Opinion ID: 2000981
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the claims against the manufacturer

Text: The trial justice determined that plaintiff's claims against the manufacturer for breach of warranties of merchantability and fitness for an intended purpose were barred under McNally v. Nicholson Mfg. Co., Me., 313 A.2d 913 (1973), because of the lack of privity between plaintiff and defendant Clark. He also dismissed plaintiff's negligence claim against Clark, concluding that plaintiff simply had not demonstrated any negligence on the part of that defendant. Because neither plaintiff nor defendant Hurd ever had any contractual privity with the manufacturer and for the same reasons relied upon in our disposition of similar claims against a manufacturer in Burke v. Hamilton Beach Division, Me., 424 A.2d 145 (1981), decided today, we hold that plaintiff's claims against defendant Clark for breach of warranty and for negligence are both barred by the parties' lack of privity.
The front-end loader that is the focus of the present controversy was manufactured and first sold by defendant Clark in 1960. The manufacturer's liability is thus determined by the law of Maine as it existed in 1960. See LaRue v. National Union Electric Corp., 571 F.2d 51, 55 (1st Cir. 1978) (dictum construing Maine law); McNally v. Nicholson Mfg. Co., supra, at 927. At that time in Maine, the requirement of privity barred a breach of warranty suit against a defendant with whom the plaintiff had not contracted. Pelletier v. Dupont, 124 Me. 269, 276, 128 A. 186, 189 (1925); see also Sams v. Ezy-Way Foodliner Co., 157 Me. 10, 17-18, 170 A.2d 160, 165 (1961). Beginning in 1963, a series of legislative enactments first limited the requirement of horizontal privity by permitting suit against a seller of defective goods by a household or family member or a guest of the purchaser, P.L. 1963, ch. 362, § 1, enacting 11 M.R.S.A. § 2-318 (1964); then abrogated the requirement of vertical privity by allowing a plaintiff to reach a remote seller, supplier, or manufacturer of defective goods, P.L. 1969, ch. 327, § 1, repealing and replacing 11 M.R.S.A. § 2-318; and finally abrogated the defense of lack of privity as to all breach of warranty and negligence suits, P.L. 1969, ch. 327, § 2, enacting 14 M.R.S.A. § 161. The legislature in each instance expressly declared its intention that these enactments should not be given retrospective effect. See P.L. 1963, ch. 362, § 41; P.L. 1969, ch. 327, § 3. Plaintiff's claims are thus not aided by those changes in Maine's law regarding privity, all of which took place after the initial sales transaction by defendant Clark. The trial justice correctly found plaintiff's breach of warranty claims against defendant Clark to be barred by lack of privity between the parties.
As to plaintiff's negligence claim against the manufacturer, we have no occasion to review the trial justice's evidentiary determination that the manufacturer was not negligent. Under the 1960 Maine law applicable to plaintiff's claim, plaintiff's lack of privity with the manufacturer barred him also from recovery for negligence, as it did for breach of warranty. In Maine in 1960, a plaintiff who was not in privity with a manufacturer was barred not only from asserting a breach of warranty claim against that manufacturer but also, in most instances, from suing him on the ground of negligence as well. See McNally v. Nicholson Mfg. Co., supra at 925, citing Flaherty v. Helfont, 123 Me. 134, 137, 122 A. 180, 181 (1923). The Flaherty case introduced to Maine law the doctrine of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916), which permitted plaintiffs injured by imminently dangerous instrumentalities to maintain negligence actions against manufacturers regardless of nonprivity. As this court clearly stated in the McNally case, however, Flaherty did not amount to an all-encompassing embrace of the MacPherson approach, but rather made only a very narrow exception to the privity bar. As McNally further makes clear, we have never judicially abrogated the privity requirement with respect to negligence suits, 313 A.2d at 924-25. Finally, as noted above, the post-1960 statutory changes in Maine's privity laws were not retrospective. Our determination of plaintiff's negligence claim against defendant Clark must thus be made under the case law existing in 1960 when the frontend loader by which plaintiff was later injured was sold by the manufacturer. See generally Burke v. Hamilton Beach Division, supra at 150. That case law compels us to hold that plaintiff's negligence claim against defendant Clark is barred by his lack of privity with the manufacturer. Until the 1969 enactment of 14 M.R.S.A. § 161, supra, the privity requirement in tort suits remained vital, with only a uniform and narrowly defined exception for products deemed imminently dangerous within the meaning of Flaherty. See, e. g., Flaherty v. Helfont, supra at 137, 122 A. at 181 ([h]igh explosives, poisons and impure foods are examples); Wallace v. Coca-Cola Bottling Plants, Inc., Me., 269 A.2d 117 (1970) (contaminated food); Lajoie v. Bilodeau, 148 Me. 359, 93 A.2d 719 (1953) (contaminated food); LaRue v. National Union Electric Corp., supra (applying pre-1969 Maine law to vacuum cleaner with unguarded highspeed fan). At no time since Flaherty have we ever construed that case broadly enough to bring the front-end loader by which plaintiff was injured within the imminently dangerous exception to the nonprivity bar. This court's reasoning in Flaherty, as adhered to in subsequent cases, leads inescapably to the conclusion that the hazard, which the trial justice found was obvious, that resulted in plaintiff's injury as he attempted to remount the front-end loader with the boom arms up-raised could not also have been imminently dangerous. We therefore hold that plaintiff's negligence claim against defendant Clark was barred by the parties' lack of privity. See also Burke v. Hamilton Beach Division, supra (privity rule applied to an allegedly defective food mixer manufactured in 1958 and causing injury in 1978). The entry must be: Appeal denied. Judgments affirmed. WERNICK and NICHOLS, JJ., and DUFRESNE, A. R. J., concur. GLASSMAN, J., with whom GODFREY, J., joins, concur in a separate opinion.