Court Opinion

ID: 9647220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:26:49.206369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:46.329910
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
In 1971, the philosopher John Rawls published his awesome contribution to the subject of distributive justice. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
Rawls’ aim was “to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found, say, in Locke, Rousseau, and Kant.” In Rawls’ words:
In justice as fairness the original position of equality corresponds to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social contract. This original position is not, of course, thought of as an actual historical state of affairs, much less as a primitive condition of culture. It is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a cer-' tain conception of justice. Among the essential features of this situation is that no one knows his place in society, his *524class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the result of a fair agreement or bargain. For given the circumstances of the original position, the symmetry of everyone’s relations to each other, this initial situation is fair between individuals as moral persons, that is, as rational beings with their own ends and capable, I shall assume, of a sense of justice. The original position is, one might say, the appropriate initial status quo, and thus the fundamental agreements reached in it are fair. This explains the propriety of the name “justice as fairness”: it conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation that is fair. *
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 11-12.
The holding in Lippard v. Houdaille Industries, Inc., 715 S.W.2d 491 (Mo. banc 1986) fails Rawls’ test of fairness. According to ldppard; A and B, if in Rawls’ “original position,” would say, each to the other: “If you become a manufacturer and sell a defective product which injures me, you, not I, will be responsible for my damages — even those I came.” I cannot agree. In my view, A and B, if in Rawls’ “original position,” would say, each to the other: “If you become a manufacturer and sell a defective product which' injures me, each of us shall bear responsibility in proportion to his fault.”
In 1969, in Keener v. Dayton Electric Mfg. Co., 445 S.W.2d 362 (Mo.1969), this Court addressed the products liability problem and adopted the rule of strict liability in tort stated in 2 Restatement, Law of Torts, Second, § 402A.
I think it must be said now that Keener is a failed attempt at fairness. Given its ultimate distortion by the holding in Lip-pard, Keener should be expressly overruled. I would make such abrogation prospective as to all claims arising on or after September 28, 1987, except for the cases decided today as to which I would apply abrogation here and now. See Jones v. State Highway Commission, 557 S.W.2d 225, 231 (Mo. banc 1977).
I dissent.