Court Opinion

ID: 9748084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:51:28.196498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:31.363484
License: Public Domain

MURRAY, Justice,
dissenting.
While recognizing the legitimate concern of my colleagues in upholding a statute that effectively denies redress to the injured plaintiff, I must respectfully dissent upon the ground that G.L.1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 9-l-13(b), as amended by P.L.1978, ch. 299, § 2, is well within the legislative power as defined by our constitution.
The majority opinion’s reliance upon article I, section 5, of our constitution to invalidate § 9 — 1—13(b) is both misguided and misplaced in light of the previous holdings of this court. That section, as the majority recognizes, has been most frequently employed by an indigent litigant to justify the prosecution of an appeal despite his failure to pay court filing fees or post surety. Such a litigant, however, has only been successful under this theory in cases in which his indigency was clearly established and the probable cause of his action was demonstrated by affidavit. Spalding v. Bainbridge, 12 R.I. 244, 244-45 (1879).
In only two of the seven “purchase” cases cited by the majority has such a rule been applied to afford relief to an indigent litigant. In all other cases, no violation of art. I, sec. 5 has been found. In our most recent “purchase” case, we declined to hold that art. I, sec. 5 provides any assistance to aid an indigent tenant in prosecuting an appeal from an adverse District Court judgment dispossessing him from his leasehold under § 9-12-12. Jones v. Aciz, 109 R.I. 612, 289 A.2d 44 (1972). In Jones we specifically noted that art. I, sec. 5, did not give an indigent tenant any protection at the appellate stage, given the clear legislative mandate to require the posting of a bond. To hold otherwise “would clearly fly in the face of the express language of the statute and would clearly constitute unreasonable judicial legislation.” Id. at 627, 289 A.2d at 52.
In any event, these “purchase” cases have absolutely no relevance to this appeal. Historically, art. I, sec. 5’s “purchase” clause was directly borrowed from the Magna Car-ta and “was designed to abolish, not fixed fees, prescribed for the purposes of revenue, but the fines which were anciently paid to expedite or delay law proceedings and procure favor.” Perce v. Hallett, 13 R.I. 363, 364 (1881). In this sense, “the king seemed to sell justice and right to some and to delay or deny it to others.” Id. at 365. In the case at bar, no showing is made that the enactment or practical application of § 9-*202l-13(b) has caused certain wealthy or politically favored products-liability plaintiffs to obtain compensation for their injuries more frequently than their poorer or politically disadvantaged counterparts when both groups were injured by products placed in service ten years prior to their respective injuries. Indeed, such a showing could never be made since the only determinative factor under § 9-l-13(b) is the product’s age and not the injured plaintiff’s wealth or political position.
Consequently, the majority implicitly recognize that only the first sentence of art. I, sec. 5, may be used to strike down § 9-1— 13(b) as unconstitutional. With this proposition I must agree, although I find no justification for their holding upon reading the previous decisions of this court in construing that sentence. My brethren cite Lemoine v. Martineau, 115 R.I. 233, 342 A.2d 616 (1975), as primary justification for the proposition that art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause has separate, independent meaning. A close reading of that decision, however, reveals that a second, autonomous theory was employed to invalidate the judicial-continuance statute at issue in that case. General Laws 1956 (1968 Reenactment) § 22-4-3. Legislative usurpation of the judicial function, specifically, the legislators’ unconstitutional encroachment upon the judiciary’s right to control its affairs in a manner fair and equitable to all litigants, Lemoine, 115 R.I. at 240, 342 A.2d at 621, was held to be an equally sufficient basis in itself to invalidate § 22-4-3.
Admittedly, the Lemoine court found it necessary to reach the art. I, sec. 5, remedy-clause issue and found it to apply. Extending that clause’s application to the instant case, however, requires a herculean leap upon the part of this court which is clearly unwise given our infrequent and prior constructions of that section.
