Court Opinion

ID: 9772122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:08:07.055924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:42.199675
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
On this same day in another case we will hand down an opinion that the words, “to meet the witnesses face to face,” in the Bill of Rights in our Kentucky Constitution, should be given a contemporaneous con*822struction allowing videotape testimony instead of direct confrontation in order to accommodate the victims of child abuse. Commonwealth v. Willis, Ky., 716 S.W.2d 224 (1986). Inconsistently, in the present case we reject contemporaneous construction and hold to a literal construction of the words of the contributory negligence section in the Products Liability Act. When we do so, we disregard both historical context and the fabric of the law.
One law, contemporaneous construction, for the child abuse victim; a different law for the tort victim. Perhaps we should reexamine the Biblical precept that there shall be one manner of law that shall apply to the stranger and the native alike. Leviticus 24:22.
The present Opinion proceeds from two premises: (1) that KRS 411.320(3) should be “construed according to the plain meaning of the words”; and (2) the statute represents “policy clearly established by the General Assembly.”
Neither premise applies in this case unless we totally ignore the statute’s historical context. The opposite side to the “plain meaning” doctrine is that we do not accord words of a statute their literal meaning where “to do so would lead to an absurd or wholly unreasonable conclusion.” Bailey v. Reeves, Ky., 662 S.W.2d 832, (1984).
The historical context in which this section of the Products Liability Act was enacted was the then ongoing nationwide debate as to whether to allow contributory negligence to be utilized to any extent at all as a defense in a products liability action based on strict liability in tort. At the time the new theory of strict liability in tort for manufacturers and distributors of defective products had been relatively recently established by § 402A of the Restatement (Second) Torts, adopted in Kentucky in Dealers Transport Co. v. Battery Distributing Co., Ky., 402 S.W.2d 441 (1966). The Restatement raised the issue as to whether and to what extent courts should permit a defendant charged with this new theory of liability to interpose as a defense the contributory negligence of the product user or consumer. Comment n, Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) Torts. In 1978 when our General Assembly enacted the Products Liability Act, this debate was still largely unresolved, although there were a number of prominent cases from elsewhere around the country holding that contributory negligence was not an available defense in products liability actions. To name a few: Luque v. McLean, 8 Cal.3d 136, 104 Cal.Rptr. 443, 501 P.2d 1163 (1972); McCown v. International Harvester Co., 463 Pa. 13, 342 A.2d 381 (1975); Rogers v. Toro Mfg. Co., 522 S.W.2d 632 (Mo.App.1975).
No doubt this section of the Products Liability Act, KRS 411.320(3), was the General Assembly’s policy pronouncement to end the debate for Kentucky as to whether contributory negligence should be permitted as a defense in a products liability action. But to extend the meaning of the words of the statute beyond their historical context is to adopt “an absurd or wholly unreasonable conclusion.” Bailey v. Reeves, supra. Justice should be blind, but not mindless.
Hilen v. Hays, Ky., 673 S.W.2d 713 (1984), did not change the nature of contributory negligence as a defense to tort actions. It simply stated that “[hjenceforth ... contributory negligence ... will not bar recovery but shall reduce the total amount of the award in the proportion that the claimant’s contributory negligence bears to the total negligence that caused the damages.” 673 S.W.2d at 720.
The Products Liability Act was written in the era of consumer protection, negating the premise that when the General Assembly wrote the Act they intended to provide a harsher rule for contributory negligence in products liability actions than would apply to other tort actions. To give the Act such a construction is our policy, not theirs. Contributory negligence is now only a pro tanto defense in other tort actions. A products liability defendant should be afforded no greater protection *823than is available to others who cause wrongful injury.
It is noteworthy that after our decision in Hilen v. Hays, supra, the General Assembly met and rejected a number of suggestions to alter or abolish the comparative negligence doctrine stated therein. Seemingly this vindicates the premise stated in Hilen v. Hays that legislative inaction in the face of the broad demand to mitigate the harsh doctrine of contributory negligence as a complete defense did not express a legislative policy favoring such a doctrine, but, on the contrary, only legislative inertia and a commendable predisposition to leave to the courts the decision as to which rule will better accommodate justice in the courtroom.
We have already discussed the historical background for the contributory negligence provision in the Products Liability Act in Hilen v. Hays, supra, stating:
“[F]rom its background it is clear that the legislative purpose was to deal with the availability of contributory negligence as a defense in products cases and not with whether contributory negligence should result in a complete bar or a proportionate recovery.” 673 S.W.2d at 715.
This portion of our decision was not dictum. It was a necessary predicate to our decision that “an historical review compels the conclusion that the contributory negligence rule as it applies to this case is court-made law that bears the imprimatur of neither the Kentucky Constitution nor the General Assembly.” 673 S.W.2d at 715-16. Although Hilen v. Hays did not decide the issue now before us, it was dispositive of the historical perspective of the present statute, which the present opinion chooses to ignore.
