Williams v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 28 July 1975
• Citation: 342 A.2d 712
• Parties: James M. WILLIAMS and Leone E. Williams v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 712

342 A.2d 712

James M. WILLIAMS and Leone E. Williams v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 28, 1975.

Richard A. Davis, Merle C. Rideout, Jr., Portland, for plaintiffs.

Richardson, Hildreth, Tyler & Troubh, by Harrison L. Richardson, S. Peter Mills, III, Portland, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

WEATHERBEE, Justice.

The District Court of the United States, District of Maine, under the provisions of 4 M.R.S.A. § 57, as amended, and M.R.C.P., Rule 76B has certified to the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine the following question of law:

'Is the Plaintiffs' claim of negligence against the Defendant Ford Motor Company barred by the statute of limitations contained in 14 M.R.S.A. § 752?'

On May 10, 1966, Mr. J. Vance Williams, brother of the plaintiff Mr. James M. Williams, purchased a motor vehicle from the defendant Ford Motor Company. On August 28, 1972, more than six years after the vehicle left the control of the Ford Motor Company, the plaintiff, James M. Williams (who was driving the brother's vehicle) and his wife ( the other plaintiff) who was a passenger, were in an accident which they alleged was caused by a defect in the vehicle's left rear axle. On April 27, 1973, the plaintiffs filed a diversity action in the Federal District Court, charging negligence in the manufacture, assemply, and sale of the vehicle. ¹

The defendant answered denying the plaintiffs' charges of liability, and additionally pleaded the affirmative defense that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by their failure to bring their action within the period of the applicable statute of limitations, 14 M.R.S.A. § 752, which provides that:

'All civil action shall be commenced within 6 years after the cause of action accrues and not afterwards . . . except as otherwise specially provided.' (Emphasis added.)

The defendant then moved that the issue of the effect of our statute of limitations be certified to this Court and the presiding Judge of the United States District Court granted the motion and has requested as to instruct the Court upon the disputed question under Maine law.

We have been called upon to interpret this statute many times but never upon the circumstances existing in the present case-that is, where the plaintiff was a stranger to the transaction at the time of the claimed misfeasance or nonfeasance.

Statutes of limitations have been created primarily for the purpose of keeping 'stale' claims out of court, as we said in Tantish v. Szendey, 158 Me. 228, 182 A.2d 660 (1962), a policy favoring potential defendants who 'might otherwise be faced for long periods with the possibility of meeting claims under more difficult conditions.' 158 Me. at 230, 231, 182 A.2d at 661. Presumably fully aware of the competing considerations of protecting potential plaintiffs' rights under meritorious claims on the one hand and of protecting potential defendants from the difficulties involved in defending against claims of unreasonably remote origin on the other, the legislature has continued to use a period, measured from the date of accrual of action, beyond which (with certain statutory exceptions) potential plaintiffs' claims will be barred.

Although the underlying philosophy of repose has been an influencing factor in decisions of this Court in close issues involving acts which may or may not prevent the running of the statute (Gray v. Day, 109 Me. 492, 84 A. 1073 (1912)); Johnston v. Hussey, 89 Me. 488, 36 A. 993 (1897) we do not find that this Court has ever determined the question of when, exactly, a particular cause of action accrues on any basis except that of the precise substantive elements of the particular cause of action.

The position of our Court was firmly announced nearly a contury and a half ago. P.L.1821, ch. 62, § 16 provided that actions against sheriffs shall be brought 'within four years next after the cause of action.' ² The Court, in Williams College v. Balch, 9 Me. 74, 77 (1832) was called upon to determine when a cause of action commenced against a sheriff for failure, after demand, to pay money collected on an execution. The Court reviewed its understanding of the time of accrual of various causes of action. The Court concluded that

'in actions on the case for torts, the cause of action accrues, generally, when the tort is committed; though in some cases of concealment of it by the wrong doer, not until the wrong and injury have been discovered. Now in all these cases, the cause of action exists when a person has a right to demand of another a sum of money as due to him; or damages for an injury done to him, or property belonging to him; subject only to the exception above mentioned.' (Emphasis added.)