Lemoine involved a direct legislative disruption of an ongoing judicial trial and had nothing to do with products-liability suits or statutes of repose.
Section 9-l-13(b) creates no such disruption. It simply provides an affirmative procedural defense to a products-liability defendant in the answer to the complaint served upon him. At this stage there has been only minor discovery upon the part of either party, and no jury has been impaneled. Indeed, the role of the judiciary may have involved little more than the docketing of the plaintiff’s case and the issuance of a summons to the defendant. In this context, it is inconceivable to conclude there has been anything but the most miniscule judicial involvement and certainly none in that degree that invoked constitutional sanction in Lemoine.
Additionally, I can see no parallel between a statute that provides absolute immunity from judicial appearances to legislators while in session and one simply regulate ing the time period in which actions may be brought against a manufacturer under a theory of strict liability in tort. The latter is concerned with simply modifying a right created by the common law, see Ritter v. Narragansett Electric Co., 109 R.I. 176, 283 A.2d 255 (1971), whereas the former involves a direct legislative invasion of powers explicitly assigned to the judicial branch in our constitution. R.I. Constitution, art. III, art. X, sec. 1; see State v. Garnetto, 75 R.I. 86, 63 A.2d 777 (1949); G. & D. Taylor & Co. v. Place, 4 R.I. 324 (1856); Opinion of the Justices, 3 R.I. 299 (1854).
Similarly, I find no support for my brethren’s application of art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause to this case in Molloy v. Collins, 66 R.I. 251, 18 A.2d 639 (1941), or in Martin v. Hammond, 89 R.I. 98, 151 A.2d 114 (1959). Molloy involved the removal of certain members of the Providence Board of Canvassers by the newly elected mayor. This court specifically found that the removal was entirely proper under art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause. Justice Moss stated that the deposed canvassers suffered no injuries to their respective persons or properties from their collective removal nor any damages to their respective characters from the *203charges of malfeasance and nonfeasance of duties which caused their removal.
Martin involved the granting of a motion for continuance by a trial justice in an assumpsit action to resolve an apparent inconsistency upon previous motion rulings. Again, no violation of art. I, sec. 5, was found to have occurred. In light of both the inappositeness of the facts in those cases to the case at bar and the findings by our court of no constitutional violation in either one, I can find no precedent in either holding to justify the majority’s result. Again, I must suggest that my brethren’s application of art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause to this case is an unwarranted and radical departure from our prior holdings.
Even were I to concede that the case at bar provided an appropriate opportunity to invigorate constitutional analysis under art. 1, sec. 5,1 would be forced to conclude that § 9-1 — 13(b) is valid.
Article I, sec. 5’s remedy clause is our constitution’s guarantee of access to the courts for the redress of personal injuries. Such a guarantee in many respects has been interpreted as a due-process provision concerning itself with the destruction by statute of a vested right, see McGovern, The Variety, Policy and Constitutionality of Product Liability Statutes of Repose, 30 Am.U.L.Rev. 579 (1981) and Annot., 25 A.L.R. 4th 641 (1983).
Despite the plethora of decisions cited by my brethren in support of their holding, the highest courts of only five states have considered constitutional challenges to products-liability statutes of repose under the above theories. Of these five, the weight of authority is nearly balanced concerning their constitutionality.2
In Bolick v. American Barmag Corp., 306 N.C. 364, 293 S.E.2d 415 (1982), the North Carolina Supreme Court gave explicit recognition to their state legislature’s right to enact G.S. 1-50(6) (North Carolina’s six-year products-liability statute of repose) absent judicial interference: “It is for the Legislature, not for this Court, to impose, as a condition precedent to liability for personal injury, that the injury must occur within a specified time after the wrongdoing which is alleged to have been the proximate cause.” Bolick, 306 N.C. at 370, 293 S.E.2d at 420-21 (quoting Raftery v. Wm. C. Vick Construction Co., 291 N.C. 180, 190-91, 230 S.E.2d 405, 411 (1976)). “That the legislature has the authority to establish a condition precedent to what originally was a common law cause of action is beyond question. ‘[T]he General Assembly is the policy-making agency of our government, and when it elects to legislate in respect to the subject matter of any common law rule, the statute supplants the common law rule and becomes the public policy of the State in respect to that particular matter.’ ” Bolick, 306 N.C. at 370, 293 S.E.2d at 420 (quoting McMichael v. Proctor, 243 N.C. 479, 483, 91 S.E.2d 231, 234 (1956)).
