Court Opinion

ID: 9540307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:14:27.270583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:50.440308
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Justice
(concurring and dissenting).
I concur with the majority opinion in affirming the award of $946 for car insurance, license plates, lost wages, and interest as incidental damages. However, in my view, the reversal of the award of $1,735 attorney’s fees in this case results in a manifest injustice that in effect permits a seller to use the judicial process in an oppressive fashion.
The limited remedy permitted by the contract between plaintiff and defendant “failed of its essential purpose when the defendant failed for two months to return the purchase price to the plaintiff even though there was no real dispute as to the *837defects in the automobile.” Although I agree generally with the majority’s analysis of § 70A — 2-715 as to incidental and consequential damages, I do not agree that attorney’s fees in this case cannot be considered incidental damages as “any other reasonable expense incident to the delay or other breach.” Section 70A-2-715(l).
This action is not between merchants; it is not between persons of relatively equal bargaining power. The dispute is between a consumer and a merchant who dealt on the basis of a contract of adhesion in which the seller specifically provided for attorney’s fees to be paid to it by the buyer in the event the seller found it necessary to resort to judicial relief.
The automobile involved was severely defective. The dealer must have known that prior to the delivery of the vehicle, and the buyer surely found out on delivery. The plaintiff was initially assured that the defects would be made good, either by an adjustment in the selling price or by replacement with a new automobile. But the dealer then refused to make good both on the contract and the subsequent promises. Plaintiff was forced to resort to legal process to obtain the relief to which he was clearly entitled. Because plaintiff was forced to sustain the expenses of retaining counsel and going to trial, the plaintiff cannot possibly be made whole if he must bear the burden of attorney’s fees.
I well recognize that in this country we generally — but not always — follow a different rule than that followed in England on the ground that access to the courts should not be unduly burdened. But in this case it is oppressive to force the buyer to resort to a court for a remedy obviously due him. A consumer who is delivered undeniably damaged goods by a vendor, who admits as much, and then fails to follow through on his duty to rectify the situation, surely ought to make the vendee whole. No doubt some vendors simply refuse to settle because of the in terrorem effect on consumers of having to go to court with the knowledge that they won’t be made whole, even if they prevail. If there is a policy in justice and reason that justifies that result, I have not thought of it. To add to the irony, we would be required, if the dealer had brought suit, to award attorney’s fees to the dealer on the ground that the contract provided for attorney’s fees — irrespective of the fact that the contract is one of adhesion.
A recent case dealing with a similar situation is Cady v. Dick Loehr’s Inc., 100 Mich. App. 543, 299 N.W.2d 69 (1980). There plaintiff bought a motor home which, from the beginning, was subject to vibration problems. The manufacturer of the vehicle requested that it be returned to the factory for inspection, but after determining the nature of the problem refused to rectify it to the satisfaction of plaintiff. The trial court found that the vibrations were a major defect, and, in addition to awarding damages for breach of warranty, awarded attorney’s fees to plaintiffs based on the Michigan Uniform Commercial Code provision identical to our § 70A-2-715. The appellate court agreed that attorney’s fees could be awarded at the discretion of the trial court as a “reasonable expense incident to the breach.” Id., 299 N.W.2d at 72. The instant case is even more compelling for the award of attorney’s fees.
In this case the award of attorney’s fees was, in my view, proper.