Scott v. PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc.
- Susan Van Keulen
- 5:24-cv-03389
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 11
In Scott v. PerkinElmer, Judge Van Keulen converted the motion, granted summary judgment on five claims, and dismissed the sixth without leave to amend.
Douglas A. Scott’s six claims against PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc.; five claims received summary judgment for PerkinElmer, and the rescission-and-restitution claim was dismissed without leave to amend.
What happened
In Scott v. PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc., Douglas A. Scott sued over instruments he bought for cannabis-testing laboratories, alleging they did not match the defendant’s representations. He brought three fraud-and-deceit claims, two implied-warranty claims, and one rescission-and-restitution claim.
The court considered evidence about when the instruments were delivered and installed. It concluded that the fraud-and-deceit claims accrued by October 2019 and expired in April 2023, while the warranty claims expired in February 2024; Scott filed the case on March 11, 2024.
Judge Susan Van Keulen converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, granted summary judgment to PerkinElmer on the fraud-and-deceit and implied-warranty claims, and dismissed the rescission-and-restitution claim without leave to amend.
The detailed version
- Scott v. PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc. · No. 5:24-cv-03389
- Susan Van Keulen
- Dec. 16, 2024
Background
Douglas A. Scott operated two cannabis-testing laboratories and alleged that he bought three instruments from PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc. in 2018: the QSight 220, Flexar-HPLC, and NexION-ICP/MS. He alleged that the instruments did not conform to PerkinElmer’s representations about their functionality and capabilities. He filed the action in the Superior Court for the County of Monterey on March 11, 2024, and PerkinElmer later removed it to federal court.
Scott represented himself. His complaint asserted six claims: three fraud-and-deceit claims under California Civil Code section 1709, two claims for breach of the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness, and one claim for rescission and restitution. PerkinElmer moved to dismiss all six claims, arguing that they were barred by statutes of limitations. The court considered evidence outside the complaint concerning delivery and installation dates and gave Scott an opportunity to submit his own evidence on those dates. Scott did not submit a supplemental filing.
Conversion to Summary Judgment
The court converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(d). It found that Scott had an opportunity to present evidence, did not need discovery to address the delivery and installation dates because that information was within his knowledge, and could face a case-dispositive ruling based on the evidence.
Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court must view the evidence favorably to the party opposing the motion, but that party must produce evidence sufficient for a reasonable factfinder to rule in its favor.
Fraud-and-Deceit Claims
The court applied a three-year limitations period to the fraud-and-deceit claims. Under California law, those claims accrue when the plaintiff suspects or should suspect that an injury was caused by wrongdoing. The court also discussed the discovery rule, which delays accrual until the plaintiff discovers, or should have discovered, the claim and its possible wrongdoing.
PerkinElmer’s unrebutted evidence showed that it installed the final instrument in August 2019. Scott alleged that the instruments failed to conform to PerkinElmer’s representations within two months of installation. The court therefore concluded that Scott should have suspected possible wrongdoing by October 2019. Adding the three-year limitations period and 178 days of COVID-era tolling produced an April 2023 filing deadline, before Scott filed this action in March 2024.
The court rejected Scott’s argument that his medical treatment, litigation of another lawsuit, stress, anxiety, and later discovery of alleged legal issues delayed accrual. It concluded that the discovery rule had already been applied by using the October 2019 inquiry-notice date. The court granted summary judgment to PerkinElmer on the three fraud-and-deceit claims as time barred.
Implied-Warranty Claims
The court applied a four-year limitations period to the implied-warranty claims. Under California’s Commercial Code, those claims accrue upon delivery, and the discovery rule does not apply. Based on PerkinElmer’s unrebutted evidence, delivery of all the instruments occurred by August 2019 at the latest. Four years plus 178 days ended in February 2024, before Scott filed the action.
The court concluded that the implied-warranty claims were time barred and granted summary judgment to PerkinElmer on those claims.
Rescission-and-Restitution Claim
Scott conceded that PerkinElmer was correct that the rescission-and-restitution claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The court dismissed that claim without leave to amend.
Disposition
The court converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment, granted summary judgment to PerkinElmer on the fraud-and-deceit and breach-of-implied-warranty claims, and dismissed the rescission-and-restitution claim without leave to amend. The court stated that it did not need to address PerkinElmer’s separate argument that Scott lacked standing. It ordered that judgment be entered in a separate document.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.