Title: White v. Clayton

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

323 So. 2d 573 (1975)
William Andrew WHITE and Continental Insurance Company, Petitioners,
v.
Christine CLAYTON, Administratrix of the Estate of Cora Lee Baldwin, Deceased, Respondent.
No. 45578.

Supreme Court of Florida.
October 22, 1975.
Rehearing Denied January 16, 1976.
*574 C. Douglas Brown and Richard Smoak, Isler, Higby & Brown, Panama City, for petitioners.
Jackson G. Beatty, Gregory, Towles, Beatty & Hood, Quincy, for respondent.
OVERTON, Justice.
This cause is before this Court upon a petition for writ of certiorari to review an interlocutory order of the Walton County Circuit Court. In that order the trial court denied petitioners' motion to strike an allegation in the complaint claiming loss of net accumulations beyond the decedent's death and/or loss of prospective estate. In denying the motion, the trial court expressly held the new Florida Wrongful Death Act, Sections 768.16-768.27, Florida Statutes, was unconstitutional to the extent it precluded recovery of loss of net accumulations by the decedent's two sisters, ruling specifically that the application of the wrongful death statute to the factual situation of this case was a violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and would produce an invidious discrimination.
Under Article V, Section 3(b)(3), Florida Constitution, this Court has jurisdiction to review by certiorari an interlocutory order passing on a matter that would be directly appealable to this Court upon final judgment.
We have previously upheld the constitutionality of the new Florida wrongful death act in Martin v. United Security Services, Inc., and Mobley v. American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, 314 So. 2d 765 (Fla. 1975).
The Martin and Mobley cases specifically held Sections 768.16-768.27, Florida Statutes (1973), were constitutional to the extent that they consolidated survival and wrongful death actions and substituted for a decedent's pain and suffering the survivors' pain and suffering as an element of damage. We further held that the title of the act provided sufficient constitutional notice to consolidate the survival and wrongful death actions into one action.
In the instant case we have a different constitutional contention. It is here asserted that the new wrongful death act is unconstitutional because Section 768.21 precludes two sisters of the decedent from recovering through the administratrix of the estate for "loss of net accumulations beyond death." The applicable portion of Section 768.21 reads as follows:
Recovery under this section for net accumulations is limited to "a surviving spouse or lineal descendants."
Respondent contends, and the lower court held (1) that limiting recovery for loss of net accumulations beyond death to the surviving spouse or lineal descendants was an unreasonable and arbitrary classification, and (2) that the legislature abolished a previously existing right without providing a reasonable alternative, in violation of Kluger v. White, 281 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 1973). We disagree.
In considering the first issue, we must first examine the purpose of the wrongful death act. In its prior form its purpose was expressed by this Court in Garner v. Ward, 251 So. 2d 252, 253 (Fla. 1971), as follows:
The intent and purpose of the present wrongful death act was set forth by its drafters, the Florida Law Revision Commission, as follows:
It is clear that the purpose of the act is to provide recovery to those who need it, specifically the surviving spouse, children, or dependents of the decedent. We see nothing wrong with this classification. We hold that there has been no violation of the equal protection clause. Distinguishing rights of recovery for a surviving spouse and lineal descendants from those who are collateral descendants is not an unreasonable classification.
The second issue concerns the right of the legislature to modify the prior wrongful death cause of action. An action for wrongful death was not authorized at common law, and is a creation of the legislature. We recognize that there is a change in the elements of damage recoverable under the new act. In summary, individual pain and suffering for close relatives is added, while damages are eliminated for both the decedent's pain and suffering and the loss of net accumulations for beneficiaries other than the surviving spouse and lineal descendants. These changes in the elements of damage do not violate our decision in Kluger v. White, supra. The right of recovery in a wrongful death action has not been abolished; only the elements of damage have been changed. The new act, in comparison with the prior law, will increase damages in some circumstances and decrease them in others. As stated by the Florida Law Revision Commission in its recommendations and report:
Changes in the elements of damage or the standards by which they are recovered under these circumstances is a legislative prerogative. For example, we recently upheld the constitutionality of the no-fault *576 insurance act which included substantial statutory changes in the manner of recovery for damages for personal injuries. Lasky v. State Farm Insurance Company, 296 So. 2d 9 (Fla. 1974).
The order of the circuit court declaring Sections 768.16-768.27 unconstitutional is quashed, and this cause is remanded to the circuit court for proceedings not inconsistent with the views expressed herein.
It is so ordered.
ROBERTS and DREW (Retired), JJ., and ANDERSON and SIEGENDORF, Circuit Judges, concur.
ADKINS, C.J., dissents with an opinion.
ADKINS, Chief Justice (dissenting):
I dissent and adopt the order of Circuit Judge Clyde B. Wells as my dissenting opinion:
[1]  Florida Law Revision Commission, Recommendations and Report on Florida Wrongful Death Statutes, at 7-8 (December 1969); See comment about the need and purposes of the act in McKibben v. Mallory, 293 So. 2d 48 (Fla. 1974).
[2]  Florida Law Revision Commission, Recommendations and Report on Florida Wrongful Death Statutes, at 8 (December 1969).