Voight V. Ott

The facts disclose that in the summer of 1954, defendants built a model home in Phoenix which was used for the purpose of selling therefrom to prospective customers similar houses on lots owned by defendants. During this display period of several months the house was not being offered for sale. In December, 1954, or January, 1955, plaintiff, James B. Ott, in response to a newspaper advertisement, went to look at the model home. He and his wife examined it several times. On his first visit plaintiff James B. Ott inquired of the real estate agent who was showing the house about the price of the house and about the type of heating and cooling system, and on that visit plaintiff was handed -- by some unidentified person at the model home -- a brochure which described the heating and cooling system then installed in the house. The brochure depicted the benefits of year around air conditioning and stressed the advantages of this particular type of system in comparison to other systems of air conditioning. According to the brochure, the system in question was called the "Catalina", and it emphasized its "zone control" features, which meant that blowers in different parts of the house could be operated separately by turning on and off heating or cooling in the different areas of the house if the occupant so desired, thus supposedly resulting in a less expensive operation. The brochure otherwise made no special mention of the separate equipment items of the air conditioning system. The word "system" was used repeatedly throughout the brochure.