Court Opinion

ID: 9722182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:19:18.964875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:31.280130
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(dissenting). This Court has previously stated that the question presented when a defendant moves for summary judgment for failure to state a claim is "whether plaintiffs claim, on the pleadings, is so clearly unenforceable as a matter of law that no factual development can possibly justify a right to recovery”. Crowther v Ross Chemical & Mfg Co, 42 Mich App 426, 431; 202 NW2d 577 (1972). The trial court erred in answering this question in the affirmative.
Plaintiffs complaint against the defendant Rancks places before the court a novel theory of liability. It is the novelty of the claim that requires a factual background for its review.
"The Court should be especially reluctant to dismiss on the basis of the pleadings when the asserted theory of liability is novel or extreme, since it is important that new legal theories be explored and assayed in the light of actual facts rather than a pleader’s suppositions.” 5 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure, § 1357, p 603, quoted in Crowther, supra, 42 Mich App at 430.
It need not be decided at this point that plaintiff may be entitled to recovery, but only whether plaintiffs claim is so untenable that to allow him to proceed further would be to encourage an exercise in futility.
Plaintiffs claim is that defendant, by failing to tell him about significant defects in the home he was purchasing, has, along with others, harmed *479him and so defendant should share in the liability for that harm.
Numerous Michigan cases have declared that, in certain instances, failure to disclose material facts can be actionable fraud. See e.g. Sullivan v Ulrich, 326 Mich 218; 40 NW2d 126 (1949), Walker v Walker, 330 Mich 332; 47 NW2d 633; 31 ALR2d 1250 (1951), Nowicki v Podgorski, 359 Mich 18; 101 NW2d 371 (1960). Several cases have also ruled that a vendor, even one with innocent intentions, could be liable to an assignee for fraud. Hall-Doyle Equity Co v Crook, 245 Mich 24; 222 NW 215 (1928), Holbrook v Blick, 256 Mich 396; 240 NW 26 (1932), Sweet v Shreve, 262 Mich 432; 247 NW 711 (1933) .
Defendants, in support of their position that they owed no duty of disclosure to plaintiffs, point to the recent case of Jeminson v Montgomery Real Estate & Co, 47 Mich App 731; 210 NW2d 10 (1973), lv granted, 390 Mich 788 (1973). Since their only interest in the transaction was, defendants say, as a holder of a security interest in the premises sold, their position is similar to the mortgagee in Jeminson.
But in Jeminson, the sale and the financing of the property was characterized as "not unitary, but binary, in that plaintiff first made and signed a purchase agreement with the real estate company, and several weeks later, in an independent transaction, concluded a mortgage agreement with the mortgage company”. 47 Mich App at 737. The transaction giving rise to this plaintiff’s claim cannot be called "binary”. In a single transaction the plaintiffs purchased the Saylors’ interest, with the Rancks’ consent, and accepted all of the Saylors’ obligations under the contract. The transfer and acceptance was the consideration for the *480Rancks’ release of the Saylors. A single document evidences this novation. It is also significant that the Saylors could not transfer or assign their interest without the Rancks’ consent.
I am unable to state with certainty that a vendor, while releasing his vendee, can silently receive in exchange the promise of a new purchaser knowing that the purchaser is unaware of substantial defects in the premises he is acquiring.
."It is also true that one who remains silent when fair dealing requires him to speak may be guilty of fraudulent concealment.” Nowicki v Podgorski, supra, 359 Mich at 32.
I recognize the novelty of plaintiff’s claim against the Rancks, but it is because of its novelty that the claim deserves to be viewed against a factual background. For this reason I find the lower court’s grant of summary judgment improper.