Court Opinion

ID: 9656049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:32:37.06091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:27.230694
License: Public Domain

*699Fitzgerald, C.J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). This tort action presents the novel question whether a vendor landowner may be held liable on a common-law negligence theory to the vendees of the landowner’s vendee. I concur separately because I disagree with my brother Levin’s treatment of the issue of duty.
Justice Levin hypothesizes three possible duty-creating relationships. The third, even if accepted as correct, is not supported by the facts of the instant case. The second, with which I concur, is the basis for a remand for a new trial. The first (a sale of land to defendant, Prestige Builders, plaintiffs’ vendor, and thence to plaintiffs) is said to be avoided by operation of the doctrine of caveat emptor. I am not persuaded by this logic.
Caveat emptor is a doctrine of long standing in Michigan. It owes its genesis to the idea that a buyer of real property, dealing at arm’s length with the vendor, would physically inspect the land before consummating the transaction. Such a buyer would not later be heard to complain that the land was not as expected.
The harshness of this rule encouraged limited exceptions. Quoting Prosser as authority, Justice Levin cites two exceptions, but neglects to include their policy rationale: "an increased regard for human safety, and a sadly needed improvement in bargaining business ethics * * *”. Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 64, p 412. Although "human safety” cases have typically involved dangerous conditions on the land, read broadly human safety could certainly be construed to include water unfit for human consumption and normal human use, as here.
Even concluding, as I do, that the doctrine of caveat emptor does not resolve the duty issue in *700this case, it does not follow that the defendant landowner should be liable in negligence to the vendees of his vendee. On the unusual facts of this case, title to the land did not pass to the builder until development had progressed significantly. In addition, at the time of the conveyance to the builder, defendant landowner had known for at least two months that the water was bad. Thus, these plaintiffs certainly meet the loose test of duty in Moning v Alfono, 400 Mich 425; 254 NW2d 759 (1977), and the stricter test recently articulated in Antcliff v State Employees Credit Union, 414 Mich 624; 327 NW2d 814 (1982).
I would not impose liability in negligence because of competing and, I believe, superior policy considerations which oppose unwarranted restrictions on the sale of land. When defendant landowner sold the land, he was aware of potential problems with the water. Even though it was apparent that the builder intended to develop the land, it certainly could not be said that the builder might not or would not cure the water problem before reselling. And if the problem proved insoluble, it could not be said that the builder would continue subdividing. Despite these uncertainties, the Court of Appeals held that this prior vendor had a common-law duty to the vendees of his vendee. Such a holding adversely affects all landowners, particularly farmers, who would sell to a developer. I do not support such an expansion of liability due to its predictably negative effect on the sale of land for development purposes.