Court Opinion

ID: 9794615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:08:32.937471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:12.305640
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(dissenting):
I agree with the majority opinion that the limitation of liability clause in the contract pertains only to actions brought under the contract and does not affect tort liability. The law does not look with favor upon a covenant which purports to relieve one of the fundamental duties of due care for the safety of others. As to tort actions, such a covenant may be void as against public policy, at least in some cases, but if not, such a clause is strictly construed in actions ex delicto and is binding only if the parties’ intention to relieve one of the parties from the duty of due care imposed by law is unambiguous and “unequivocally expressed.” Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 17 Utah 2d 255, 259, 408.P.2d 910, 914 (1965). I concur with the majority that the limitation of liability clause in the contract does not apply to a tort action, and that the contract remedy is not an exclusive remedy where there is an actionable breach of duty in tort beyond the duties and obligations established by the contract.
Nevertheless, I respectfully dissent because in my view the defendant cannot, as a matter of law, on the facts alleged in this case, be held liable for any damages based on tortious conduct or strict liability. In short, I submit that the allegations based on the theories of negligence and strict liability fail to state claims upon which relief may be granted.
DCR alleges that Peak Alarm knew that the type of system installed could be disabled, that subsequent to the sale to plaintiff it was bypassed by burglars using a fairly simple technique at other installations, and that the vulnerable feature of the system was correctable at a small cost. DCR’s legal contention is that Peak Alarm had a duty to warn DCR that the system could be bypassed and that Peak’s failure to-warn constituted negligence. There is no allegation that the system installed had any defect either in its design or construction.
Although a supplier of a dangerous instrumentality has a duty to warn of known dangers inherent in the product or in its contemplated use, Comstock v. General Motors Corp., 358 Mich. 163, 99 N.W.2d 627 (1959), it is generally true that a supplier of goods sold on the open market generally has no duty to warn as to non-dangerous products. E.g., Robinson v. Williamsen Idaho Equipment Co., 94 Idaho 819, 498 P.2d 1292 (1972); Crandall v. Stop & Shop, Inc., 288 Ill.App. 543, 6 N.E.2d 685 (1937); Bradshaw v. Blystone Equipment Co., 79 Nev. 441, 386 P.2d 396 (1963); Annot, 76 A.L. R.2d 9, § 9 (1961).
The burglar alarm system in this case is an ordinary article of commerce designed to provide limited protection against burgla*439ries. It is commonly known that no burglar alarm system is foolproof. Every burglary prevention or alarm system can be circumvented in one way or another. Given the nature of burglary prevention systems and the ingeniousness of those committed to circumventing such systems, it cannot be reasonably concluded, in my view, that just because a system may be circumvented or disabled the vendor should give notice of that fact to all its customers. In the ongoing war against burglaries, the possibility of disablement and circumvention are obvious risks limited primarily by the experience and sophistication of a burglar. In my view, Peak has no legal duty subsequent to the sale to warn of a particular manner by which the system could be defeated.
The scope of the defendant’s duty to protect the plaintiff in this case should be determined by this Court as a matter of law. See generally, Thode, “Tort Analysis: Duty-Risk v. Proximate Cause and the Rational Allocation of Functions Between Judge and Jury,” 1977 Utah L.Rev. 1; Hawkins, “Premises Liability After Repudiation of the Status Categories: Allocation of Judge and Jury Functions,” 1981 Utah L.Rev. 15, 35-40.
The majority has determined that defendant has a legal duty, albeit of an undefined scope, to protect its customers from those who may by-pass the alarm system. I disagree with that conclusion. I am persuaded that the better position, and the one I think supported by the authorities, is that defendant has no such duty. Furthermore, I think the case cannot stand on a theory of strict liability. Whether based on negligence or strict liability, liability cannot be sustained in this case because, in the absence of fraud or misrepresentation by the seller, a proper allocation of duties and risks in this case requires the purchaser of a system to bear the risk of loss caused by a burglary.
