Karl v. Bryant Air Conditioning Co.
| Decision Date | 13 April 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1035,80-1035 |
| Citation | 705 F.2d 164 |
| Parties | 35 UCC Rep.Serv. 1494 William J. KARL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BRYANT AIR CONDITIONING COMPANY and Carlysle Compressor Company, Defendants- Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Ronald R. Stempien, Southgate, Mich., for plaintiff-appellant.
David J. Capriccioso, Sally Steinhart (argued), Southfield, Mich., for defendants-appellees.
Before MERRITT, Circuit Judge, BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge, and WHITE, District Judge. *
In this product liability action, plaintiff appeals from a jury verdict awarding him $2,600, a figure that reflects the jury's conclusion that plaintiff was 95% responsible for his injury. Specifically, plaintiff contends that the District Court erred in applying the comparative negligence principles of Michigan's products liability statute, M.C.L.A. Sec. 600.2949 to a diversity case sounding in breach of warranty. We affirm.
On May 23, 1975, while working as an air conditioner repairman, plaintiff was injured when an air conditioner manufactured by defendants blew out. He filed suit in Oakland Circuit Court on February 28, 1978, and defendants had the action removed to the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1441. Both parties agreed that Michigan law governs this case.
On December 13, 1978--while this lawsuit was pending trial--the Michigan Legislature enacted the products liability statute, M.C.L.A. Sec. 600.2945 et seq., effective immediately. As relevant here, this statute provides that:
In all products liability actions brought to recover damages resulting from death or injury to person or property, the fact that the plaintiff may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery by the plaintiff or the plaintiff's legal representative, but damages sustained by the plaintiff shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributed to the plaintiff.
In a set of special verdict interrogatories, Judge Joiner instructed the jury that they were to determine plaintiff's contributory negligence as a percentage of the total wrongdoing that caused the injury, provided they found either the defendants' negligence or defendants' breach of implied warranty had proximately caused plaintiff's injury. In pertinent part, the jury's special verdict found that plaintiff had sustained a total of $52,000 in damages, that defendants had breached an implied warranty, that plaintiff had been negligent, and that his negligence accounted for 95% of the total wrongdoing. Judge Joiner accordingly awarded plaintiff $2600, 5% of the total damage amount.
On October 8, 1981, this Court heard plaintiff's appeal. 1 Shortly thereafter, we certified the following three questions of state law to the Michigan Supreme Court:
(1) whether the products liability statute abrogated the principle that a person injured because of a breach of an implied warranty is entitled to recover the full measure of the damages sustained irrespective of any negligence by him (2) whether the statute, if construed to have so abrogated the principle, is to be applied to an action alleging breach of an implied warranty accruing and brought prior to the enactment of the statute and brought to trial after the effective date of the statute; and
(3) if so applied, whether that application violates the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution.
The Michigan Supreme Court answered questions (1) and (2) affirmatively and question (3) negatively, and explained its unanimous decision in a comprehensive and well-reasoned opinion, attached hereto as an Appendix.
Although the Michigan Supreme Court's decision disposes of all state law issues that plaintiff has raised in his appeal, this Court must still decide whether the retroactive application of the Michigan products liability statute as construed by the state Supreme Court violates two provisions of the federal constitution, namely the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment and the prohibition against state impairment of contracts (U.S. Const. Art. I Sec. 10).
In his argument to this Court, plaintiff did not contend that the federal due process guarantee differs in any qualitative way from the similar provision in the Michigan constitution. Indeed, the due process argument in plaintiff's brief proceeds without distinguishing between the federal and state constitutional provisions.
We believe that the Michigan Supreme Court's analysis of plaintiff's state due process claim applies equally to the federal due process issue. We, therefore, adopt the state court's reasoning, which reads as follows:
An application of the comparative negligence provision at trial, besides promoting important societal policy, did not destroy or bar plaintiff's cause of action.... As the defendant so adroitly points out, the products liability statute neither destroys nor bars plaintiff's cause of action, nor does it impair plaintiff's right to contract. Simply stated, the statute only affects a remedy which "has been changed so that the measure of plaintiff's damage is to be reduced by the amount of the plaintiff's own fault which also proximately caused the injuries complained of." Thus, the Legislature's adoption of such a remedial scheme is reasonable and does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution.
Karl v. Bryant Air Conditioning Co., 416 Mich. 558, 331 N.W.2d 456 (1982). The due process clause does not prevent states from modifying previously defined tort and contract remedies, including modification of principles respecting contributory negligence and statutes of limitation. Cf. Murphree v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 696 F.2d 459, 462 (6th Cir.1982) ().
Similar reasoning compels us to reject plaintiff's challenge under the contract impairment clause of the federal constitution, which provides that "[no] State shall ... pass any ... Law ... impairing the Obligation of Contracts." U.S. Const. Art. I Sec. 10. Plaintiff argues that since "implied warranty litigation is essentially contractual in nature," retroactive application of the products liability statute relieves the defendants "of the quasi-contractual obligation to fulfill implied warranties and, upon breach, to pay for the full damages caused." This argument suffers from the same flaw that fatally undermined plaintiff's due process contention. In attempting to delineate a constitutional violation, plaintiff confuses his right to have the substantive provisions of a valid contract enforced with the legislature's right to define the scope of the judicial remedy available to successful plaintiffs in contract actions. As in the due process setting, we believe that legislative modification of remedy does not infringe the plaintiff's right to contract or deprive him of his contract enforcement cause of action.
Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH (except RILEY, J.)
This is a case of first impression. The issues are whether the comparative negligence provisions of M.C.L. Sec. 600.2949; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.2949, 1 applies to a products liability action sounding in "negligence, breach of warranty and other misconduct"; and, if so, whether it is retrospective; and, if retrospective, whether it is constitutional.
This diversity case was removed from Oakland Circuit Court to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Plaintiff was injured when the terminal of an industrial air conditioner manufactured by defendant, a foreign corporation, blew out. After a verdict for the plaintiff, the federal trial judge, under M.C.L. Sec. 600.2949; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.2949, reduced plaintiff's damages by the corresponding amount that plaintiff was negligent, which was 95% of the total.
Specifically, we have agreed to answer three questions certified to us by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The three questions are the following:
We hold first that under M.C.L. Sec. 600.2949; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.2949 a plaintiff injured by breach of an implied warranty is not entitled to recover the full damages sustained, if the plaintiff was negligent. Second, under Michigan law, the comparative negligence principle established in M.C.L. Sec. 600.2949; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.2949 can be applied to an implied warranty action accruing and sued upon prior to the enactment of the provision, but brought to trial after the effective date of that provision. Third, applying the statute in that way does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution. Const.1963, art. 1, Sec. 17.
In certifying the instant case from the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit under GCR 1963, 797.2, the following statement of facts was entered by order:
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