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Russell v. Deere & Co.1/29/2003
damage. We concluded that the complaint, which alleged damage in the form of the physical destruction of the plaintiffs' property, was adequate to state a product liability claim. In Gladhart, the defendants sold the plaintiffs grape plants for their vineyard that were guaranteed to be free of a microscopic aphid known to kill grape vines. The plaintiffs later discovered that their vineyard had become infested with aphids that allegedly had been introduced by the defendants' plants. 164 Or App at 440. The plaintiffs brought a claim against the defendants under ORS 30.920, alleging that the grape plants were "unreasonably dangerous to the Plaintiffs' property * * * in that [the aphid infestation] has started, and will cause, the eventual death of all the Plaintiffs' grape vines." Id. at 450. We concluded that the plaintiffs alleged sufficient facts in their complaint--viz., that the infested grape plants would in time cause the death of the plaintiffs' entire vineyard--to establish that the plants posed an unreasonable danger to the other plants in the vineyard. Id. at 454.
In combination, Brown and Gladhart establish that mere economic loss unaccompanied by physical injury to property will not suffice for a product liability claim but physical destruction of, or perhaps other significant physical injury to, the property will. Here, plaintiff alleged and presented evidence only of economic loss. The defect in the combine kept it from performing the function for which plaintiff had purchased it: harvesting grain. Plaintiff alleged that the combine failed to "properly separate, collect and store" the grain after cutting it from the stalks, thus reducing the amount of grain harvested by leaving a substantial amount of the crop lying in the field. The summary judgment record establishes that plaintiff learned of the defect in the combine when one of his farmer clients reported seeing a "terrible streak of green" in his field. In other words, the client saw that the grain had germinated, suggesting that it remained intact and viable. In short, the defect in the combine may have made it commercially impractical for plaintiff to collect the grain off the ground. But that fact at most reduced the economic value of the grain crop, which is a type of "damage" that, as a matter of law, does not equate with unreasonable dangerousness. See Brown at 480. Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the summary judgment record establishes only economic losses identical in nature to those suffered by the egg farmers in Brown--that is, economic losses unaccompanied by physical injury to plaintiff's property.
Consequently, because plaintiff did not produce evidence that the defective combine physically injured or destroyed other property, a jury could not find the defect to be unreasonably dangerous. The trial court therefore did not err in granting summary judgment to defendant.
Affirmed.
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