Court Opinion

ID: 9626915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:27:33.481411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:36.362268
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
dissenting.
We have forgotten our history and renounced our inheritance. Considering only the common law personal actions, the actions of debt and detinue are among the oldest, having existed in the 12th century. The action of covenant has existed since the 13th century. Ejectment arose in the 14th. Assumpsit in the 15th. These causes of action were created by courts, the common law courts. And there was always the court of equity to provide relief where there was no adequate remedy at law.
At some point the courts reversed themselves. Or, perhaps it was that death was inevitable. In any event, at various times the courts have said that actions do not survive the death of either party, personal actions do not survive the death of the plaintiff, actions do not survive the death of the defendant unless the defendant benefited from the wrong, causes of action do not survive death, and there is no cause of action for wrongful death. Every one of these court rulings the legislatures have overturned. This court is doing it again. We are declaring our inability to provide solutions to today’s problems. We are forgetting our history and renouncing our inheritance. I dissent.
Should a manufacturer which produces a defective product which causes the death of a human being be immune to liability? No. We should follow the example of our predecessors and fill the void in the Act (Ga. L. 1968, pp. 1166, 1167) by holding that the manufacturer of personal property sold, directly or indirectly, as new property, shall be liable irrespective of privity to any person killed by its use or consumption because when sold by the manufacturer it was not merchantable and reasonably suited to the use intended. After all, it was a court which recognized the doctrine of strict liability in tort in the first place. Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., 59 Cal. 2d 57, 27 Cal. Rptr. 697 (377 P2d 897, 13 ALR3d 1049) (1963).
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice *665Undercofler joins in this dissent.