UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 7, No. 2WINTER 1984
Cardozo Revisited: Liability to Third Parties; A Real Property Perspective
Robert Kratovil(fn*)
I. Introduction
After one has taught law for many years, one tends to become convinced that real property law is really a course quite different from that taught by those who are teaching contracts or torts. This, of course, is a serious misconception, reinforced periodically by the publishers of casebooks who scrupulously observe the rigorous distinctions in their product packaging.
One can begin the trip back to reality by noting one of Pros-ser's considerable contributions to our understanding of the law: "Such is the unity of all history that anyone who endeavors to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web." So said Maitland, speaking of the law, and his words have become trite with much repetition. Nevertheless, our law schools and our writers of texts continue to tear the web into courses and fields and compartments, which have in themselves no virtue other than mere convenience in organization, but tend to give the entirely misleading impression that east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet. Actually there are, of course, no such distinctly segregated compartments in the law. Everywhere the fields of liability and doctrine interlock; everywhere there are borderlands and penumbras, and cases which cut across the arbitrary lines of division, or straddle them in a manner utterly bewildering to the young lawyer whose education has led him to look for sharp division.(fn1)
One of the most outstanding jurists of our time, Justice Benjamin Cardozo, articulated a principle spanning the "seamless web" of the law which, unfortunately, has been obscured by the attempts of courts, casebook writers, and law professors to pigeonhole the principle into familiar categories. Justice Cardozo established the principle that a person who undertakes a task is liable for injury to remote third parties, regardless of lack of privity, which arises from the person's negligent performance of the task. Cardozo also enunciated an exception to this rule which developed into a widely accepted opposing rule. This article will first trace the origin of Cardozo's principle and the opposing rule. Next, it will examine the attempts by courts and casebook writers to categorize those cases which are properly governed by Cardozo's principle under various familiar legal categories. This article will next conclude that these attempted classifications are erroneous and obscure the applicability of the principle in numerous areas of the law, and that arguments against applying the principle are unpersuasive. Finally, this article will demonstrate how Cardozo's principle has been applied in cases directly or indirectly within the real property law category and conclude that courts should continue to recognize and extend application of the principle to all areas of the law.
II. The Cardozo Decisions
The Cardozo decisions that will be discussed under this heading were handed down before the multimillion dollar tort verdict became commonplace. Today, particularly in the airplane accident cases, the verdicts are enormous.(fn2) Cardozo was careful to frame his decisions so that the verdicts would not be excessive; his concepts of liability at times reveal this pinch-penny approach. Given this approach, it is somewhat surprising that he extended the limits of liability as far as he did.
A. Glanzer v. Shepard
Glanzer v. Shepard(fn3) is one of the early Cardozo decisions resting basically on the authority of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.(fn4) A weigher hired by the seller of beans was held liable to the buyer for negligence in the weighing of the beans, although privity was obviously lacking between the buyer and the weigher. The rule that one who undertakes to perform a task is liable for his negligence came as no surprise. The importance of the case lies in its ruling that the party performing the task is liable to a person who did not hire him.(fn5) Cardozo, writing for the court, observed that all that was needed was to determine whether a duty existed on the part of the weigher to the buyer. The court found that such a duty was present. And the court deliberately chose not to place that duty within the confines of contract law. The court said: We state the defendants' obligation, therefore, in terms, not of contract merely, but of duty. Other forms of statement are possible. They involve, at most, a change of emphasis. We may see here, if we please, a phase or an extension of the rule in Lawrence v. Fox, 20 N.Y. 268 . . . . If we fix our gaze upon that aspect, we shall stress the element of contract, and treat the defendants' promise as embracing the rendition of a service, which, though ordered and paid for by one, was either wholly or in part for the benefit of another. . . . These . . . methods of approach arrive at the same goal, though the paths may seem at times to be artificial or circuitous. We have preferred to reach the goal more simply. The defendants, acting, not casually nor as mere servants, but in the pursuit of an independent calling weighed and certified at the order of one with the very end and aim of shaping the conduct of another. Diligence was owing, not only to him who owed, but to him also who relied.(fn6) Cardozo, however, reached a markedly different result in the case of Ultramares Corp. v. Touche.(fn7)
B. Ultramares Corp. v. Touche
Ultramares involved a third-party claimant who brought an action against an accountant who, it was alleged, negligently prepared a financial statement for a firm which had employed him for that purpose. Cardozo wrote the court's opinion exonerating the accountant. Several excerpts from that opinion are worth repeating to illustrate Cardozo's fear of extending liability too far.If liability for negligence [of an accountant to third parties] exists, a thoughtless slip or blunder, the failure to detect a theft or forgery beneath the cover of deceptive entries, may expose accountants to a liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class. The hazards of a business conducted on these terms are so extreme as to enkindle doubt whether a flaw may not exist in the implication of a duty that exposes to these consequences.(fn8) Justice Cardozo, again fearful of overextending liability, remarked in another part of the opinion that extending liability in Ultramares would expose numerous other occupations to liability. Cardozo said:Liability for negligence if adjudged in this case will extend to many callings other than an auditor's. Lawyers who certify their opinion as to the validity of municipal or corporate bonds, with knowledge that the opinion will be brought to the notice of the public, will become liable to the investors, if they have overlooked a statute or a decision, to the same extent as if the controversy were one between client and advisor. Title companies insuring titles to a tract of land, with knowledge that at an approaching auction the fact that they have insured will be stated to the bidders, will become liable to purchasers who may wish the benefit of a policy without payment of a premium. These illustrations may seem to be extreme, but they go little, if any, farther than we are invited to go now.(fn9)
Cardozo, of course, was compelled to distinguish Glanzer. He did so by observing that in Glanzer, the act deemed to be negligent had been performed for the very purpose of furnishing a weight certificate to the complaining party. It was "the end and aim of the transaction," and both principals to the transaction knew this.(fn10)
Prosser, having fallen prey to the compulsion to pigeonhole, puts both Glanzer and Ultramares in the misrepresentation category.(fn11) Misrepresentation or the action of deceit is a tort dealing with wrongful misrepresentation of facts. It has nothing to do with negligent performance of duties where negligence is likely to cause harm. Combining these concepts, as will be evident from the discussion below, is obviously an error and will lead to confusion.
Ultramares has drawn considerable criticism.(fn12) Decisional law has also questioned Ultramares. This article will demonstrate that the reasoning of Ultramares is erroneous and should be buried for all time, and that the reasoning of Glanzer is wholly applicable in numerous fact situations involving negligent performance of duties. The error of Ultramares became evident in another Cardozo opinion, H.R. Moch Co. v. Rensselaer Water Co.(fn13)
Moch involved a contract between a private waterworks corporation and the City of Rochester for the supply of water. While the contract was in force a building was destroyed by fire. The building owner brought suit against the waterworks company, but the suit was dismissed. It was held that neither a contract action nor a tort action would lie. Cardozo reasoned that the failure to furnish water was at most the denial of a benefit, not commission of a wrong.
On facts identical to Moch, a contrary result was reached in Doyle v. South Pittsburgh Water Co.(fn14) In Doyle, Justice Mus-manno, himself an eminent scholar, said of Cardozo that "Homer nodded."(fn15) Once Cardozo recognized that the water company was guilty of a negligent omission, he admitted...
