Virginia Federal Court Sorts Through Summary Judgment Rulings In Alleged Defective Engine Case
The block heater in a fire truck’s engine allegedly failed while the truck was parked in a Virginia fire house, and electricity running through the block heater arced, shorted, and started a fire that caused significant damages to the fire house. The fire department brought suit against multiple defendants, including Company A, the manufacturer of the cab and chassis, which included the block heater that was part of the engine sold to Company A by Company B. Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia granted summary judgment to Company A on some of the claims asserted against it.
When Company A sold the cab and chassis to the fire truck manufacturer (Company C), Company A disclaimed a limited warranty in all caps that read, “NO WARRANTIES ARE GIVEN BEYOND THOSE DESCRIBED HEREIN. THIS WARRANTY IS IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. THE COMPANY SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ALL OTHER REPRESENTATIONS TO THE USER/PURCHASER, AND ALL OTHER OBLIGATIONS AND LIABILITIES.” Under Virginia law, to effectively disclaim implied warranties, a written disclaimer must be “conspicuous” and with respect to the implied warranty of merchantability, must expressly reference merchantability. In this case, the court determined that this disclaimer sufficiently disclaimed all implied warranties when it sold the cab and chassis to the truck manufacturer, and granted summary judgment on all implied warranty claims (the court found the disclaimer conspicuous because in a two-page document, it was set off by a bolded heading reading “Disclaimer” and it was in all capital letters).
The court, however, denied summary judgment to Company A on the plaintiff’s products liability and design defect claims. Under Virginia law, a product can be found to be unreasonably dangerous if it is “unaccompanied by adequate warnings concerning its hazardous properties” and the court found that it was within the jury’s province to determine whether the heater was “unreasonably dangerous” given the absence of warnings regarding ground fault circuit interrupter protection. Similarly, the court concluded that the plaintiff had enough evidence of an alternative safer design to send the design defect claim to the jury.