Consequently, the Bolick court concluded that for those injuries subject to G.S. 1-50(6), the “plaintiff must prove the condition precedent that the cause of action is brought no ‘more than six years after the date of initial purchase [of the product] for use or consumption.’ ” Bolick, 306 N.C. at 370, 293 S.E.2d at 420.
Similarly, our Legislature in enacting § 9-l-13(b) modified our own common-law rule created in Ritter v. Narragansett Electric Co., 109 R.I. 176, 283 A.2d 255 (1971). Our Legislature now requires as a condition precedent to bringing a products-liability action that the action be brought no more than “ten years after the date the product was first purchased for use or consuro,^ tion.” Section 9-l-13(b). Using Bolick as our sole guide, I would be forced to conclude that such action was well within its constitutional power.
*204Total reliance upon Bolick to uphold the constitutionality of § 9-l-13(b) is unnecessary, however, in light of this court’s opinion in Fournier v. Miriam Hospital, 93 R.I. 299, 175 A.2d 298 (1961). In Fournier, the court specifically rejected plaintiff’s argument that the Legislature may not abridge or modify a vested right derived from the common law under art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause. In that case, the court upheld the constitutionality of a statute that absolved hospitals supported in whole or in part by charitable contributions from liability for the negligence of their employees.
In Fournier, our court explicitly adopted the Alabama rule that “ ‘this provision [art. 1, sec. 5] does not undertake to preserve existing duties against legislative change made before the breach occurs.’ ” Fournier, 93 R.I. at 305, 175 A.2d at 301. “If it were otherwise the legislature would be barred from altering by way of restricting or extending the provisions of the common law in any manner, regardless of social changes and the experiences of man over centuries. It was never contemplated that the constitution should be so construed.” Id. at 305, 175 A.2d at 301.
Notwithstanding this explicit policy mandate of Fournier, the majority now seek to ignore the doctrine of stare decisis and allow plaintiff to proceed under an even simpler theory of recovery than that employed by the plaintiff in Fournier. To do so without explicitly overruling the Fournier rule can only introduce confusion in what was previously a well-settled area of law.
Additional review of the other cases on point does not dissuade me from this conclusion. The holding in Battilla v. Allis Chalmers Manufacturing Co., 392 So.2d 874 (Fla.1980), was a per curiam opinion invalidating Florida’s twelve-year statute of repose for products-liability actions. See Fla. Stat. § 95.031 (1981). Only four judges of that distinguished body agreed that said statute unconstitutionally denied the plaintiff’s access to the courts. They did so in essentially a one-sentence order. Battilla, 392 So.2d at 874.
There was a well-reasoned three-judge dissent in Battilla which would have upheld the constitutionality of § 95.031 as a sound legislative response to the “developing liability of a manufacturer.” Battilla, 392 So.2d at 875 (McDonald, J. dissenting). Because of the extreme brevity of the Battilla court’s per curiam opinion and the sounder reasoning of its dissent, I find that per curiam decision totally unpersuasive as authority to strike down § 9-l-13(b).
