Court Opinion

ID: 9732949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:46:06.381375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:36.636441
License: Public Domain

Peterson, Justice
(concurring specially).
The injury alleged by plaintiff employee (from liability for which defendant and third-party plaintiff, Evelyn Watson, seeks indemnity from third-party defendant employer, James Miller) occurred on December 12,1968, several months before the enactment of Minn. St. 176.061, subd. 10, the expressed effective date of which was September 1, 1969.1 I concur with the decision of the court that the legislature did not intend that the statute should be retroactively applied to this situation, but would do so on a ground not explicitly stated in the majority opinion.
The substantive right of indemnity, whatever the theoretical basis of the action, has its practical inception upon the occurrence of the injurious event for which the indemnitee is liable and for which, because of a relationship between the indemnitor and the indemnitee existing at that time, there arises a right to indemnity. Even though the right to indemnity does not mature until adjudication of the action against the indemnitee, it is at least an inchoate right at that prior point in time. This reason*371able expectation of the prospective indemnitee is, in my view, of such substantive import as not to be frustrated by nice distinctions as to the nature of the remedy.
Every presumption, therefore, should be against finding a legislative intent that this addition to the statute was to be applicable to this action for indemnity.2 The language of the statute, of course, does not clearly and manifestly express any such intent.

 Plaintiff’s action was commenced on November 26, 1969, subsequent to the enactment of the statute. In view of today’s decision, this procedural event is without legal significance, so that Lunderberg v. Bierman, 241 Minn. 349, 63 N. W. (2d) 355, 43 A. L. R. (2d) 865, will be applicable at trial.

 Cf. Hunt v. Nevada State Bank, 285 Minn. 77, 92, 101, 172 N. W. (2d) 292, 302, 307, certiorari denied, 397 U. S. 1010, 90 S. Ct. 1239, 25 L. ed. (2d) 423.