Court Opinion

ID: 9649159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:43:34.70636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:08.340826
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
with whom GOD-FREY, Justice, joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the Court in affirming the judgment relating to Count II of the complaint herein. I agree that Burke’s breach of warranty claim against Day’s Inc. was barred by the statute of limitations. I agree that Burke’s breach of warranty claim against Hamilton Beach cannot be maintained in the absence of privity between Burke and Hamilton Beach.1 I must respectfully disagree with the view of the Court relating to the negligence claim against Hamilton Beach contained in Count I. I do not agree for two reasons.
First, I am troubled by the Court’s disposition of the negligence claim on a basis (lack of privity) not presented below and without affording the plaintiff an opportunity to amend. Even under the theories of tort liability upon which the Court relies, I do not think it appropriate for us to rule in the first instance as a matter of law that the appliance in question could not have been so defective as to be inherently dangerous. No square holding of this Court has ever so limited the MacPherson exception. MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., 217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916). Many jurisdictions have expanded that exception to obliterate the harsh consequences of the privity requirement in tort products liability cases. The fact that our legislature has abolished this requirement entirely should not preclude our reasoned consideration of judicial precedents in this area.
Second, neither of the Maine cases relied upon in the Court’s opinion require us to affirm the judgment against plaintiff’s claim in Count I. As pointed out in the separate concurring opinion of Justice Glassman in Hurd v. Hurd, Me., 423 A.2d 960 (1981), no Maine case has squarely adopted the privity requirement in tort. In Flaherty v. Helfont, 123 Me. 134, 122 A. 180 (1923) we referred to the privity rule and the MacPherson exception but held that the alleged defect was not a proximate cause of the accident. The holding of the Court in McNally v. Nicholson Manufacturing Company, Me., 313 A.2d 913 (1973) was that the law of Maine as applicable to that case did not include a doctrine of strict liability in tort.
The requirement of privity for products liability in tort has been severely criticized in logic and conceptual basis. Most jurisdictions have long since abolished the requirement either by judicial decision or legislative action. Our own legislature has repudiated the requirement in an enactment not here directly applicable. Yet the *152Court’s opinion in this case suggests that the combination of previous dicta and subsequent legislation prevents Mrs. Burke from obtaining our evaluation of the efficacy and applicability of the requirement.
Finally, I would reverse the judgment on the pleadings as to Count I upon the issue of the statute of limitations. The Superior Court cited and Hamilton Beach relies upon the supposed distinction between transactional and non-transactional plaintiffs. I find it curious that a tort claim could be barred by lack of privity with defendant Hamilton Beach and also barred by the statute of limitations supposedly commencing on the date of a transaction. Although the concept of transactional plaintiffs in tort was discussed by way of dictum in Williams v. Ford Motor Company, Me., 342 A.2d 712, 716-718 (1975), we there held only that the brother of the purchaser of a motor vehicle was not barred by the statute of limitations from asserting a negligence claim against the manufacturer.
I do not advocate any deviation from the general rule that a cause of action accrues when the plaintiff suffers injury. That is the square holding of Williams. The law of tort liability, however, requires more than exposure to the risk of injury. Presumably the plaintiff in Williams was exposed to such risk every time he used or rode in his brother’s car. Where a claim has no element of a consensual or contractual nature, I fail to see why any transactional distinction should be made. I do not find any basis in logic or reason for treating the negligence claim of a purchaser any differently than the negligence claim of another who might reasonably be expected to be affected by the defective product.

. The majority correctly point out that the legislative abolition of the pre-existing requirement of privity in warranty actions clearly was made applicable only to transactions occurring after the effective date of the act and that the transaction herein clearly occurred prior to such date.