It does not appear to us that our Court has ever departed from the basic position that accrual of a tort cause of action as used here means exactly what the legal term implies-the point at which a wrongful act produces an injury for which a potential plaintiff is entitled to seek judicial vindication.

Some doubt may have been cast briefly upon this by the language used in the decision in Harriman v. Wilkins, 20 Me. 93 (1841) when the Court said, in dictum:

'The general rule in actions of tort is that the statute commences to run from the time when the consequences of the act arise or happen, and not from the time when the act was done.'

There, the possessor of replevied property who had been successful in the replevin trial had not received the return of the property and had been unable to recover his damages from the sureties on the replevin bond. He sued the sheriff for taking insufficient sureties. The Court, in language somewhat obscure, held that the statute did not start to run until the plaintiff had received judgment for the return of the property and had failed to receive the restoration of the property or his damages-rather than at the time of the sheriff's misfeasance.

A few years later, in Garlin v. Strickland, 27 Me. 443, 449 (1847) the Court disavowed the quoted principle and explained that Harriman was only holding that the replevin defendant

'had no right to a suit upon the bond till judgment in his favor had been rendered, nor until there had been a breach of its condition.'

In other words, the Harriman Court was holding to the position that no cause of action accrued until the plaintiff had a legally cognizable claim against the sheriff.

Our Court faced the issue again the next year in Betts v. Norris, 21 Me. 314 (1842) and must have removed doubts as to the general principle accepted, although the Court remarked:

'To determine when the right of action accrued, is not without its difficulties.' 21 Me. at 317.

In Betts, a defendant sheriff's failure to attach sufficient property to satisfy the plaintiff's judgment had eventually proved (after levy) to leave the plaintiff with an only partially satisfied execution. The Court ruled that the cause of action accrued when the sheriff's nonfeasance took place

'and not when it came to be ascertained, by subsequent events, what the precise amount of the injury turned out to be' (21 Me. at 319)

because, the Court said:

'(I)n every case of violation of the rights of a particular individual, the law implies damage. It may be but nominal. But still a right of action accrues for it.' (Id.)

We believe that the sentence just preceding this last quotation brings the Maine rule into focus:

'It is undoubtedly very true, that no man has a right of action against a wrongdoer, unless he is personally injured.' (Id.)

In this dissent to the Betts opinion Justice Shepley (pressing his position that there was no evidence of any wrong being done to the plaintiff in that case until it was ascertained that the attachment was insufficient and the plaintiff had suffered damage) concurred with his colleague's statement that for a tort action to accrue, the plaintiff must personally have suffered some injury which would entitle him to at least nominal damages, saying:

'A mere violation or neglect of duty enjoined by law, or otherwise imposed without contract, unless accompanied or followed by an injury to some person, cannot to be foundation of an action at common law. The law does not allow an individual to maintain a suit to redress moral wrongs, from which he has suffered no injury. The state or sovereign power only can interpose in such cases. And to decide whether the omission to comply with an order to attach property was a wrong or an innocent act, can afford little aid in forming a conclusion, (as to) when the right of action first accrues. That right does not arise out of any such moral attribute of the act. Nor does it first accrue when a wrongful act is done, unless the party suffers from it at that time, which is the case in trespasses; and may, or may, not, be the case in those instances, in which an action on the case would be the proper remedy.' 21 Me. at 324, 325.

Although it may be difficult to distinguish between the right to sue for one sheriff's misfeasance in taking insufficient sureties and for another sheriff's misfeasance in attaching insufficient property, the decisions in both Harriman and Betts turned on the Court's conclusions as to when the respective plaintiffs became entitled to sue.

In their totality, the Williams College-Harriman-Betts decisions established early our position that the statute must be considered to have commenced to run against a plaintiff at the time when he had received a judicially recognizable injury. We do not find that this position has been changed by subsequent decisions.

In Jedzierowski v. Jordan, 157 Me. 352, 172 A.2d 636 (1961), after the plaintiff had been tried and found not guilty of a criminal offense, he sued the arresting officer for false imprisonment. The Court held that the plaintiff's cause of action accrued on the day he was released on bail following his arrest (the last day of his...