Section 5 Old Warson Case

• Library: Consumer Law and Practice 2010

In 1972, in a break with the traditional doctrine of caveat emptor, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that the first purchaser of a newly built home could sue the vendor/builder of the new home for breach of an implied warranty of merchantable quality and reasonable fitness for use if the construction of the new home was defective. Smith v. Old Warson Dev. Co., 479 S.W.2d 795 (Mo. banc 1972).

The plaintiffs in Old Warson purchased their new home in 1963 and, within a few months, noticed that the doors in one section of the house were sticking; soon space developed between the bathtub and wall and between a baseboard and a wall, and cracks developed in one wall. There was no dispute at trial that the slab on which a portion of the house was built had sunk, resulting in settling that reached one and three-fourth inches in one...