Court Opinion

ID: 9610043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:35:53.062814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:36.175389
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
with whom MOORE, Justice, joins, dissenting.
I agree that our decisions in Van Horn Lodge, Inc. v. White, 627 P.2d 641 (Alaska 1981), and Bibo v. Jeffrey’s Restaurant, 770 P.2d 290 (Alaska 1989), cannot be reconciled in any meaningful way, and that one case should be overruled. Upon reflection, however, I conclude that it is Bibo, rather than Van Horn Lodge, which is flawed, and that our holding in Van Horn Lodge should control the result in the case at bar.
The defendant’s relationship to the plaintiff in Bibo, like that of an attorney to the attorney’s client, was a fiduciary relationship. Because of the nature of the relationship, certain duties were owed to the plaintiff whether or not the defendant intended to be thus bound; those duties arose because the law provides such consequences whenever people agree to form a *857fiduciary relationship. It was for breach of these duties that damages were sought.
In the case at bar, it is clear that the listing agreement obtained from the plaintiff created a fiduciary relationship between the parties. It is wrong, however, to say that the plaintiffs present claim is one “arising on [the parties’] contract,” i.e., from the breach of promises made in the listing agreement. The claim arises from the defendants’ breach of duties imposed upon him regardless of the parties’ intent when the listing agreement was made; like the ordinary tort feasor’s duty of reasonable care, these were duties imposed by the laws of society. Accordingly, I would hold that the plaintiff’s action is barred by the two year statute of limitations, under our holding in Van Horn Lodge, because the complaint sounds in tort rather than contract. To eliminate the existing conflict between Van Horn Lodge and Bibo, I would overrule the latter.