## Facts

- A subcontractor on a construction project hired Plourde Sand & Gravel Co. to supply gravel for a roadway base.
- The project’s engineering firm retained JGI Eastern, Inc. to test the gravel for compliance with town specifications.
- JGI reported that the gravel had insufficient stone content and excessive fines and did not meet specifications.
- Relying on that report, the subcontractor required Plourde to remove and replace the gravel at Plourde’s expense.
- Plourde later tested the original gravel and concluded it met town specifications.
- Plourde sued JGI in tort for negligent testing/reporting, seeking only the costs and related commercial losses from removal and replacement (no personal injury or property damage beyond the contract work).

## Issues

1. Whether the economic loss doctrine bars a negligence claim seeking purely economic damages against a defendant with whom the plaintiff has no contractual privity.
2. Whether a “special relationship” between a professional tester and a remote supplier creates an independent tort duty sufficient to permit recovery of purely economic loss.
3. Whether negligent misrepresentation under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 552 permits recovery of purely economic loss on these pleadings and facts.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Hampshire affirmed dismissal of the action.
- The economic loss doctrine barred Plourde’s negligence claim because the damages alleged were purely economic.
- No special relationship existed between Plourde and JGI that would create a tort duty to prevent Plourde’s economic loss.
- The negligent-misrepresentation theory did not avoid dismissal because it was not adequately presented and, in any event, the allegations did not fit § 552 as applied (information supplied for another’s use, without the plaintiff’s justifiable reliance within a limited intended class).

## Legal Principles

- In New Hampshire, absent personal injury or property damage, there is generally no tort duty to avoid causing purely economic loss; such losses are ordinarily addressed through contract.
- The economic loss doctrine applies even when the plaintiff lacks privity with the defendant, unless a recognized exception creates an independent duty in tort.
- A “special relationship” exception requires a sufficiently close relationship (often involving trust, influence, control, or justified reliance on professional judgment) to justify an independent duty; remote participants in a construction chain typically do not qualify.
- Negligent misrepresentation under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 552 is limited to false information supplied in the course of business for the guidance of a limited group the supplier intends to influence, coupled with justifiable reliance by the plaintiff; incidental economic effects from others’ reliance are insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court held that a supplier could not recover purely economic losses in negligence from a testing firm hired through separate contractual links, because the economic loss doctrine barred the claim and neither a special relationship nor negligent misrepresentation (as pled and alleged) created an independent tort duty.


Plourde Sand & Gravel Co. v. JGI E. Inc., 154 N.H. 791 (N.H. 2007)