Amana Society, Inc., et al. v. Excel Engineering, Inc., No. 12-3515 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseAmana seeks reversal of the district court's grant of summary judgment to Excel where the district court concluded that Amana failed to establish that Excel breached a duty of care to Amana in a design-certification letter that it supplied to the firm that Amana hired to construct an anaerobic digester. The court concluded that Amana could not establish that it justifiably relied on any statements from Excel and its engineer concerning the digester outputs because no relevant representations exist on which to rely; Excel never reviewed the final design or substrate proposal and therefore made no representations as to the feasibility of that design; and the district court correctly concluded that Amana could not have justifiably relied on Excel's review of the initial GHD design as a basis for liability due to the failure of a materially different design and utilization. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Civil case. In case alleging defendant had made a negligent misrepresentation concerning the capabilities of an anaerobic digester in a letter to its client GHD, a co-defendant in the suit, and had been professionally negligent in making the representation, the district court did not err in finding for defendant as defendant owed no duty to plaintiff because the digester GHD finally designed and sold to plaintiff was not the digester defendant reviewed; since the designs were materially different and plaintiff operated the digester with a different mix of materials, plaintiff could not justifiably rely on defendant's technical evaluation of the initial design as a basis for liability when the final design failed to perform as expected.
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