Court Opinion

ID: 9522890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:33:24.335249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:13.928186
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
¶ 21. concurring and dissenting. Although I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the law forbids enforcement of the liability waiver in question, I disagree with its reasoning. To be sure, we have long held that provisions of this nature must be narrowly construed to ensure that they reflect the unmistakable intent of the parties, and this is ample and adequate protection in a commercial context where the parties generally enjoy equal bargaining strength. In a consumer transaction, however, the balance is invariably unequal; the seller controls the product or service, enjoys a decided advantage in knowledge and experience, and retains the opportunity and wherewithal to spread the risk of injury in the event of a mishap. In such circumstances, allowing the vendor to renounce its own negligence at the expense of the consumer threatens the principles that underlie our traditional tort system and, I would submit, the safety and welfare of the citizens of this state. Accordingly, contrary to the majority, I would hold that the waiver is contrary to public policy and therefore void and unenforceable.
¶ 22. It is commonplace today to observe, as Justice Holmes recognized more than a century ago, that the common law principles that courts develop and apply on a daily basis through the litigation process are “in fact at bottom the result of more or less definitely understood views of public policy.” O.W. Holmes, Jr., The Common Law 32 (M. Howe ed. 1963) (emphasis added). The real challenge, of course, lies in deciding precisely what public policy — “the community common sense and common conscience,” as this Court once described it — abides in any given case. Payne v. Rozendaal, 147 Vt. 488, 492, 520 A.2d 586, 588 (1986) (quotation omitted). For even while acknowledging the influence that “inherited instincts, traditional beliefs and acquired convictions” inevitably exert in the judicial process, Justice Cardozo — that other great common law jurist — also cautioned that courts must be “slow to substitute their own varying views of policy” for “settled institutions . . . and practices, which have taken root and flourished.” Messersmith v. Am. Fid. Co., 133 N.E. 432, 433 (N.Y. 1921); see B.N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 12-13 (1921); Rothstein v. Snowbird Corp., 2007 *231UT 96, ¶ 10, 175 P.3d 560 (holding skier’s waiver of ski area’s own negligence void as against public policy, and noting the “protean” quality of public policy determinations and risk of inconsistent and subjective decisionmaking). The case before us offers a textbook illustration of the dilemma: how is a court to determine the social importance of a particular activity for purposes of voiding or upholding a vendor’s contractual waiver of its own negligence without, consciously or unconsciously, importing subjective considerations relating to its own experience, sympathies, and values? Stated differently, how, in analyzing such provisions, can we achieve both of the fundamental goals of the common law: fairness to the parties, and stable and predictable rules of law to guide future cases?
¶23. We have set forth a number of factors in our earlier decisions to guide the public-policy determination, yet we have also stressed that “no single formula will reach the relevant public policy issues in every factual context” and that “what constitutes the public interest must be made considering the totality of the circumstances of any given case against the backdrop of current societal expectations.” Dalury v. S-K-I, Ltd., 164 Vt. 329, 333-34, 670 A.2d 795, 798 (1995) (quotation omitted). Thus, the very malleability of the factors on which a court may focus guarantees, to some extent, the persistence of the problem. And the issue is no less acute in a decision to uphold a release than in one to strike it down. Here, for example, the majority concludes that public policy does not void a standard-form release that defendant motorcycle dealer required of plaintiff as a condition to test drive its vehicle. In so holding, the majority cites three basic considerations: the “nature of the service that defendant provides, the lack of control defendant exercises over those test-driving its vehicles, and the absence of legislative policy to regulate or control dealerships.” Ante, ¶ 7. Yet, viewed from a slightly different perspective, these concerns can be seen to support precisely the opposite conclusion.
¶24. It is true, as the majority observes, that motorcycle dealers do not provide an essential public service. In Dalury, however, we specifically considered and rejected this requirement as applied to a ski resort, observing that the resort invited skiers of all levels of ability to buy lift tickets and ski its trails, and that “when a substantial number of such sales take place as a result of the seller’s general invitation to the public to utilize the *232facilities and services in question, a legitimate public interest arises.” 164 Vt. at 334, 670 A.2d at 799. How is defendant here any different? Its business is selling motorcycles to the general public, and to this end, defendant obviously advertises and promotes its product. Indeed, although the facts here are not well developed, it appears to be undisputed that plaintiff responded to a publicly advertised promotional test ride of a particularly high-power model among defendant’s motorcycles. The majority suggests that the promotion was quite restrictive because the form release that plaintiff was required to sign as a condition of participation provided that she “had prior experience with the operation of a motorcycle/ATV/watercraft,” had a valid operator’s license with a motorcycle endorsement, and was “familiar” with its operation. I would submit, however, that while these requirements may have narrowed somewhat the pool of consumers eligible for the test ride, the provisions still allowed the participation of thousands of potential riders with widely differing levels of “experience” and “familiarity” with the motorcycle in question.
