Farish v. Courion Industries, Inc.

JAMES DICKSON PHILLIPS, Circuit

Judge, dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

Our most trustworthy guides to what the Supreme Court of Virginia would probably hold on the applicability of this 1962 antiprivity statute are the plain meaning canon of statutory construction and the most directly relevant judicial precedents to be found in decisions of that court. Looking to those sources, I am persuaded that the state court would most likely hold that the anti-privity statute was intended by the legislature to apply, and therefore did apply, to these two cases. I would accordingly now hold that it did…