Similarly, I do not find the holding in Lankford v. Sullivan, Long and Hagerty, 416 So.2d 996 (Ala.1982), sufficiently convincing or analogous to the facts of this case to justify invalidating § 9-l-13(b). In Lankford, the Alabama Supreme Court defined as fundamental certain rights guaranteed by sec. 13 of the Alabama Constitution. That section states “ ‘[tjhat all courts be open; and that every person, for any injury done him, * * * shall have a remedy by due process of law; and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, or delay.’ ” Lankford, 416 So.2d at 999. The majority of this court make no such finding that the right to sue for redress of personal injuries under a theory of products liability is fundamental for purposes of art. I, sec. 5.3 Nor do they explicitly construe art. I, sec. 5’s remedy clause as a due-process guarantee. Upon these two basic grounds, therefore, Lankford is fundamentally distinguishable from the case at bar.
Additionally, the Alabama Supreme Court employed a heightened standard of review in evaluating its ten-year statute of repose. It required that there be a substantial relationship between the “social evil” perceived by the Legislature and their attempt to eradicate it as a prerequisite to sustaining the statute. Lankford, 416 So.2d at 1001. I do not embrace such a rule. The better view is that the statute should be *205sustained if it is not arbitrary and is reasonable. See United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 58 S.Ct. 778, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938); Issarescu v. Cleland, 465 F.Supp. 657, 660 (D.R.I.1979) and Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976). Reasonableness will be presumed where the Legislature enacts economic measures. Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, 348 U.S. 483, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955). I refuse to awaken long-rejected notions of substantive due process4 and adhere to the Williamson rule in cases of non-fundamental rights. Economic legislation is clearly the province of the Legislature. See Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78-79, 31 S.Ct. 337, 340, 55 L.Ed. 369, 377 (1911).
The recent decision of Heath v. Sears, Roebuck, & Co., 464 A.2d 288 (N.H.1983), is unpersuasive for this same reason. Again, a produets-liability statute of repose was scrutinized by a court employing a higher standard of review than that traditionally afforded economic legislation.5
Additionally, the Heath decision is not cogent authority since it arose in a legal context critically distinct from the case at bar. In New Hampshire, a strong judicial philosophy prevails that makes certain rights of the common law sacrosanct. This philosophy prevented New Hampshire’s Supreme Court from upholding a statute that completely abridged “the right to an adequate remedy * * * for the infringement of a right derived from the unwritten law.” Heath, 464 A.2d at 294 (quoting State v. Saunders, 66 N.H. 39, 74, 25 A. 588, 589 (1889)). In this jurisdiction, the opposite judicial philosophy controls. Given our previous holding in Fournier explicitly rejecting the infinite perpetuation of common-law rights in the face of contrary legislative action, we must sustain § 9-1-13(b) validity.
In my opinion, the correct result was reached in Thornton v. Mono Manufacturing Co., 99 Ill.App.3d 722, 54 Ill.Dec. 657, 425 N.E.2d 522 (1981) and Dague v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 418 N.E.2d 207 (Ind.1981), two cases virtually identical to the one at bar that embraced the Fournier policy.
In both cases, produets-liability statutes of repose were upheld on the grounds that no vested rights of the plaintiff were destroyed by barring their rights to bring produets-liability actions after the expiration of the statutory period. In Thornton, the Illinois Appellate Court stated that since the statute was enacted six months prior to plaintiff’s injury, the statute “did not disturb a legal right which had already vested in the plaintiff at the time it came into effect.” Thornton, 99 Ill.App.3d at 727, 54 Ill.Dec. at 660, 425 N.E.2d at 525. Thus, the plaintiff was not entitled to a remedy under Illinois’s due-process clause because no vested right was abrogated by statute.
In Dague, the plaintiff’s cause of action had also not yet accrued at the time that the Indiana produets-liability statute of repose was enacted. Thus, she was “not in the position of having had a vested right taken from her.” Dague, 418 N.E.2d at 213. In Dague, the Indiana Supreme Court specifically held that “there is no vested or property right in any rule of the common law.” Id. at 213. They further held that since no cause of action had yet accrued under the act, there was “no cause of action existing,” Id., whatsoever when the plaintiff was injured. Consequently, the plaintiff again was not entitled to a “remedy” since there is “no vested right in a remedy” under Indiana’s constitution. Id.
