Pierce Butler

“ Such warranties tend to restrain manufacturers from selling unfit or defective machines and also from selling any-even those of appropriate design and construction for operation in some regions-for use in places or under conditions not permitting effective service. And the right of inspection, test, and rescission that the statute assures to purchasers enables them, free from peril of serious mistakes, deliberately to consider whether such machines are reasonably suitable or fit for the purposes for which they want to use them. ”

“ Such combines have not been long known or much used in the grain-raising Northwest, and undoubtedly there are ample grounds for a legislative finding that the farmers of North Dakota as a class are not sufficiently familiar with them to be able, without actual test, to form an intelligent opinion as to their fitness to cut and thresh in a single operation or whether they safely may be regarded as dependable for use on their farms. ”

“ The evils aimed at do not necessarily result from misrepresentation or any fraud on the part of sellers, and at least one of the purposes of the legislation is to lessen losses resulting from purchasers' lack of capacity, without opportunity for inspection and trial, to decide whether the machines are suitable. The statute prevents waiver of the warranty of fitness implied by the state law. ”

“ In determining whether they are reasonably suitable and fit for the purposes intended, there is involved a consideration of the kind and condition of the crops to be harvested, the periods during which they remain recoverable after becoming sufficiently ripe and dry to be contemporaneously cut and threshed, the amount and kind of weeds and other foreign vegetation growing with the grain, the topography of the fields, and the rainfall, dew, and humidity. ”

“ Most, if not all, of the tractors, engines, harvesters, and threshers referred to are made outside North Dakota by a few manufacturers who, through their agents or dealers, sell them directly to farmers. ”

“ The character of the machines, the need of tests to determine their fitness, the serious losses that ensue if in actual use they prove unfit and the other considerations alluded to plainly warrant the classification and special regulation of sales prescribed by the statute. ”

“ The answer, asserting that the statute is repugnant to the due process and equal protection clauses, does not deny the complaint, but avers that plaintiff gave defendant a written order by which he waived all warranties, express, implied or statutory, and unconditionally promised to pay the price represented by the notes. Plaintiff demurred. The trial court sustained the demurrer, and, defendant having elected to stand on its answer, gave plaintiff judgment in accordance with the prayer of the complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed. ”