¶ 25. The majority also focuses on the fact that, in Dalwry, the defendant owned and controlled the property while here defendant could not “control a prospective customer’s driving capability.” Ante, ¶ 9. With respect, this argument appears to fundamentally confuse the issue. Although the consumer here is alleged to have been negligent herself, the question is whether the dealer may be absolved from liability for its own negligence, not the consumer’s. In Dalwry, we held that the defendants were in the best position to “foresee and control hazards” on its ski slopes, to “guard against the negligence of their agents and employees,” and to “insure against risks.” 164 Vt. at 335, 670 A.2d at 799. In addition, we noted that enforcing the waiver would remove “an important incentive” for risk management “with the public bearing the cost of the resulting injuries.” Id. The property in this case may consist of motorcycles rather than ski trails, but the principles are no less applicable. Defendant owns and controls its motorcycles, and its knowledge and expertise allows it to “foresee and control” hazards arising from its own conduct. It is plainly in the best position to ensure that its salespersons are properly trained and instructed to avoid the negligent entrustment of one of its motorcycles to a person with insufficient skill and experience to control the vehicle, and to insure against the risk of injury in the event of negligence. Holding to the contrary removes the incentive *233to exercise such care. Thus understood, these pertinent considerations militate against enforcement of the release in this case as contrary to the public interest.3
¶ 26. Indeed, viewed from a slighter broader perspective, one is left to wonder how, in its essentials, the situation here is any different from any other consumer transaction. If the defendant here had negligently repaired the motorcycle’s brakes, resulting in injury to the plaintiff, a clearer release might well have withstood the majority’s scrutiny, but surely its enforcement would represent a retreat from the policies that underlie our tort system. For “at bottom,” as Holmes put it, we are a society committed to certain fundamental legal principles: compensation of innocent parties; placement of the loss on the parties responsible; and deterrence of wrongful conduct. See, e.g., Hanks v. Powder Ridge Rest. Corp., 885 A.2d 734, 742 (Conn. 2005) (describing the fundamental purposes of our tort system). Therefore, when we do choose to abandon these policies, as Justice Tobriner observed, “it has generally been to allow or require that the risk shift to another party better or equally able to bear it, not to shift the risk to the weak bargainer.” Tunkl v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 383 P.2d 441, 447 (Cal. 1963).
¶ 27. Viewed through the prism of these bedrock principles, nearly all of our decisions in this area may thus be seen as focusing less on the nature of the particular activity at issue than on the essential status and relationship of the participants. Where we have upheld hold-harmless clauses it has generally been in the context of arms-length transactions between commercial parties of relatively equal bargaining strength. See Hart v. Amour, 172 Vt. 588, 590, 776 A.2d 420, 424 (2001) (mem.) (upholding hold-harmless indemnification agreement where it “represented] an arms-length commercial transaction between a business and a commercial lessor”); Hamelin v. Simpson Paper Co., 167 Vt. 17, 21, 702 A.2d 86, 89 (1997) (upholding hold-harmless clause in commercial contract to provide professional security services where the contract “reflected] an arms-length business deal” dividing the risks and responsibilities); Fairchild Square Co. v. Green Mountain Bagel Bakery, Inc., 163 Vt. 433, 437-38, 658 A.2d 31, 34 (1995) *234(upholding contractual waiver of personal injury claims in commercial lease between landlord and business lessee); Furlon v. Haystack Mountain Ski Area, Inc., 136 Vt. 266, 270, 388 A.2d 403, 405 (1978) (upholding contractual assumption-of-risk clause between ski resort and ski lift manufacturer). While acknowledging that such provisions are generally disfavored, we have held that public policy concerns are not the predominant concern absent a disparity in contractual bargaining power between the parties. See, e.g., Hart, 172 Vt. at 590, 776 A.2d at 424 (finding no public-policy bar to the enforcement of a hold-harmless clause absent evidence “that there was any disparity in bargaining power between these commercial parties”); Hamelin, 167 Vt. at 21, 702 A.2d at 89 (noting that “[t]he considerations of public policy that motivated us in Dalury, such as unequal bargaining power, fairness, and the benefits of risk-spreading, are not present here.”); Furlon, 136 Vt. at 269, 388 A.2d at 405 (observing that our decision was “not here moved by . . . considerations of public policy” absent a “disparity in bargaining power” between the parties). In the commercial context, simply ensuring that the waiver in question was of sufficient clarity to reflect the unmistakable intent of the parties serves as a sufficient safeguard.
¶ 28. In contrast, those decisions where a waiver has been held to contravene public policy have invariably involved consumer transactions in which the defendant vendor is better positioned to foresee and guard against the risks attendant upon its product or service than the purchaser, and considerations of “unequal bargaining power, fairness, and the benefits of risk-spreading” militate against absolving the defendant of its own negligence at the expense of the relatively innocent consumer. Hamelin, 167 Vt. at 21, 702 A.2d at 89. It is a short step from this perception to a recognition that these same policy concerns inhere in virtually every consumer transaction, and thus should operate as a bar to enforcement regardless of the particular nature of the business. A comprehensive holding to this effect would further serve the public interest by replacing the inherent uncertainty of the current case-by-case approach, discussed earlier, with a uniform and predictable rule of law. Of course, there may be cases where the consumer is negligent, having voluntarily engaged in conduct that was unreasonable in light of his or her own knowledge or experience, as defendant here has alleged. But this does not warrant a policy of allowing the vendor to avoid virtually all *235responsibility for its own misconduct, where its control of the product and attendant risks could have prevented the harm altogether.
¶ 29. In voiding all contractual releases from liability for personal injury in all cases the Supreme Court of Virginia has stated that to permit one contracting party to put the other “at the mercy of its own misconduct . . . can never be lawfully done where an enlightened system of jurisprudence prevails. Public policy forbids it . . . .” Hiett v. Lake Barcroft Cmty. Ass’n, 418 S.E.2d 894, 896 (Va. 1992) (quotation omitted) (quoted in Dalury, 164 Vt. at 333, 670 A.2d at 798). We need not go so far as the Virginia court to recognize that, in the consumer context at least, such provisions should not be enforced under “an enlightened system of jurisprudence.” I would hold, therefore, that the release in this case was contrary to the fundamental public policy of Vermont, and affirm the judgment on that basis.

 The motor vehicle statutes cited by the majority may focus on the driver’s responsibility to drive safely, but they do not in any way undermine defendant’s separate and concurrent duty to exercise care in the control of its product.