Ketterer v. Armour & Co.

247 F. 921, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1715
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedDecember 11, 1917
DocketNo. 11
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 247 F. 921 (Ketterer v. Armour & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ketterer v. Armour & Co., 247 F. 921, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1715 (2d Cir. 1917).

Opinion

ROGERS, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). This is not an action upon a contract either express or implied. The basis of 1 lie complaint is the negligence of the defendant, and the action is in tort. It is alleged that the defendant negligently failed to perform its duty to make or cause to be made certain inspections for the discovery or detection of certain infection, disease, or parasites in the carcasses of hogs so that such carcasses might be eliminated from those sold for human consumption as food, or from tiróse used in the pre-; pared food products sold for human consumption. It is also alleged that it failed to have a certain food product, the laclishiukens, which it prepared, sold, and caused to be transported in interstate commerce, thoroughly cured, and thereby imperiled and endangered the life and health of the plaintiff, a consumer thereof.

A Icclishiiiken is made up of two or more loins of pork put up in a casing in the form of a heavy bologna, and is cured and smoked and sold to the trade as a prepared food ready for consumption. It was not sold to the plaintiff, but to one Heimerdinger in whose family she was employed as a domestic. Heimerdinger purchased the product from a dealer who purchased it from defendant. The members of Heimerdiuger’s family, including the plaintiff, partook of it, and all who partook of it became seriously ill. The disease was diagnosed by the physicians as trichinosis, the nature of the disease being determined, not merely upon objective symptoms, but upon a scientific blood test, which proved unmistakably the character of the disease. Trichinosis is a disease that can be contracted only by eating pork or ham from hogs infected with a certain parasite known as trichinae. The claim is that the laclishiukens which the plaintiff ate were infected with trichinae, and that flic defendant is responsible, as it put them on the market and sold them without making the necessary examination to determine whether the pork was infected with trichinae.

[1] One of the absolute rights which every person possesses and is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it, is that of personal security, which consists in a person’s legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, Ills limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation; and-more specifically as to the right to health Blackstone defines it as the right to “the preservation of a man’s health from such practices as may prejudice or annoy it.” 1 Blackstone, p. 134. It is elementary that every wrongful violation of a right of personal security which causes damage gives rise to a liability to make compensation for the damage done, and is a tort. In the present case the action is not based on any contract for no privity of contract exists between plaintiff and defendant. The plaintiff bought nothing from defendant, and bought: nothing from the dealer to whom defendant sold the product which he bad prepared. But that fact does not necessarily preclude a right of recovery under the circumstances of this case.

Blackstone in his Commentaries, vol. 3, p. 165, says that in contracts for provisions it is always implied that they are wholesome, and that if they be not, an action on the case lies for deceit. In referring to this it is said in American & English Encyclopedia of Law, vol. 15, p. 1237, that:

[924]*924“No authority is cited for this proposition, and it is believed that the English cases support the rule that at common law there is no implied warranty of quality, fitness, or wholesomeness in the sale of provisions, even when sold by a dealer for immediate domestic use, except in cases where such warranty would be implied from the facts and circumstances of the sale, independently of the fact that the thing sold was an article for domestic consumption.”

In 35 Cyc. 406, the statement is that:

“There is no implied warranty of the quality of provisions when they are sold merely as merchandise, as for instance when the articles are sold to a middleman, or are sold to a dealer for the purpose of resale, especially where the seller himself is not a regular dealer, it being held that in such transactions the rule of caveat emptor applies. The rule prevails even when the seller knows that the buyer intends to resell to the consumer. But there is at least a warranty that the articles shall be merchantable. It is, however, the general rule that where the sale is for immediate consumption there is an implied warranty that the food is wholesome and fit for the purpose, irrespective of the seller’s knowledge of defects therein.”

[2] The g'eneral rule of the common law is undoubtedly that upon a sale of goods, if there be no1 express warranty of the quality of the goods sold and no fraud, the maxim caveat emptor applies, and no warranty is implied by law. Howard v. Emerson, 110 Mass. 320, 14 Am. Rep. 608. It was contended in that case that when articles of food are sold for immediate domestic use, the general rule does not apply, and that there is an implied warranty or representation that they are sound and fit for food. The court said:

“But we think that this exception, if established, does not extend beyond the case of a dealer who sells provisions directly to the consumer for domestic use. In such cases it may be reasonable to infer a tacit understanding, which enters into the contract, that the provisions are sound. The relation of the buyer to the seller and the circumstances of the sale may raise the presumption that the seller impliedly represents them to 'be sound. But the same reasons are not applicable to the case of one dealer selling to another dealer; and we think the rule is settled that in the sale of provisions, in the course of general commercial transactions, the maxim caveat emptor applies, and there is no implied warranty or representation of quality or fitness. Emerson v. Brigham, 10 Mass. 197 [6 Am. Dec. 109]; Winsor v. Lombard, 18 Pick. [Mass.] 57; Hart v. Wright, 17 Wend. [N. Y.] 267; Wright v. Hart, 18 Wend. [N. Y.] 449; Moses v. Mead, 1 Denio [N. Y.] 378, [43 Am. Dec. 676]; Burnby v. Bollett, 16 M. & W. 644.”

In Craft v. Parker, 96 Mich. 245, 55 N. W. 812, 21 L. R. A. 139 (1893), the court held that a keeper of a meat market is bound to use due care to see that the meats sold are fit for human consumption, and he impliedly warrants that they are fit for the purpose for which they are sold, and if he sells food that is dangerous to those who eat it he is liable for the consequences if he knew it to be dangerous or by proper care could have known of its condition.

In Wiedeman v. Keller, 171 Ill. 93, 98, 49 N. E. 210, 211 (1897) the court said:

“As a general rule, we think the decided weight of authority in the United States is that in all sales of meats or provisions for immediate domestic use by a retail dealer there is an implied warranty of fitness and wholesomeness for consumption. There is, however, no implied warranty of soundness or wholesomeness arising from the sale of meats or provisions to a dealer or middleman who buys on the market, not for consumption, but for sale to others. Nor would there be any liability, in a sale for immediate domestic use, [925]*925where the vendor was not a regular dealer.

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Bluebook (online)
247 F. 921, 1917 U.S. App. LEXIS 1715, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ketterer-v-armour-co-ca2-1917.