Going through the pile of decisions that I meant to write about, but didn’t, I came across a New York Court of Appeals decision from earlier this year that should be of interest to anyone advising about used equipment sales. In Jaramillo v. Weyerhaeuser, the court reaffirmed its prior rulings that a business selling its used equipment is not strictly liable for a workplace accident where the equipment was not sold in the ordinary course of business and was sold “as is, where is.”
The machine in issue was sold as part of the defendant’s Investment Recovery Business, a division that distributes quarterly catalogs of sale items, advertises in trade journals and does market research. The year the machine was sold (1986) the division grossed between 7.5 million and 8.5 million dollars. The sale was not deemed in the ordinary course of business and defendant was not strictly liable for plaintiff’s injuries.
Although the opinion left the door open for “some imaginable case” where a seller of used goods could be held strictly liable, this decision reads as if the court is trying to drive a stake through the heart of these claims. In any event, a seller of surplus equipment is provided with a useful road map of the relevant factual considerations. For an injured plaintiff, it should do the same, but is pretty discouraging as to the likelihood of success.
