Court Opinion

ID: 9728967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:20:38.179026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:53.615900
License: Public Domain

PUGLIA, P. J.
I concur in the result and join in parts I and V of the court’s opinion.
One cannot gainsay the existence of the decisional trends analyzed by Justice Friedman which, when extrapolated to embrace the instant fact situation, would arguably work a different result. I abstain, however, from joining in the court’s excursion into the outer reaches of theoretical negligence liability, not merely because such a digression is unnecessary to our decision, but primarily for the reason that I cannot subscribe to the exhortation implicit therein to extend further the reach of legal liability to encompass negligent interference with economic relations. Scholarly and incisive as the court’s opinion is, it is more than a compendium of recent decisional evolvement in the field of negligence liability. Taken as a whole, it presents these developments as an inexorable tide, predestined inevitably to engulf the doctrine to which we unanimously agree we are here bound by the principle of stare decisis. I am satisfied, however, that there is much more that needs to be said before the principle of Fifield Manor v. Finston (1960) 54 Cal.2d 632 [7 Cal.Rptr. 377, 354 P.2d 1073, 78 A.L.R.2d 813], is abandoned to this portended surge of judicial innovation. Notwithstanding, our function as *48an intermediate appellate court is best subserved by resting our decision on settled law, eschewing ruminations on questions of policy the resolution of which is not confided to us.
Appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 23, 1975. Tobriner, X, and Mosk, X, were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.