## Facts

- A concrete supplier provided concrete for multiple construction projects in Monroe County, Florida.
- Homeowners (condominium unit owners and single-family home owners) alleged the concrete had a high salt content.
- The salt allegedly caused embedded reinforcing steel to rust, leading to cracking, spalling, and deterioration of the structures.
- The homeowners sought the costs associated with repairing or replacing the deteriorated portions of their buildings.
- The pleadings did not allege personal injury or damage to property separate from the buildings constructed with the supplier’s concrete.

## Issues

1. Whether homeowners may recover purely economic losses from a concrete supplier in negligence when the alleged defect caused no personal injury and no damage to property other than the structures themselves.
2. Whether strict products liability permits recovery for the cost to repair or replace structures when the alleged defect damages only the finished structures into which the component was incorporated.
3. Whether a component-material supplier owes a duty under the building code to the ultimate homeowners, supporting a building-code-violation claim.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court approved dismissal of the homeowners’ tort claims against the supplier and disapproved conflicting district court decisions.
- The court held the economic loss rule barred negligence and products liability claims because the alleged defect caused only economic loss and damaged only the “product itself.”
- The court treated the finished buildings as the relevant “product,” reasoning that the supplied concrete became an integral part of the structures; therefore, the damage was not to “other property.”
- The court agreed the supplier, as a supplier of materials, owed no building-code duty to the homeowners in this posture; the asserted code-violation claim against the supplier failed as a matter of law.
- A dissent argued that denying tort recovery effectively left the homeowners without a remedy against a remote supplier and would allow serious structural defects to go unaddressed in tort.

## Legal Principles

- The economic loss rule bars tort recovery (negligence and strict products liability) for purely economic losses when a product damages only itself and causes no personal injury and no damage to other property.
- In applying the “other property” exception, a component incorporated into a finished product may be treated as part of the finished product; damage to the finished product is not “other property” damage for tort-recovery purposes.
- Tort remedies address duties to protect against physical harm; contract and warranty remedies address disappointed commercial expectations and the allocation of risk for economic loss.
- Where the loss is purely economic, the law expects parties to allocate risks through contract, warranties, and insurance rather than shifting those losses through tort liability.
- A materials supplier, standing alone as a supplier, is not subject to building-code duties directed to those who design and construct buildings, absent a legally recognized duty running from the code to the supplier and the claimant.

## Conclusion

The court held that homeowners could not use negligence or strict products liability to recover the costs of repairing structural deterioration caused by allegedly defective concrete where the defect caused no personal injury and no damage to property other than the buildings themselves; the building-code claim against the supplier also failed because the supplier owed no relevant code duty to the homeowners.


Casa Clara Condo. Ass’n, Inc. v. Charley Toppino & Sons, Inc., 620 So. 2d 1244 (Fla. 1993)