The present Majority Opinion implies some criticism of Hilen v. Hays, Ky., 673 S.W.2d 713 (1984), which is both unnecessary and out of place. Five Justices of this Court signed on in Hilen v. Hays. There is no reason to term it “judicial fiat” or to suggest that we created “confusion in the law applicable to products liability actions.” That Opinion will stand on its own merits. The question is, will this one?
The present opinion creates a special status for contributory negligence in products liability actions, different from its status in other tort actions. This is precisely the kind of special treatment which we condemned in Tabler v. Wallace, Ky., 704 S.W.2d 179 (1986), which requires “a constitutionally acceptable reason to discriminate between goods and services.” 704 S.W.2d at 186. Tabler v. Wallace addresses § 59 of the Constitution, which seeks to protect the people from legislation creating arbitrary classifications “not based upon a natural, real or substantial distinction inhering in the subject matter.” City of Louisville v. Klusmeyer, Ky., 324 S.W.2d 831, 834 (1959). In like manner the decisions of our court should not interpret statutes which were not arbitrary and discriminatory when written so as to become so in application. We do this in this case by discriminating against those who are injured by product defects. We discriminate against these victims whether their cause of action sounds in negligence, in warranty, or in strict liability under § 402A of the Restatement.
Constitutionally impermissible discrimination is no less so because it results from chronological events than when it is patent from the words of the statute. In Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Faulkner, Ky., 307 S.W.2d 196 (1957), we held that a statute requiring railroad companies to overcome a presumption of negligence when any of their cars injured livestock was unconstitutional because it discriminated against railroads as distinguished from other forms of motorized transportation. This was so even though the statute would not have functioned in a discriminatory manner in 1893 when the statute was passed because these other forms of motorized transportation did not then exist. We stated that the purpose of § 59 “is to place all persons similarly situated upon a plane of equality and to render it impossible for any class to obtain preferred treatment.” 307 S.W.2d at 198. We quoted from the *824opinion of Mr. Justice Brandéis in Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Walters, 294 U.S. 405, 55 S.Ct. 486, 488, 79 L.Ed. 949:
“A statute valid when enacted may become invalid by change in the conditions to which it is applied.”
In In re: Beverly Hills Fire Litigation, Ky., 672 S.W.2d 922, 926 (1984), we took care to construe a statute purported to create a liability rule for certain persons engaged in the building industry different from the general rule so as to avoid unconstitutional application. We recognized the constitutionally impermissible arbitrariness which “would result in the same product having immunity in some circumstances and not in others....” By the same token we should now construe the Products Liability Act so as to avoid constitutionally impermissible arbitrariness favoring products liability defendants over other defendants charged with similar misconduct.
To illustrate how this opinion results in “an absurd or wholly unreasonable conclusion” (Bailey v. Reeves, supra), consider its impact in those cases where there are multiple defendants with different theories of liability against these defendants, or multiple theories of liability against a single defendant, some sounding in products liability, some negligence, and some mixed.
For instance, in a recently settled case a young ádult, at night, dove into the shallow end of a swimming pool at a resort motel. The cause of action against the motel owner charged that the swimming pool was defectively constructed because of failure to properly mark depth designations, and also charged negligence in failing to provide a lifeguard while the pool was open. Thus the theory of liability was a mix of defective product and negligent services. Which rule should the trial court apply in such circumstances to the defendant’s claim of contributory negligence? Is contributory negligence a pro tanto defense or a complete defense? How can the trial court instruct the jury so as to accommodate the two different rules of law which will now apply to the same action?
Next, consider what will happen in a case arising out of a motor vehicle collision where the defendant answers that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, and then files a third party complaint against his car’s manufacturer alleging that a defect in the car was a contributing factor. The defendant motorist has a statutory right to contribution from the car manufacturer under KRS 412.030. The car manufacturer will claim it has no liability for contribution because of our decision in this case. It will be a practical impossibility to fashion a correct instruction or to render a coherent verdict.
Next, consider the quandary in a hospital/medical negligence/defective prosthesis case, where there are multiple defendants and multiple cross-claims, and the theory of liability against some is negligent services, some products liability based on § 402A of the Restatement or breach of warranty, and some mixed. How can the trial court apply the rule of law of this opinion in such a case?
It should be unnecessary to further illustrate the problems that will be caused by this opinion. This decision is an indigestible stew, full of bits and pieces that won’t go down together, and, if forced down, won’t stay down.
The General Assembly wrote the Products Liability Act before the advent of comparative negligence. Thus the genesis of this opinion cannot be in a legislative mandate preferring contributory negligence as a complete defense over comparative negligence. Its genesis is in how our Court perceives the legislative mandate. This opinion represents a major shift in the direction of the law on liability for defective products, a shift made by us and not by the legislature. Originally the debate was over whether the manufacturer of a defective product should be permitted to interpose contributory negligence as a defense at all; whether it should be treated differently in products liability cases than it is in other kinds of cases. We have gone 180° in the opposite direction. We now hold that products liability defendants shall not bear their *825share of the responsibility for injury or damage caused by defective products in the same manner that other types of defendants are now called upon to bear their share of responsibility. This is a major shift in the direction of the law with which I cannot agree.