East River Steamship Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc.
United States Supreme Court
476 U.S. 858 (1986)
East River Steamship (plaintiff) chartered supertankers equipped with turbines manufactured by Transamerica Delaval (defendant); a defective turbine part malfunctioned and damaged other turbine components on one ship, the same problem surfaced in two other ships, and a separately defective valve was installed backwards in another ship, damaging its turbines. The district court granted Delaval summary judgment because the only loss was purely economic damage to the turbines themselves, and the court of appeals affirmed.
Whether a plaintiff may recover under a products liability claim when a defective product, purchased in a commercial transaction, causes injury only to the product itself and produces purely economic loss.