Court Opinion

ID: 9735225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:05:57.310747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:56.157806
License: Public Domain

Sievers, Chief Judge, concurring in part, and in part dissenting.
I concur in that portion of the majority’s opinion reversing the judgment of the district court and finding that the demurrer was incorrectly sustained as to the plaintiffs’ theory of recovery for fraudulent misrepresentation.
However, I respectfully disagree with my colleagues when they vote to uphold the district court’s decision sustaining the *883demurrer to the plaintiffs’ theory of recovery which alleges negligent misrepresentation. My colleagues rely upon Flamme v. Wolfe Ins. Agency, 239 Neb. 465, 476 N.W.2d 802 (1991) (holding that an insurance agent or broker may be held liable for a negligent misrepresentation made to an insured). My colleagues do not read Flamme as extending to other relationships, particularly the relationship between a real estate agent and the owner-seller of real property. Justice Shanahan clearly expressed the view in his Flamme concurrence that the case represented a new and expansive doctrine of tort liability whose adoption deserved more fanfare. Admittedly, Justice Shanahan was alone in his concurrence; however, the majority in Flamme did not expressly limit the tort of negligent misrepresentation to insurance agents and their customers.
I am unable to articulate a logical basis upon which to say that an agent selling automobile insurance is liable for his or her negligent misrepresentations, but a real estate agent selling real property is not. Both the insurance agent and the real estate agent provide unique services which the state has licensed them to render. Consumers of both agents’ services and advice rely on the agent when making important decisions in matters upon which the typical consumer is frequently poorly informed and inexperienced. I believe this to be true whether the consumer is dealing with an insurance agent or with a real estate agent. Accordingly, I cannot join in a decision according obviously different treatment to similarly situated agents and their consumers. With due respect to the views of my colleagues, I do not understand the basis for the distinction which the majority opinion concludes is part of the Supreme Court’s decision in Flamme.
Moreover, an additional factor compels the position that I take in this dissent and militates against the majority’s position. This is recognition of the fact that real estate agents and sellers for whom they are working are normally tightly bound to one another by contract which carries considerable exclusivity. That contractual relationship has been known to lead to legal actions to recover commissions, but the relationship is such that the consumer also ought to be able to recover in tort should he or she be damaged by negligent misrepresentations of the agent. *884See Firmature v. Brannon, 223 Neb. 123, 388 N.W.2d 119 (1986) (holding that a real estate broker is an agent owing a fiduciary duty to usb reasonable care, skill, and diligence in procuring the greatest advantage to his client and to act honestly and in good faith, making full disclosures to his client of all material facts affecting his interests). In contrast, a consumer is rarely so tightly bound in an exclusive relationship to the insurance agent who procures his or her automobile or homeowners insurance.
For these reasons, I would reverse the decision of the district court on this issue and find that the plaintiffs had stated a cause of action for negligent misrepresentation.