Section 11-735

Citation: Section 11-735
Parent Document: Mendes v. Johnson, 389 A.2d 781 (1978)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 1978-06-13
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2073911/mendes-v-johnson/ ↗

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In addition to the mere fact of reliance by a party on the former rule, courts also consider the reasonableness of any such reliance. Thus, where a party should have known that the old rule was about to be changed, because of either judicial or legislative intimations to that effect, many courts refuse to regard reliance on precedent as a bar to application of the new rule to the parties before the court. For example, the New Jersey court in Wangler v. Harvey, 41 N.J. 277, 196 A.2d 513 (1963), abolished a rule granting immunity to nonresidents from local service of process and applied the new rule to the litigants at bar. In doing so, the court held that indications in prior opinions of judicial dissatisfaction with the prior rule negated a claim by the nonresident party that his reliance on that rule should preclude partial retroactive application of the new rule. See also In re Marriage of Brown, 15 Cal.3d 838, 544 P.2d 561, 126 Cal.Rptr. 633 (1976); Smith v. State, 93 Idaho 795, 473 P.2d 937 (1970); Flemming v. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., 239 F.2d 277 (4th Cir. 1956).

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