Court Opinion

ID: 9516246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:39:05.685565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:40.789366
License: Public Domain

GLASSMAN, Justice,
with whom GODFREY, Justice, joins, concurring.
I fully concur with the mandate of the Court that the judgments be affirmed in this case. Because of my disagreement with the reasoning in part 11(B) of the Court’s opinion, I am compelled to write a separate opinion.
At the close of all the evidence, the Superior Court Justice filed a written order for entry of judgment dealing with the claims against the defendant Clark Equipment Co. Referring to the negligence claim against that defendant, the Justice wrote: “The plaintiff has failed to sustain his burden of proving negligent design or failure to warn.” That conclusion is fully supported by the evidence, and it is upon that basis that I join in affirming the judgment of the court below as to that issue. The opinion of this Court purports to decide an issue neither presented to nor ruled upon by the Superior Court, namely, whether lack of privity bars the plaintiff’s negligence claim. That issue was not presented to this Court by the record below nor was it argued in the briefs filed by the parties. Under such circumstances, I deem it totally inappropriate for this Court to purport to rule upon an issue which is not before it, particularly in light of the uncertainty in our law.
The development of the law of negligence relating to the liability of a manufacturer, seller, or supplier of an allegedly defective chattel has been fully explored too many times to require full development here. It is necessary, however, to sketch that development in very broad outline. In 1842, the Court of Exchequer by way of dictum made a statement which gave rise to the principle that a manufacturer, supplier, or seller of a defective chattel was liable in negligence only to those with whom he was in privity of contract.1 Starting with the case of Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N.Y. 397 (1852), an exception to this rule developed with regard to articles “imminently” or “inherently” dangerous to human safety. In 1916, Justice Cardozo wrote his famous opinion in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916), from which the modern rule developed that the manufacturer, seller, or supplier, without regard to privity of contract, is liable where substantial harm is to be anticipated if a chattel is negligently made or designed and that negligence proximately causes an injury.
Surprisingly, this Court has had little occasion to address this problem. My research discloses no Maine case which squarely holds that lack of privity is a defense to an action based upon negligence against a supplier or manufacturer for injuries caused by a defective chattel.2 In 1923, this Court decided Flaherty v. Helfont, 123 Me. 134, 122 A. 180 (1923). In the course of the opinion by way of dicta, the Court stated:
‘The general rule is that no liability attaches for injury to persons who cannot be brought within the scope of the contract.’
But in case of substances or instrumen-talities which are imminently dangerous the rule is subject to an exception. Id. at 137, 122 A. at 181 (citations omitted).
The basis of the Court’s decision, however, was that the allegedly defective condition was not the cause of the accident. In Estabrook v. Webber Motor Co., 137 Me. 20, 15 A.2d 25 (1940), although citing Flaherty v. Helfont, supra, the Court ruled that proposed amendments to a declaration were insufficient in that they did not allege the defect with sufficient particularity.
In Lajoie v. Bilodeau, 148 Me. 359, 93 A.2d 719 (1953), this Court upheld the presiding Justice’s refusal to direct a verdict for a defendant-bottler of ginger ale in an action for negligence resulting from the *966presence of a brush in a bottle of ginger ale. Although the plaintiff had not purchased the ginger ale directly from the defendant but rather from a retail grocery store, the Court’s opinion made no mention of any requirement of privity or any exception to the rule of privity for contaminated substances. A similar case was Wallace v. Coca-Cola Bottling Plants, Inc., Me., 269 A.2d 117 (1970), where again there was no mention of any rule about privity or any exception to such a rule.
Finally, in McNally v. Nicholson Manufacturing Co., Me., 313 A.2d 913 (1973), this Court had before it on report the question of whether the third count of a complaint based upon a theory of strict liability in tort stated a claim upon which relief could be granted. The Court dismissed that count of the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, ruling that the law of Maine did not include a tort doctrine of strict product liability. In the course of that opinion, again by way of dicta, the Court noted:
The MacPherson v. Buick approach was assimilated into the law of Maine in 1923 by Flaherty v. Helfont, 123 Me. 134, 122 A. 180 (1923). It was absorbed, however, not as an outright repudiation of past doctrinal error but as reaffirming ‘privity’ to be the general governing principle subject to the exception .... Id at 924.
Nor does the legislative action in 1969 in any way reveal what the common law of this state was before or after 1969. The statute enacted in 1969, P.L. 1969, ch. 327, amended 11 M.R.S.A. § 2-318 which prior to that time limited the scope of sellers’ warranties to persons of the household or guests of the purchaser. The new statute abolished lack of privity as a defense to an action for breach of warranty. Similarly, 14 M.R.S.A. § 161 was added by the same statute and contained identical language. Both sections also referred to actions for negligence as well as actions for breach of warranty. The effort of the Legislature, for the future, to remove any doubt as to the extent to which lack of privity would be a defense in negligence or warranty actions does nothing but demonstrate the uncertainty in the case law as to that defense.
The opinion of the Court in this case implicitly assumes we are bound by the doctrine of stare decisis to recognize the following three legal principles:
1. Lack of privity is a bar to an action for negligence against a manufacturer for injuries resulting from a defect in a chattel.
2. An exception to the foregoing rule exists for instrumentalities which are “inherently dangerous.”
3. An instrumentality is not inherently dangerous unless the defect is latent.
Although those principles were once stated by this Court by way of dicta in 1923 and repeated by way of dicta fifty years later, never have those principles become a part of the law of the State of Maine through a direct pronouncement by this Court in a case in which such a pronouncement was necessary to the decision of the Court.
I yield to no one in my insistence upon institutional integrity through adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis. We are bound by the law. However, the judiciary fulfills its lawmaking function only by deciding concrete cases. Nowhere is the judiciary granted authority to make pronouncements as law when those pronouncements are not necessary to the decision of a specific case before a court. It is particularly inappropriate for this Court to consider itself bound by dicta when the rules announced in those dicta have been repudiated throughout the United States.
I find it unnecessary to state how I would rule on the open question of whether lack of privity is a bar in a products liability action based on negligence since that issue is not properly before us. I see no occasion to add to the non-binding comments made upon this subject. I will be prepared to state my views when the issue is appropriately before the Court in a case in which it is necessary to the decision of the Court and in which the issue has been fully briefed by the parties.

. See Winterbottom v. Wright, 10 M. & W. 109, 152 Eng.Rep. 402 (Ex. 1842).

. In Pelletier v. Dupont, 124 Me. 269, 128 A. 186 (1924), we did hold lack of privity to be a bar to an action based on breach of warranty.