Mixter v. Mack Trucks, Inc.

308 A.2d 139, 224 Pa. Super. 313, 1973 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1903
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJune 14, 1973
DocketAppeal, No. 91
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 308 A.2d 139 (Mixter v. Mack Trucks, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mixter v. Mack Trucks, Inc., 308 A.2d 139, 224 Pa. Super. 313, 1973 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1903 (Pa. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinions

Opinion by

Jacobs, J.,

This case involves the right to indemnification between the seller of a defective chattel and one who has made repairs to such chattel where both have become liable for injury to a third party — the seller by virtue of absolute liability under §402A of the Restatement [315]*315(Second) of Torts1 and the other because of negligent repairs. The court below held that the seller was entitled to indemnification, and we affirm,.

On June 16, 1967, plaintiff purchased a used tractor from Mach Trucks, Inc., the appellee. On September 3, 1967, plaintiff removed the right front tire and rim assembly from the tractor to replace a stud. While removed, the tire and rim assembly exploded, seriously injuring the plaintiff. Plaintiff sued Mack, contending that the rim on the right front wheel assembly was defective. Prior to* the sale to plaintiff, Mack had purchased new tires and tubes for the tractor from Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., who had installed the new tubes and tires on the old rim assembly. Mack joined Montgomery Ward as an additional defendant, alleging any defect was caused or concealed by Montgomery Ward.

The case against Mack was submitted to the jury on the strict liability of a seller under §402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts and the case against Montgomery Ward was submitted on common law negligence. The jury returned a verdict against both Mack and Montgomery Ward which was paid in equal shares by both defendants. The question of indemnity was not submitted to the jury and by stipulation and court order it was agreed that the question would be submitted to the court on the record. Thereafter, Judge Silvestri for the court below awarded indemnification to Mack for one-half of the verdict or $55,000 and entered judgment for Mack against Montgomery Ward in that amount.

Mack and Montgomery Ward are joint tortfeasors, so declared by the jury. At common law, a joint tort-feasor was not entitled to indemnity, which shifts the [316]*316entire loss from one to the other; nor was he entitled to contribution, which distributes the loss among tort-feasors. Pennsylvania now allows contribution by statute.2 That statute did not affect the question of indemnity, which in Pennsylvania evolves from case law.

In Burbage v. Boiler Engineering & Supply Co., 433 Pa. 319, 249 A.2d 563 (1969), a boiler manufacturer was held entitled to indemnity from the manufacturer of a valve sold as a replacement unit for a boiler already in operation on the basis that the responsibility for discovery and prevention of the defect lay solely with the valve manufacturer. The personal injury suit against the boiler manufacturer and its suit against the valve manufacturer as additional defendant were submitted to the jury on the theory of strict liability under §4Q2A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Concerning indemnity, the Court said in its opinion: “The right of indemnity rests upon a difference between the primary and secondary liability of two persons each of whom is made responsible by law to an injured party. The right to indemnity enures to a person who, without active fault on his own part, has been compelled by reason of some legal obligation to pay damages occasioned by the negligence of another. The difference between primary and secondary liability is not based on a difference in degrees of negligence or on any doctrine of comparative negligence but rather on a difference in the character or hind of the wrongs which cause the injury and in the nature of the legal obligation owed by each of the wrongdoers to the injured person. Secondary as distinguished from primary liability rests upon a fault that is imputed or constructive only, being based on some legal obligation between the parties or arising from some positive rule [317]*317of statutory or common law or because of a failure to discover or correct a defect or remedy a dangerous condition caused by the act of the one primarily responsible. Builders Supply Co. v. McCabe, 366 Pa. 322, 77 A. 2d 368 (1951).” Id. at 326-27, 249 A.2d at 567.

For many years Pennsylvania courts have given indemnity in numerous situations absent an express contract of indemnity. Many of those situations are enumerated in Builders Supply Co. v. McCabe, 366 Pa. 322, 77 A.2d 368 (1951), a case relied upon in Burbage. We will not repeat them other than to point out the familiar cases where an employer may get indemnity from his employee when the employer has been held liable to a third person for a tort committed by his employee, and where the municipality held liable for a defective sidewalk injury may recover from the abutting property owner. In many of those cases the liability of the indemnitor to the third person is termed primary and that of the indemnitee to the third person is termed secondary. In some cases, the one receiving indemnity has been said to be guilty only of passive neglect while the other was said to have been the active wrongdoer. As times change and relations become more and more complicated, it becomes increasingly difficult to find magic words to encompass every situation. As has been said by one writer: “[T]he duty to indemnify will be recognized in cases where community opinion would consider that in justice the responsibility should rest upon one rather than the other.”3

It becomes apparent that each case must rest on its own facts. As this case was submitted to the jury, emphasis was placed on the condition of the rim There was no proof that the tire itself was defective and the count against Montgomery Ward, the seller of the tire, under §4Q2A of the Kestatement (Second) of Torts was [318]*318dropped. In determining Montgomery Ward’s negligence the jury was told to consider “the mounting of tires on the rim, the condition of the rim, the rust condition, whether proper steps were taken to remove the rust; if you consider that the rim was defective or rusty, whether or not there were procedures which should have been followed and were not followed; whether or not these conditions made it impossible for the tire to fit as it should upon the rim;. . . .” Mack’s liability was absolute if the tire-rim assembly was defective when it sold the tractor. This liability was imposed by a rule of law set out in §402A and adopted as the law of Pennsylvania in Webb v. Zern, 422 Pa. 424, 220 A.2d 853 (1966).

The appellant objects to the holding of the lower court, in granting indemnity, that Montgomery Ward created the defect — contending factually that the rim was already defective when delivered to Montgomery Ward for the installation of new tires. Without conceding that the lower court’s holding encompasses a finding that the rim was not defective when delivered to Montgomery Ward, we come to the same conclusion in either case. Whether or not the rim was defective when the tractor was delivered to Montgomery Ward, Mack’s liability arose from a rule of law. Any actual fault attributable to Mack lay in its failure to discover the defect. Montgomery Ward’s liability arose because it negligently mounted a new tire on a defective rim, thus creating a dangerous condition.

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Bluebook (online)
308 A.2d 139, 224 Pa. Super. 313, 1973 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1903, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mixter-v-mack-trucks-inc-pasuperct-1973.