Opinion ID: 1726172
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Judicial Adoption of Comparative Negligence

Text: In part IX of the WILLIAMS opinion in Kirby, a brief analysis was made as to the propriety of judicial versus legislative abrogation of contributory negligence and adoption of comparative negligence. There is no question that both this Court and the Legislature have the constitutional power to change the common law. The common law and the statute laws now in force, not repugnant to this constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitations, or are changed, amended or repealed. Const 1963, art 3, § 7. This provision has been construed to authorize both judicial change and legislative amendment or repeal. Myers v Genesee County Auditor, 375 Mich 1, 7; 133 NW2d 190 (1965). Further, when dealing with judge-made law, this Court in the past has not disregarded its corrective responsibility in the proper case. [O]ur Court has heretofore believed that rules created by the court could be altered by the court. For example, we abrogated the defense of assumption of risk, Felgner v Anderson, 375 Mich 23; 133 NW2d 136 (1965), repudiated the doctrine of imputed negligence, Bricker v Green, 313 Mich 218; 21 NW2d 105 (1946), eliminated the privity requirement in actions for breach of an implied warranty, Spence v Three Rivers Builders & Masonry Supply, Inc, 353 Mich 120; 90 NW2d 873 (1958), overruled the common-law disability prohibiting the wife from suing for the loss of her husband's consortium, Montgomery v Stephan, 359 Mich 33; 101 NW2d 227 (1960), overruled the common-law disallowance of recovery for negligently inflicted prenatal injury, Womack v Buchhorn, 384 Mich 718, 724-725; 187 NW2d 218 (1971); and even eliminated charitable immunity from negligence, Parker v Port Huron Hospital, 361 Mich 1; 105 NW2d 1 (1960). Kirby, 625. The question then is whether a judicial forum is appropriate for adoption of comparative negligence. [10] In three of the states now employing comparative negligence, that rule was judicially adopted: Alaska, Kaatz v State, 540 P2d 1037 (Alas, 1975); California, Li v Yellow Cab Co of California, 13 Cal 3d 804; 532 P2d 1226; 119 Cal Rptr 858 (1975); Florida, Hoffman v Jones, 280 So 2d 431 (Fla, 1973). Points raised against such judicial action include the legislature's superior power of investigation and ability to handle collateral problems as well as the legislature's ability to pass statutes which come into effect at some future date thereby providing notice to the bench and bar of impending change. However, considerations favoring judicial adoption rather than legislative are equally if not more compelling. Professor Fleming analyzes and ably disputes the three main points often asserted in favor of legislative adoption: First is the question which of these two bodies is better equipped to understand the nature and implications of the problem and to make an informed choice from available alternatives. It is fashionable to suppose that the investigatory opportunities of the legislature establish its superior credentials in this respect.    But on the question of contributory negligence, one cannot very well dispute the unique judicial experience and preoccupation   . Moreover, such quantitative data as exist on the impact of comparative negligence on insurance rates [see appendix in Kirby, p 651] and on the processing of claims by settlement or resort to court [see appendix in Kirby, p 648] are at least as well available to judges as to legislators.    Nor should one lightly indulge the fancy that because many legislators have enjoyed legal training, they are therefore as sensitive to the need for reform or as well equipped to pass an independent judgment on this issue as are the courts. In a nutshell, this is preeminently lawyer's law. (Emphasis added.) Fleming, Foreword: Comparative Negligence at Last  By Judicial Choice, 64 Calif L Rev 239, 279-280 (1976). The next point analyzed by Professor Fleming is the assertion of the Legislature's superior ability to enact the primary change and simultaneously anticipate and resolve the numerous details and collateral issues at one time. Professor Fleming cites two points in response. First, almost all comparative negligence statutes are    in the briefest conceivable form and leave the very same ancillary questions likewise to the courts for future solution. Second, courts can    anticipate several of the most important of these questions and thus dispose [sic] with the need for having them later explored at the cost of future litigants. Far from deserving rebuke for dealing with hypotheticals, this practice reveals courts as being on occasion at least as well equipped as legislatures in laying down a reasonably comprehensive blueprint of reform. Fleming, supra, 281. Finally, Professor Fleming analyzes the argument that legislative reform can give affected parties time to prepare themselves for the change of law, for example by procuring liability insurance and by adjusting cost calculations. Thus, statutes abrogating charitable and other immunities have commonly postponed their commencement for that purpose. But courts also have long broken with the Blackstonian fiction that judicial decisions must necessarily be retroactive in operation because they merely declare what the common law should always have been discovered to be. Fleming, supra, 281. As is indicated by the above analysis, although the courts have not been the primary agencies for adoption of comparative negligence, they are certainly in as good, if not better, a position to evaluate the need for change, and to fashion that change. Further, as to the final point raised by Professor Fleming regarding the need for advance warning, this is uniquely satisfied in this jurisdiction because the bench and bar were put on notice a year and a half ago when three members of this Court advocated adoption of comparative negligence in Kirby, supra . [11] With all these factors in mind, we find adoption of comparative negligence is consistent with this Court's responsibility to the jurisprudence of this state.