## Facts

- A Washington seller sold 3,150 pounds of certified Summit raspberry root stock to a Mexican commercial berry grower for shipment to Mexico.
- The buyer intended to plant about 74 acres, but the purchased root stock was sufficient for only a smaller acreage.
- To expand planting material, the buyer propagated additional plants from the root stock using an etiolation technique and planted the propagated generation.
- The buyer alleged the resulting raspberries were malformed and crumbly and sued for breach of express and implied warranties, claiming the original root stock was defective.
- The seller asserted the buyer used the certified root stock in a nonstandard way by creating a new generation of plants, and that any problems were attributable to the buyer’s propagation practices or other agronomic factors.
- The seller also offered evidence that the allegedly defective fruit came from propagated plants, identical root stock performed successfully for another customer, and weather/soil could explain crop problems.

## Issues

1. Whether any express or implied warranties from the sale of certified root stock extended to a new generation of plants propagated by the buyer.
2. Whether the buyer produced sufficient evidence of defect and causation to show that the seller’s root stock, rather than buyer-controlled propagation or environmental conditions, caused the crop failure.
3. Whether damages, if liability existed, should be limited to the acreage that could have been planted directly with the purchased root stock.

## Decision

- The court granted the seller’s second motion for summary judgment on the buyer’s substantive warranty-based claims.
- The court held the buyer failed to raise a genuine dispute that a defect in the certified root stock caused the malformed fruit.
- The court treated the propagated plants as a different product under the buyer’s control, outside the practical reach of warranties tied to the goods sold.
- A separate contract-formation issue concerning invoice terms (including a potential attorney-fee provision) remained for further proceedings, so final judgment was not entered.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; once the movant makes an evidentiary showing, the nonmovant must identify specific facts showing a triable issue.
- Express and implied warranties attach to the goods sold; they generally do not extend to a different product the seller did not supply or “manufacture,” particularly where the buyer’s propagation materially alters product identity and introduces independent causal variables.
- In agricultural defect and warranty disputes, proof of causation requires more than assertions of poor crop performance; evidence must link the alleged defect in the sold goods to the complained-of loss and account for plausible alternative causes (cultivation practices and environmental conditions).

## Conclusion

The court entered summary judgment for the seller because the buyer’s damages theory depended on failure in a buyer-propagated generation of plants, and the buyer did not present specific evidence creating a triable issue that a defect in the certified root stock sold by the seller caused the crop defects.


Barbara Berry, S.A. de C.V. v. Ken M. Spooner Farms, Inc., No. C05-5538FDB, 2009 WL 927704 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 2, 2009)