Page 1
Court of Appeal:
Distributor Liable for Dealer’s Error in Assembling Product
Justice Raphael Declares That Holding Is Based on 1964 California Supreme Court Decision; Dissenting,
Justice Menetrez Argues That Majority Is Extending Strict Liability in a Manner That Is Unprecedented
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A distributor that sells a nondefective unassembled product that is negligently assembled by a dealer can be held liable for injuries incurred by a user of the product, Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday in a 2-1 decision.
Justice Michael J. Raphael authored the majority opinion in which Acting Presiding Justice Art W. McKinister joined. Justice Frank J. Menetrez wrote a concurring and dissenting opinion, in which he maintained:
“The majority opinion creates a sweeping new rule of tort liability that has no basis in California law.
He insisted:
“[A] manufacturer or distributor’s nondelegable duty to produce or sell a nondefective product is fully discharged if the product is nondefective when it leaves the manufacturer’s or distributor’s possession. There is simply no legal basis for the majority opinion’s contrary conclusion.”
Supreme Court Decision
Raphael drew his contrary conclusion from the California Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 decision in Vandermark v. Ford Motor Co. There, Justice Roger Traynor (later chief justice) wrote for a unanimous court that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge erred in granting a nonsuit in favor of Ford in a personal injury action based on injuries incurred in an accident as the result of a defect in a new car purchased by plaintiff Chester Vandermark from Maywood Bell Ford.
Ford noted that the car had passed through two dealers before Vandermark bought it and that May Bell made alterations to it, disclaiming responsibility for the vehicle after it left the factory.
Traynor noted that Ford “does not deliver cars to its dealers that are ready to be driven away by the ultimate purchasers but relies on its dealers to make the final inspections, corrections, and adjustments necessary to make the cars ready for use,” declaring:
“Since Ford, as the manufacturer of the completed product, cannot delegate its duty to have its cars delivered to the ultimate purchaser free from dangerous defects, it cannot escape liability on the ground that the defect in Vandermark’s car may have been caused by something one of its authorized dealers did or failed to do.”
The jurist added that because Vandermark and his sister—a passenger in the car when the accident occurred—”introduced or offered substantial evidence that the defect was caused by some negligent conduct for which Ford was responsible, the trial court also erred in granting a nonsuit on the causes of action by which plaintiffs sought to establish that Ford was liable for negligence.”
Raphael’s Opinion
In yesterday’s opinion, Raphael said that plaintiff Chad Defries, who was injured while riding a Yamaha dirt bike his wife purchased for him as a gift from Langston Motorsports, had been entitled to a jury instruction he sought, and which Riverside Superior Court Judge Kira L. Klatchko declined to give. Defries wanted the jury to be told that that any negligence on the part of Langston would be imputed to Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A., the U.S. distributor of the bike.
That instruction should have been given and the withholding of it was prejudicial, the justice determined, saying that Klatchko therefore abused his discretion in declining to grant a new trial after the jury found in favor of Yamaha.
The opinion—which treats the distributor in Defries’s case to be on the same footing as the manufacturer in Vandermark—reverses the judgment in favor of Yamaha on a cause of action for negligence, but affirms the judgment as to other footing causes of action.
“[I]f Langston Motorsports had negligently assembled Defries’s dirt bike, then Yamaha would be liable as a matter of law,” Raphael said, proclaiming the proposition to be grounded on “applicable, binding precedent.”
He pointed to “Vandermark’s statement that the nondelegable duty of a product manufacturer (here, a distributor) to deliver to the consumer a defect-free product means it cannot ‘escape liability on the ground that the defect...may have been caused by something one of its authorized dealers did or failed to do.’ ”
Langston Was ‘Agent’
Yamaha argued that there was no showing that Langston was its “agent.” Raphael responded:
“Vandermark requires the conclusion that an ‘authorized dealer’ acts as the manufacturer’s agent by allowing liability when the dealer ‘make[s] the final inspections, corrections, and adjustments necessary to make the [vehicles] ready for use.’…Consequently, Langston Motorsports’ agency for purposes of delivering a properly assembled dirt bike to the customer was established as a matter of law once Defries showed that Langston Motorsports was Yamaha’s authorized dealer and assembled the dirt bike.”
He added that Vandermark “would not necessarily create liability for a manufacturer that sold a product to an entity other than an authorized dealer charged with assembling the product for sale to a customer….”
Although the California Supreme Court in Vandermark imposed strict liability on the seller of a product that was negligently manufactured, Maywood Bell, the issue presented in the appeal acted upon yesterday was whether a manufacturer or distributor is liable for a dealer’s negligence, and Menetrez agued that the majority erred in answering the question in the affirmative.
Dissenter’s View
Menetrez protested:
“The majority opinion holds that it can be a tort to sell a nondefective product. According to the majority opinion, if a distributor sells a partially unassembled product to a dealer and the dealer negligently assembles it, thereby rendering it dangerous, then the distributor is vicariously liable for the dealer’s negligence even if the product was in no way defective when it left the distributor’s hands—it was not defectively designed or manufactured, there was nothing wrong with selling it partially unassembled, there was nothing wrong with the assembly instructions, and so on. The distributor did nothing but sell a nondefective product, and yet the distributor is liable in tort. That is not and never has been the law.”
He observed that the majority’s conclusion was predicated entirely on Vandermark, and commented:
“In the 58 years since Vandermark was decided, not a single published opinion of any California appellate court has interpreted it in the manner adopted by the majority opinion. That is unsurprising, because Vandermark has nothing to do with holding a distributor liable for a dealer’s negligence. The jury in Vandermark found that the dealer was not negligent, and that finding was affirmed….Thus, there was no dealer negligence for which another party could be held liable. The majority opinion discusses Vandermark for pages but never mentions that critical fact.”
By contrast, Raphael’s opinion says “there was substantial evidence that Langston Motorsports negligently assembled Defries’s dirt bike.”
‘Bombshell’ Decision
Menetrez remarked that if Vandermark actually “held that a manufacturer is liable for a dealer’s negligence, then that holding would have been a bombshell.” He continued:
“Reactions to that holding—both positive and negative—would have been swift, shrill, and numerous, and case after case would have cited Vandermark for the remarkable proposition that selling a nondefective product can be a tort. But there was no such reaction, and no published California appellate decision before today has cited Vandermark for the proposition that a manufacturer or distributor who sells a nondefective product is vicariously liable for a retailer’s negligence.”
The case is Defries v. Yamaha Motor Corporation, 2022 S.O.S. 5446.
Defries was represented by Barbara M. Sharp and James Arthur Morris Jr. of the Morris Law Firm in Burbank. Arguing for Yamaha were Todd Eric Lundell of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP’s Costa Mesa office and Daniel S. Rodman and Jing (Jenny) Hua of Snell & Wilmer L.L.P., also in Costa Mesa.
Copyright 2022, Metropolitan News Company