Court Opinion

ID: 9704506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:37:34.209363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:03.094804
License: Public Domain

T. M. Burns, P. J.
(dissenting). I cannot agree with the majority’s interpretation of my opinion in Buckeye Union Fire Insurance Co v Detroit Edison Co, 38 Mich App 325; 196 NW2d 316 (1972).
For implied warranties to arise from the sale of a good there must be a "sale” of a "good”. For implied warranties to arise from the provision of a service, there must be a providing of a service. The perceived requirement that the sale of a product must accompany the provision of a service before implied warranties will arise does not make sense to me.
The purchaser of services rightfully may expect that those services will be properly provided. If a homeowner contracts to have his house painted, he should legitimately expect that the painter will do a reasonably adequate job whether the painter provides the paint or not. The painter’s "product”, if there must be one, is the performance of his work.1 If a skier purchases a ticket to ride a tow rope, she legitimately expects that the tow will be operated in a reasonably safe manner. To require the injured skier to prove that the towing mechanism itself is defective is without reason. It is when the rendition of the service does not meet the legitimate expectations of the person being served that a proper cause of action arises.
The confusion caused by the very use of the *442term "implied warranty” arises once again. The term essentially connotes an action resting upon a contractual relation between the parties. Its use in describing an action more suitably designated "products liability” or "manufacturer’s liability”, while misdescriptive, relates ultimately to the same legal policy of holding liable one whose actions have done damage to another by failing to meet one’s reasonable expectations. Whether the cause of action arises ex contractu or ex delicto or is implied in law or in fact, however, is irrelevant to its legitimacy. The object is to provide just compensation to the person suffering damage as the result of another’s breach of a legal duty. That legal duty may arise from the defendant’s wrongful affirmative act, negligence, occupation of land, sale of a good, manufacture of a product, or provision of a service.
The cause of action of breach of implied warranty in the provision of services is closely related to the same cause of action arising from the sale of goods. The action is contractual in foundation. It is indeed distinct from the negligence action. The liability of neither the seller of the defective goods nor the manufacturer of defective products depends upon a showing of negligence. The policy underlying the liability of the seller and manufacturer applies with equal logic to that of the provider of a service. I find no compelling distinction.
I would reverse.

 Of course, if the harm suffered by the purchaser of the service is due to some defect in a product not supplied by the seller of the service, the purchaser’s problem becomes one of proving proximate cause.