Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. v. Sheehan

852 P.2d 1173, 1993 Alas. LEXIS 50, 1993 WL 183095
CourtAlaska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 28, 1993
DocketS-4569, S-4597
StatusPublished
Cited by67 cases

This text of 852 P.2d 1173 (Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. v. Sheehan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. v. Sheehan, 852 P.2d 1173, 1993 Alas. LEXIS 50, 1993 WL 183095 (Ala. 1993).

Opinion

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice.

This case arose from the engine failure and subsequent forced landing of an aircraft at Fairbanks International Airport. The aircraft, a Dehavilland Turbo Beaver, was owned and piloted by Joseph W. Shee-han. The aircraft’s engine, manufactured and later overhauled by defendant Pratt & Whitney Canada, Inc. (PWC), experienced a catastrophic failure shortly after takeoff. This failure and the resulting forced landing caused substantial damage to the aircraft, including its frame and engine.

Following unsuccessful attempts to obtain compensation for the damage to his plane, Sheehan, an attorney, brought suit on his own behalf against PWC. In the *1175 superior court, 1 the parties stipulated to dismissal of all claims with prejudice except for the strict products liability claim in Count I of Sheehan’s First Amended Complaint. PWC stipulated that it would not contest liability on Count I, but reserved the right to appeal the superior court’s judgment. Specific issues were reserved for trial, including prejudgment interest; which party prevailed for purposes of Civil Rules 79 and 82; and costs or attorney’s fees. The superior court approved the stipulation and the remaining issues were either tried to the court or presented in post-trial briefs and oral arguments.

The superior court found that Sheehan was the prevailing party and awarded him Civil Rule 82 fees as a pro se attorney litigant. The superior court denied Shee-han’s request for full expert witness fees. With respect to Sheehan’s request for prejudgment interest, the superior court awarded him interest on the cost of repairing the aircraft, calculated from the date he notified PWC of the crash; denied interest on the entire value of the aircraft; and denied additional interest on the money he advanced for the necessary repairs. The superior court entered judgment for Shee-han in the amount of $393,466.58. This appeal and cross-appeal followed.

I. STRICT PRODUCTS LIABILITY AND ECONOMIC LOSS

PWC argues that Sheehan’s economic loss for the damage to his aircraft should not be compensable in a tort action for strict products liability. 2 In Northern Power & Engineering Corp. v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 623 P.2d 324 (Alaska 1981), we held that a litigant may recover economic loss in strict products liability if the “defective product creates a situation potentially dangerous to persons or other property, and loss occurs as a result of that danger-” Id. at 329 (footnote omitted). Mid-flight engine failure caused by a defective product is a paradigmatic example of a “potentially dangerous” situation for which economic loss is recoverable. Thus, PWC urges that we overrule our decision in Northern Power in favor of a per se ban on recovery for damage solely to the product itself. 3

When a common law court is asked to overrule one of its prior decisions, the principle of stare decisis is implicated. The obligation to follow precedent inherent in stare decisis:

[BJegins with necessity, and a contrary necessity marks its outer boundary.... [N]o judicial system could do society’s work if it eyed each issue afresh in every case that raised it_ At the other extreme, a different necessity would make itself felt if a prior judicial ruling should come to be seen so clearly as error that its enforcement was for that very reason doomed.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, — U.S. —, —, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2808, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992) (citations omitted). Thus, stare decisis is a practical, flexible command that balances our community’s competing interests in the stability of legal norms and the need to adapt those norms to society’s changing demands. 4 In balanc *1176 ing these interests, we will overrule a prior decision only when “ ‘clearly convinced that the rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changed conditions, and that more good than harm would result from a departure from precedent’_” State v. Dunlop, 721 P.2d 604, 610 (Alaska 1986) (quoting State v. Souter, 606 P.2d 399, 400 (Alaska 1980)). A decision may prove to be originally erroneous if the rule announced proves to be unworkable in practice. Casey, — U.S. at —, 112 S.Ct. at 2808. Additionally, a prior decision may be abandoned because of “changed conditions” if “related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine, [or] facts have so changed or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application_” Id. at —, 112 S.Ct. at 2809.

In the present case, we have not been persuaded to depart from stare decisis and abandon our decision in Northern Power. In explaining this conclusion, first, we briefly summarize the legal background of strict products liability in Alaska and discuss a United States Supreme Court case addressing strict products liability and economic loss under maritime law. Second, we discuss whether reason exists, in the prevailing law or otherwise, to overrule Northern Power.

A. Legal Background

1. Alaska Law

Alaska strict products liability precedent begins with Clary v. Fifth Avenue Chrysler Center, 454 P.2d 244 (Alaska 1969), where we adopted the rule in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc., 59 Cal.2d 57, 27 Cal.Rptr. 697, 377 P.2d 897 (1962). Greenman provided that:

[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.

Id., 27 Cal.Rptr. at 700, 377 P.2d at 900.

In adopting Greenman, we rejected the argument that contract-warranty law should govern claims for personal injury caused by a defective product and concluded that strict liability in tort affords the most logical, least technical, and most comprehensive solution. We were persuaded that strict products liability would:

[I]nsure that the cost 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.

Clary,

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Bluebook (online)
852 P.2d 1173, 1993 Alas. LEXIS 50, 1993 WL 183095, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pratt-whitney-canada-inc-v-sheehan-alaska-1993.