 (La. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

700 So.2d 921 (1997)

K & M ENTERPRISES OF SLAUGHTER, INC.
v.
RICHLAND EQUIPMENT CO., INC.

No. 96 CA 2292.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

September 19, 1997.

*922 Ronnie J. Berthelot, Baton Rouge, for Plaintiff/Appellant K & M Enterprises of Slaughter, Inc.

David M. Lefeve, G. Allen Walsh, Baton Rouge, for Defendant/Appellee Richland Equipment Co., Inc.

Before CARTER, WHIPPLE and FOGG, JJ.

CARTER, Judge.

This is an appeal from a trial court judgment granting a peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription and dismissing with prejudice a suit for damages based on an alleged failure to properly repair a tractor.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff, K & M Enterprises of Slaughter, Inc. ("K & M"), owned a John Deere 4630 tractor which it used in farming operations. When K & M began experiencing problems with the tractor, its president, Mike Naquin ("Naquin"), contacted defendant, Richland Equipment Co., Inc. ("Richland"), a Mississippi corporation, to repair it. On March 16, 1992, a representative of Richland came to Louisiana to inspect the tractor and then took it to Richland's place of business in Mississippi to make the repairs. When the tractor still did not work properly, K & M called Richland a second time to repair the tractor. This second repair effort by Richland took place on March 23, 1992. When K & M continued to experience problems with the tractor, it again contacted Richland to repair the tractor. Richland's third and final repair attempt took place on June 12, 1992. K & M paid a total of $4,689.06 for Richland's repair efforts. It is not disputed by K & M that even after the third repair attempt by Richland, the tractor was not working properly. However, Richland refused to make additional repair attempts on the tractor.

Subsequently, on August 31, 1994, K & M brought the tractor to Moreauville Tractor and Implement Co., Inc. ("Moreauville") for repair of the problems K & M was experiencing with the tractor. Moreauville was also unable to fix the tractor, but K & M paid the alleged $3,155.52 cost of the repair attempt. Miller-Penniman ("Miller") became the next entity to attempt to repair the tractor. On April 28, 1995, Miller successfully repaired the tractor. The areas of the tractor repaired by Miller were similar to the areas of the tractor that Richland had attempted to repair. K & M paid Miller $7,061.22 for its repair work.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 6, 1996, K & M filed a petition against Richland seeking $14,905.81 for Richland's failure to properly repair the tractor. This amount represented the cost of the repairs paid by K & M to Richland, Moreauville and Miller. In the petition, K & M alleged that the work performed by Miller and Moreauville would not have been necessary had Richland properly repaired the tractor in the first instance. Additionally, K & M alleged that Miller determined that Richland's work was improperly done and caused more damage to the tractor. K & M further alleged that it was not until Miller repaired the tractor that K & M learned that Richland had performed improper repair work which caused damage to K & M's tractor. In its prayer for relief, K & M sought reimbursement of the total sum paid to Richland for repairs to the tractor, as well as damages in the amount of the cost of repairs paid by K & M to Moreauville and Miller.

Richland responded by filing a peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription. In its memorandum supporting the prescription exception, Richland argued that K & M's action was in tort; thus, the one year liberative prescriptive period of LSA-C.C. *923 art. 3492[1] applied to determine if the suit was timely filed. Richland contended that based on the allegations in the petition, the prescriptive period commenced on June 12, 1992, and K & M's cause of action prescribed in June 1993. Since K & M's petition was not filed until February 6, 1996, Richland argued that it was not timely.

K & M filed a response to Richland's peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription, in which it asserted that K & M properly pleaded facts to establish a breach of contract to repair the tractor. In the alternative, K & M contended that the one year prescriptive period of LSA-C.C. art. 3492 had not run because K & M did not know, nor could it reasonably have known, of the cause of the problems with the tractor until Miller completed its repairs to the tractor in April 1995. Since the petition was filed within one year of the completion of Miller's repairs, K & M asserted that its suit was timely.

Richland filed a response brief to K & M's opposition to the prescription exception. In this response brief, Richland argued that the allegations of K & M's petition only asserted a cause of action in tort, not in contract. As to K & M's alternative argument regarding the commencement of the one year prescriptive period, Richland contended that prescription began to run at the latest, on August 31, 1994, the date on which K & M brought the tractor to Moreauville for repairs.

A hearing was held on the peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription on June 24, 1996. At the hearing, the court allowed Naquin to testify as to facts that pertained to when prescription commenced and whether it had been interrupted or suspended. However, Naquin was not allowed to testify as to facts that were pertinent to a determination of whether the cause of action was in tort or in contract. Subject to these limitations, Naquin testified that Richland had made three separate attempts to repair the tractor, the last of which was in June 1992. During the two years after Richland's final repair attempt, K & M continually had problems with the tractor and requested that Richland make additional repairs. However, Richland refused and ultimately told Naquin to stay away from its place of business. This refusal prompted K & M to let Moreauville try to repair the tractor in August 1994.

Thomas Denton ("Denton"), Miller's assistant shop foreman and the person who repaired the tractor, also testified at the hearing. According to Denton, the problem he discovered with the tractor was not something about which a person with Naquin's knowledge should have known.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court granted the peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription. The trial court determined that the petition did not contain any allegations of a breach of contract and that the cause of action set forth in the petition was one in tort. Accordingly, it applied the one year liberative prescriptive period of LSA-C.C. art. 3492. It further found that based on the petition and the testimony elicited at the hearing, K & M knew there was a problem with the tractor after Richland's final repair effort in June 1992, yet failed to take any action on the problem until April 28, 1995. Consequently, the cause of action asserted in the petition had prescribed by the time the petition was filed.

A judgment granting the peremptory exception pleading the objection of prescription and dismissing K & M's claims against Richland with prejudice was signed on June 26, 1996. K & M appeals from the judgment raising the following assignments of error:

1. The trial court erred in failing to find that the petition stated a cause of action in contract.
2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
700 So. 2d 921, 1997 La. App. LEXIS 2269, 1997 WL 592503, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/k-m-enterprises-v-richland-equipment-co-lactapp-1997.