Court Opinion

ID: 9645497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:26:55.858475+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:13:30.314941
License: Public Domain

ROWLEY, Judge
concurring:
I agree with the majority that appellants should not be allowed to escape liability by relying on the release language contained in the agreement of sale. In my opinion, however, the language is not ambiguous. Rather, the fatal defect in the release is that it is buried in the middle of a standard form contract in the same print size and type as the rest of the contract.
As pointed out by the majority, the builder-vendor enjoys a superior bargaining position due to his special knowledge in the home construction situation. The implied warranties of habitability and reasonable workmanship extended to the builder-vendor by our Supreme Court in Elderkin v. Gaster, 447 Pa. 118, 288 A.2d 771 (1972), “were necessary to equalize the disparate positions of the builder-vendor and the average home purchaser by safe-guarding the reasonable expectations of the purchaser compelled to depend *136upon the builder-vendor’s greater manufacturing and marketing expertise.” Tyus v. Resta, 328 Pa.Super. 11, 19, 476 A.2d 427, 431 (1984).
Thus, I would hold that, for the protection of the consumer, any attempt to disclaim an implied warranty must not only be clear and unambiguous, but must be conspicuous. See Herlihy v. Dunbar Builders Corp., 92 Ill.App.3d 310, 47 Ill.Dec. 911, 415 N.E.2d 1224 (1980). Cf. Thermo King Corp. v. Strick Corp., 467 F.Supp. 75 (W.D.Pa.) (the test for “conspicuous” under the UCC is “whether a reasonable person against whom the modification or exclusion is to operate ought to have noticed it”), aff'd, 609 F.2d 503 (3d Cir.1979); UCC, 13 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. § 2316(b) (Purdon 1984) (to exclude or modify an implied warranty of merchantability and/or fitness, the language must be conspicuous).