Firwood Manufacturing Company v. General Tire
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
96 F.3d 163 (1996)
General Tire (defendant) contracted to buy 55 post-cure inflators (PCIs) from Firwood Manufacturing (plaintiff) but closed its business after taking delivery of only 22, breaching as to the remaining 33. While searching for alternative buyers over roughly three years, Firwood used some of the fungible parts from those 33 unsold machines to fill spare-part orders for other customers, eventually reselling all 33 PCIs at a discounted price. Firwood sued for resale damages; a jury awarded it $187,513 for the price difference and $100,476 in interest, and the district court denied General Tire's motions for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial.
Whether, under the Uniform Commercial Code, a seller is entitled to resale damages resulting from a breach and resale involving fungible goods, so long as the resale itself is commercially reasonable.