Martin v. Ryder Truck Rental, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 February 1976
• Citation: 353 A.2d 581
• Parties: 18 UCC Rep.Serv. 870 Dorothy MARTIN and James E. Martin, Plaintiffs Below, Appellants, v. RYDER TRUCK RENTAL, INC., a Florida Corporation, et al., Defendant Below, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 581

353 A.2d 581

18 UCC Rep.Serv. 870

Dorothy MARTIN and James E. Martin, Plaintiffs Below, Appellants, v. RYDER TRUCK RENTAL, INC., a Florida Corporation, et al Defendant Below, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted Sept. 10, 1975.

Decided Feb. 19, 1976.

Upon appeal from the Superior Court. Reversed.

John M. Bader and Robert Jacobs, Bader, Dorsey & Kreshtool, Wilmington, for plaintiffs below, appellants.

H. Alfred Tarrant, Jr. and Everett P. Priestley, Cooch & Taylor, Wilmington, for defendant below, appellee.

Before HERRMANN, C.J., and DUFFY and McNEILLY, JJ HERRMANN, Chief Justice.

We hold today that a bailment-lease of a motor vehicle, entered into in the regular course of a truck rental business, is subject to application of the doctrine of strict tort liability in favor of an injured bystander.

I.

According to the plaintiffs in this case:

A truck was leased by the defendant, Ryder Truck Rental, Inc., to Gagliardi Brothers, Inc., in the regular course of Ryder's truck rental business. ¹ The truck, operated by a Gagliardi employee, was involved in an intersectional collision. Due to a failure of its braking system, the truck did not stop for a traffic light and struck the rear of an automobile which had stopped for the signal, causing that automobile to collide with the vehicle driven by the plaintiff, Dorothy Martin. As a result, she was injured, her car was damaged, and this suit was brought by her and her husband against Ryder.

The plaintiffs base their cause of action solely upon the doctrine of strict tort liability, I.e., tort liability without proof of negligence. ² The Superior Court granted summary judgment in favor of Ryder holding that the doctrine is not applicable to the factual situation here presented. We disagree.

II.

This is a case of first impression in this Court on the subject of strict tort liability in the law of products liability. Ciociola v. Delaware Coca Cola Bottling Company, Del.Supr., 3 Storey 477, 172 A.2d 252 (1961), which was decided prior to the evolution of that doctrine during the 1960's, stood for the proposition that in products liability cases Delaware was committed to the common law rules of privity governing actions in contract based upon implied warranty, and that any change required legislative action. Uniform Commercial Code, 6 Del.C. § 2--318, abrogating such privity requirements, was the legislative response to Ciociola. ³ In Jackson v. Hearn Brothers, Inc., Del.Supr., 212 A.2d 726 (1965), this Court disposed of a strict tort liability contention by assuming, without deciding, that such a rule was available, but concluded that its application was unjustified in that case.

In the Superior Court, Kates v. Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Salisbury, Md., Del.Super., 263 A.2d 308 (1970); Moore v. Douglas Aircraft Co., Del.Super., 282 A.2d 625 (1971), and Dillon v. General Motors Corporation, Del.Super., 315 A.2d 732 (1974), recently touched upon the subject. ⁴ All were sale cases; none directly addressed the question here presented.

The defendant contends that if the Legislature intended to create a strict liability for bailments for hire, it would have done so in the UCC. Thus, the threshold question in the instant case is whether, by the enactment of the UCC and the limitation of its strict warranty provisions to sales, the Legislature has preempted this field of the law of products liability; or whether, the UCC notwithstanding, the courts are free to provide for bailments and leases the alternate, but somewhat conflicting, remedy of strict tort liability. ⁵

The warranty provisions of Article 2 of the UCC, §§ 2--313 (express) and 2--315 (implied), are clearly limited to the sales of goods; the Statute is 'neutral' as to other types of relationships. ⁶ Manifestly, the Legislature has not preempted the field as to bailments and leases by enactment of the UCC. ⁷ Silence on the subject may not be deemed to be such preemption.

Hence, we are free, in the common law tradition, to apply the doctrine of strict tort liability to a bailment-lease. The question is whether that course should be adopted; and for that decision, consideration of the nature and evolution of the doctrine is important:

III.