Similar analysis requires the conclusion that plaintiff’s appeal in this case be denied. *206He was injured on October 16, 1978. Section 9-l-13(b) became law on May 12,1978, without the signature of the Governor, and was made effective to all causes of action accruing after July 1, 1978. His claim did not vest, if at all, until more than five months after § 9-l-13(b) had become law and over three months following its effective date. Therefore, no vested right of plaintiff’s was abrogated by the enactment of § 9-l-13(b). Consistent with the principles enunciated in Hague, Thornton, and Fournier, plaintiff is not entitled to a remedy since art. I, sec. 5 only protects vested rights. Where there has been no “ ‘breach of a legal duty,’ ” a plaintiff has “ ‘no legal claim for damages to [his] person * * Fournier, 93 R.I. at 305, 175 A.2d at 301.
One final point must be made concerning the majority’s analysis. In their discussion, my brethren refer to Charles Kennedy’s “right to bring th[is] action.” This manner of characterizing the propriety of plaintiff’s suit ignores the command of Fournier, Hague, and Thornton, which plainly demonstrates that no right created by common law is perpetually immune from legislative abrogation. Charles Kennedy did not possess a claim when he brought this suit. It did not exist since the Legislature had acted to eliminate it.
To hold otherwise would both castrate the Legislature in its ability to enact new laws in response to changing social and economic conditions and disrupt the proper balance of power between equal branches of government. As the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania noted in upholding a twelve-year statute of repose protecting architects and builders,
“[t]his Court would encroach upon the Legislature’s ability to guide the development of the law if we invalidated legislation simply because the rule enacted by the Legislature rejects some cause of action currently preferred by the courts. To do so would be to place certain rules of the ‘common law’ and certain non-constitutional decisions of courts above all change except by constitutional amendment. Such a result would offend our notion of the checks and balances between the various branches of government, and of the flexibility required for the healthy growth of the law.” Freezer Storage, Inc. v. Armstrong Cork Co., 476 Pa. 270, 281, 382 A.2d 715, 721 (1978).
Charles Kennedy’s injuries invoke sympathy and compassion. However, emotional concern in the absence of a clear constitutional mandate does not justify ambiguity in the field of products liability.
In my view, policy determinations concerning economic issues are most properly made in the legislative arena where all the factors surrounding a particular problem may be weighed. When the Legislature is properly concerned with balancing competing interests to ensure a stable market for the manufacture of basic products and acts to do so by enacting a statute of repose, our inquiry should end. Our Legislature is at least as competent as this court in making economic policy determinations.
Upon the premises enunciated herein, I find the enactment of § 9-l-13(b) clearly within the Legislature’s constitutional power. For this reason, I would affirm the ruling of the trial justice, and deny and dismiss the plaintiff’s appeal.

. See Lankford v. Sullivan, Long and Hagerty, 416 So.2d 996 (Ala.1982); Battilla v. Allis Chalmers Mfg. Co., 392 So.2d 874 (Fla.1980); Dague v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 418 N.E.2d 207 (Ind.1981); Heath v. Sears, Roebuck, & Co., 464 A.2d 288 (N.H.1983); and Bolick v. American Barmag Corp., 306 N.C. 364, 293 S.E.2d 415 (1982).

. This is not surprising in light of our holding in Boucher v. Sayeed, R.I., 459 A.2d 87 (1983), where we refused to expand the list of fundamental rights protected by the equal-protection clause in a case challenging the constitutionality of our medical-malpractice reform act.

. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905).

. The New Hampshire Supreme Court specifically held that the right to recover for personal injuries is an important substantive right and required that the statute’s classification be reasonable and bear a fair and substantial relationship to the legislative objective. Heath, 464 A.2d at 294-95.