Waldman Produce, Inc. v. Frigidaire Corp.

157 Misc. 438, 284 N.Y.S. 167, 1935 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1623
CourtAppellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
DecidedDecember 13, 1935
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 157 Misc. 438 (Waldman Produce, Inc. v. Frigidaire Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waldman Produce, Inc. v. Frigidaire Corp., 157 Misc. 438, 284 N.Y.S. 167, 1935 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1623 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

Cropsey, J.

The question to be determined upon this appeal, though one that must have arisen frequently, does not seem to have been considered in many reported cases.

The plaintiff was in the produce business. Desiring a refrigerator to preserve its fruits and vegetables, plaintiff advised defendant of its need, stating the temperature that the box would have to maintain in order to meet the plaintiff’s requirements. The defendant represented to the plaintiff that its refrigerator would maintain the required temperature. Belying upon this representation, plaintiff purchased the box, making a substantial payment on account. The jury has found that the refrigerator did not measure up to the defendant’s representations and did not maintain the required temperature and that as a result plaintiff lost its produce of a value found by the jury; also that plaintiff rescinded the contract and offered to return the refrigerator. Plaintiff sued upon two causes of action, one to recover the amount paid on the pinchase price, and the other the value of the produce that had been placed in the refrigerator and which was lost. The jury found for the plaintiff upon both claims. Later the trial court set aside the verdict upon the motion of the defendant, based upon the claim that plaintiff’s two causes of action were inconsistent. The question presented to us is the propriety of that riding. Are the plaintiff’s causes of action inconsistent? May the plaintiff, having rescinded the contract, recover for the loss of its produce?

The general rule is well known, namely, that upon a sale of personal property, where the goods do not measure up to the warranty, the buyer has an election either to return the goods and rescind the sale or to keep the goods and sue for damages. It is undisputed that he may not do both. It is the defendant’s claim that the plaintiff, by its two causes of action, has really sought to [440]*440enforce those two remedies. Upon the record it must be found that plaintiff did rescind the sale and that it is proceeding on that basis. Thus, plaintiff clearly is entitled to the return of the amount it had paid on account of the purchase price. The defendant does not dispute this. The controversy arises over the other cause of action, the one to recover the value of the damaged produce.

Perhaps our consideration of the question involved will be made simpler if we at the beginning point out that in neither cause of action does the plaintiff seek to recover damages because the refrigerator was wprth less than it had agreed to pay for it. Plaintiff merely seeks to recover what it had paid and the damage it sustained by the loss of its produce. The verdict which the plaintiff had would merely have placed it in statu quo. Of course, plaintiff could not recover the amount it had paid on the purchase price and also, by way of damages, the difference between what the refrigerator was worth as installed and what it would have been worth had it been as represented. Those two claims would be inconsistent. The damages referred to in the general rule above stated, which may be recovered if the goods are retained, is the difference between the value of the goods as they are and as they should be. Such damages, of course, may not be recovered where the contract has been rescinded. In such a case the buyer having rescinded and returned the goods, has not suffered any damage because of their lessened value. But again we may say that plaintiff here does not make any such claim. Besides seeking to recover the amount it had paid, plaintiff’s other claim is for the damage it suffered through the loss of its produce because the refrigerator did not maintain the proper temperature. This latter claim has no reference to the monetary value of the refrigerator as it was delivered or its value as it should have been according to the contract.

There seems to be nothing inconsistent in plaintiff’s two claims. Clearly it is not seeking double damages, which is what it would be doing if it were attempting to recover the amount paid on the purchase price as well as the difference between the value of the refrigerator as delivered and as contracted for. What plaintiff is seeking here is to be placed in the position it was in before it made the contract with the defendant. It has called the deal off by rescinding the contract and it merely asks to be made whole. The recovery of the amount paid on the price would not restore the plaintiff to the position it was in before the contract was made. Because the defendant misrepresented that the refrigerator would maintain the required temperature that would preserve the plaintiff’s produce, upon which statement the plaintiff relied, plaintiff sustained damage through the loss of its produce. To be placed in [441]*441statu quo it should recover this loss as well as the amount paid on account. That is all the plaintiff seeks and it is all that was awarded to it by the verdict.

The defendant in effect says that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the value of the produce that it lost, but that it could have such recovery only if it kept the refrigerator and did not rescind the sale and sued the defendant for whatever damages it could establish as the difference between the value of the icebox as delivered and as it should have been. Concededly had the plaintiff adopted that course and brought that kind of an action; it would have been entitled, in addition to such damages just mentioned, to recover for the loss of its produce. It seems to us that the plaintiff should be equally entitled to recover for the loss of its produce regardless of the election which it made and of the nature of the action which it brought. To hold that plaintiff must keep an icebox which it does not want and which will not be of service to it, in order to recover for the loss of produce that was put into it, seems to require something which is lacking in common sense and is not called for by any principle of law. The damage to the produce seems to have no relation to the damage which plaintiff might have established had it elected to keep the icebox.

But the defendant urges that plaintiff’s claim for the loss of its produce is based upon the warranty and as there has been a rescission there remains no warranty and so plaintiff may not maintain that claim. It seems to us, however, that the recovery of damages for such loss is not and does not have to be based upon a claim of breach of warranty. It is true that had the plaintiff elected to keep the refrigerator it might have sued the defendant for the loss of its produce on the theory that that damage resulted from the breach of the warranty. But there seem to be other grounds for recovering the same damage where the contract has been rescinded.

When the defendant represented that the refrigerator would maintain the temperature requisite to preserve plaintiff’s produce and plaintiff bought it relying upon that representation, the defendant in effect agreed to pay the plaintiff any damage that it might suffer if the refrigerator failed to maintain the required temperature and to preserve the goods. In effect the defendant assured the plaintiff that it could place its produce in the box without risking loss and impliedly agreed to make good any loss that resulted from so doing. This implied agreement survived the rescission of the main contract.

It might also be held that as the plaintiff relied on the representations of the defendant and thereby suffered loss, it would have an action based upon the defendant’s deceit to recover its damage, [442]*442aside from any question of breach of warranty.

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Bluebook (online)
157 Misc. 438, 284 N.Y.S. 167, 1935 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1623, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldman-produce-inc-v-frigidaire-corp-nyappterm-1935.