The development of the doctrine of strict tort liability in the law of products liability has evolved rapidly during the past decade, until it has become the prevailing remedy throughout the country. It is now the rule in approximately two-thirds of the states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey. ⁸ Prosser, The Law of Torts (4th ed.1971); 2 Frumer & Friedman, Products Liability, § 16A(3), at 3--248 n. 2 (1975).

Strict tort liability in the field of products liability has developed in a 'step by step' process out of the law of contract warranty into the law of tort, for the purpose of the greater protection of the user and the public against defective goods by eliminating the 'luggage' and 'undesirable complications' of the contract-warranty remedy in direct sales transactions, such as the requirement of a sale and notice, and the provision for limitation and disclaimer, generally prescribed by the Uniform Sales Act and the UCC. See Prosser, The Law of Torts, § 97, at 655--56; Prosser, The Assault Upon the Citadel, 69 Yale L.J. 1099 (1960); Prosser, The Fall of the Citadel, 50 Minn.L.Rev. 791 (1966); 2 Frumer & Friedman, § 16A(4)(a), at 3--262.5 Et seq.

At the forefront of this development was the landmark case of Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc., 32 N.J. 358, 161 A.2d 69 (1960), which brought a 'break-through' in extending strict warranty liability to products other than food and drink.

The first significant application of the strict tort liability concept in a products liability case was the landmark decision of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697 ,377 P.2d 897 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897 decision since Henningsen and perhaps the most important since MacPherson v. Buick (217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916)).' 2 Frumer & Friedman § 16A(1), at 3--238. The defendant remote-manufacturer there sought to avoid liability for breach of warranty on a defective power tool on the ground that reasonable notice of the breach had not been given under the notice requirements of the California Sales Act governing contract warranties. The Court held otherwise, stating:

'A manufacturer is strictly liable in tort when an article he places on the market, knowing that it is to be used without inspection for defects, proves to have a defect that causes injury to a human being. * * *

'Although * * * strict liability has usually been based on the theory of an express or implied warranty running from the manufacturer to the plaintiff, * * * the liability is not one governed by the law of contract warranties but by the law of strict liability in tort. Accordingly, rules defining and governing warranties that were developed to meet the needs of commercial transactions cannot properly be invoked to govern the manufacturer's liability to those injured by their defective products unless those rules also serve the purposes for which such liability is imposed.

'* * * The purpose of such liability is to insure that the costs of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers that put such products on the market rather than by the injured persons who are powerless to protect themselves. Sales warranties serve this purpose fitfully at best. * * * Implicit in the machine's presence on the market * * * was a representation that it would safely do the jobs for which it was build. * * * To establish the manufacturer's liability it was sufficient that plaintiff proved that he was injured while using the (product) in a way it was intended to be used as a result of a defect in design and manufacture of which plaintiff was not aware that made the (product) unsafe for its intended use.' 377 P.2d at 900, 901.

Influenced, as were other courts, by Yuba's reasoning, the Supreme Court of New Jersey in 1965 abandoned the warranty terminology of Henningsen and embraced strict tort liability in Santor v. A. and M. Karagheusian, Inc., 44 N.J. 52, 207 A.2d 305 (1965). Warranty concepts were there side-tracked because:

'As was noted in Henningsen, in seeking justice for ultimate consumers the courts were hard put to find legal mechanisms to overcome the strictures of the long-standing privity of contract requirement. * * * We chose at that time to measure the manufacturer's responsibility under modern marketing conditions by an implied warranty of reasonable suitability of the article manufactured for the use for which it was reasonably intended to be sold. * * *

'It must be said that in the present-day marketing milieu, treatment of the manufacturer's liability to ultimate purchasers or consumers in terms of implied warranty is simply using a convenient legal device or formalism to accomplish the purpose. It has been suggested, however, that conceptually such a doctrine is somewhat illusory because traditionally warranty has had its source in contract. * * * Ordinarily there is no contract in a real sense between a manufacturer and an expected ultimate consumer of his product. The fact is that as a matter of public policy the law has imposed on manufacturers a duty to such persons irrespective of contract or a privity relationship between them. Such concept expressed in terms of breach of implied warranty of fitness or merchantability bespeaks a Sui generis cause of action. Its character is hybrid, having its commencement in contract and its termination in tort. * * *

'In this developing field of the law, courts have necessarily been proceeding step by step in their search for a stable principle which can stand on its own base as a permanent part of the substantive law. The quest has found sound expression, we believe, in the doctrine of strict liability in tort.' 207 A.2d at 311.

Strict tort...