The Decline of the Privity Rule in the Maine Law of Tort Products Liability: A Conceptual History

Authors

Dennis M. Patterson

Abstract

No single issue has more preoccupied modern jurisprudential writers than the limitations of precedent on the lawmaking power of judges. Yet despite this singular concentration, no scholarly consensus has emerged regarding what those limitations are or what form they should take. This continuing theoretical dispute recently manifested itself in a series of decisions rendered by the Law Court. Last spring in the case of Adams v. Buffalo Forge Co., the Law Court reconsidered a significant aspect of two decisions of the previous term: Burke v. Hamilton Beach Division and Hurd v. Hurd. In Burke and Hurd the court decided that under certain circumstances, lack of privity constituted a defense to negligence in an action for products liability. The most interesting aspect of the court's opinion in Buffalo Forge is not its overruling of two recent decisions, although that, in itself, raises an eyebrow. Rather, the court's reasons for its action crystallize much of the modern jurisprudential debate mentioned above. This Article will consider the merits of the court's reasoning in Buffalo Forge in deciding to overrule Burke and Hurd on the efficacy of the privity defense in tort. The Author contends that the Buffalo Forge majority misconstrued the reasoning of the court in Burke and Hurd in that it failed to consider adequately a position denominated "judicial deference." While it is true that the Burke and Hurd majorities relied heavily on prior case law analyses of privity, that reliance is cast in terms of the court's recognition that the legislature has "entered the field" of products liability and altered prior law. To understand fully what was said about privity in Burke and Hurd, one must assess not only the precedential effect of prior decisions, but also the legislature's understanding of prior law in light of its directive that statutory changes to that law be given prospective application only. The thesis of this Article is that the majority in Buffalo Forge misconstrued the form of the argument of the Burke and Hurd majorities and, in overruling those decisions, left unaddressed the importance of judicial deference to legislative prerogative.

First Page

1

Recommended Citation

Dennis M. Patterson, The Decline of the Privity Rule in the Maine Law of Tort Products Liability: A Conceptual History, 35 Me. L. Rev. 1 (1983).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol35/iss1/2