Court Opinion

ID: 9862024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:58:10.947264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:56.275995
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Justice,
concurring.
I accept the law and analysis set forth by Justice VandeWalle in this case. I write to express some concerns and raise possible warning flags as to the recent decisions and future decisions in this area. The *169fields of commercial law, business organizations, and property law require special attention to predictability. Major structures are created, complex business and professional entities are established, and ongoing commercial relationships are formed in reliance upon legal principles as they are enunciated by the courts.
The doctrine of stare decisis was no doubt essential to the development of the British commercial empire. If each judge had made a new and independent analysis of each problem of property or commercial law, the business relationships would have been chaotic. Reliance upon precedent has special significance in these areas.
By reversing Mandan Security Bank v. Heinsohn, 320 N.W.2d 494 (1982), First Interstate Bank of Fargo v. Larson, 475 N.W.2d 538 (1991) created uncertainties in established business relationships, even though its application was made prospective only. What is to happen to the transactions vested in reliance on the previous decision? Can these transactions be modified, based upon changing circumstances, without invalidating the original guaranty obligations upon which the parties relied?
We should not be quick to denigrate the independent status of the many partnerships which operate as very separate entities and organizations in our business and professional world. To characterize these as merely unincorporated associations is to confuse an amorphous group of persons with sophisticated business organizations.
Care must be taken to assure that stare decisis is not applied based only upon the views of a given group of judges at a given point in time. Change in the composition of the appellate courts should not create uncertainty in the law — particularly as it applies to these areas where the law is an essential part of the commercial equation.
ERICKSTAD, C.J., concurs.