This conclusion is supported by the reasoning of the court in Lobianco v. Property Protection Inc., 292 Pa.Super. 346, 437 A.2d 417 (1981), which I think is fully applicable here. Although the court addressed the issue of the duty of a company offering burglary prevention systems in the context of strict liability, the reasoning applies with equal force to both a negligence and a strict liability action:
Homeowners are not “otherwise defenseless victims” of burglar alarm manufacturers in the same sense that a buyer of an automobile, for example, may be the victim of the automobile manufacturer. If the property is valuable, the homeowner may insure it. To apply Section 402A to the present case would in practical effect excuse the homeowner from having to insure the property and would shift the risk of its loss to the burglar alarm manufacturer. This would represent a less, not more, equitable allocation of the risk. The homeowner, not the manufacturer, knows what property is in the home, and its value; the manufacturer does not. Even if the manufacturer were to find out what property was in the home before installing the burglar alarm system, the homeowner could, and probably would, add other property, without notice to the manufacturer. As between the homeowner and the manufacturer, the manufacturer is more “defenseless” than the homeowner. If the homeowner buys a silver service or a stereo system, at least he can get insurance against its loss; but the manufacturer cannot, for it will not know that the service or stereo has been put in the home. Thus it may not be said that “ ‘the risk of injury can be insured by the manufacturer and distributed among the public as a cost of doing business.’ ” [Citation omitted.] Nor may it be said that the manufacturer ought to protect itself by increasing its charge, in that way distributing the risk. That would mean that a homeowner with personal property of only modest value would be required to pay for his burglar alarm system a price high enough to protect the manufacturer against the loss it might incur if a homeowner with personal property of great value were burglarized. Those of modest means would be subsidizing the rich.
*440Id. 437 A.2d at 424-25. This reasoning applies as forcibly to business establishments as to homeowners. See also Annot., 53 A.L.R.3d 239 (1973).
I also agree with the law stated in Borrell-Bigby Electric Co. v. United Nations, Inc., Fla.App., 385 So.2d 713 (1980), where the court reversed a lower court decision that a company which had designed and installed an alarm system was liable for losses sustained when the alarm did not work. The court held that a vendor’s obligation “does not extend beyond the obligation to supply an article reasonably fit for the purpose intended, and does not impose a duty to furnish the best article of its kind or an article equal to any other similar or competing article.” Id. at 715 (quoting Wisner v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Fla.App., 167 So.2d 254, 255 (1964)).
The majority argues that Peak had a duty to warn because the contract is a personal service contract. With that proposition, I cannot agree. The majority’s characterization of the Peak Alarm contract as a personal service contract does not stand analysis. The contract was for the sale and maintenance of a system. This is not a case where a duty to protect a person from harm arises because of a special relationship between the parties. W. Prosser, Law of Torts, § 56 at 338-43 (4th ed. 1971). The contract in question is not in any way analogous to contracts between “carriers and passengers, employers and employees, owners and invitees and parents and children” (majority opinion p. 435). The principles of law that govern those relationships clearly do not control the instant case where there is only a contract for the installation and maintenance of a burglar alarm system and that is all. The majority’s rationale places an equipment maintenance contract on the same basis as a contract for legal and medical services; indeed, it goes far beyond that since the harm was not caused by a failure to perform the maintenance services properly, but rather was caused by a third person in a context totally unrelated to the “personal service” of maintaining the equipment purchased by the plaintiff. In short, in broadly holding that “contractual relationships for the performance of services impose on each of the contracting parties a general duty of due care toward the other, apart from the specific obligation expressed in the contract itself” (id), the majority has vastly expanded the dimensions of tort duty. I think that such an expansion is unwise and without a sound basis in policy.
It may be too much to contend that the consequence of the majority opinion is to make burglar alarm companies guarantors against burglaries; however, it is not possible to determine from the majority opinion just what duty the law imposes on burglar alarm companiés because that issue is left to the jury. Because that duty will be determined as a factual matter on the basis of whether it is foreseeable that burglars will be able to bypass a system, liability may be virtually foreordained. The consequence may be that the goods of burglar alarm companies will simply be priced out of the market.
I think the pleadings fail, as a matter of law, to establish a claim upon which relief may be granted.