Case Name: William WOOTEN v. Howard V. WIMBERLY, Jr.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1972-12-11
Citations: 272 So. 2d 303
Docket Number: No. 52012
Parties: William WOOTEN v. Howard V. WIMBERLY, Jr.
Judges: TATE, J., concurs and assigns reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 272
Pages: 303–313

Head Matter:
William WOOTEN v. Howard V. WIMBERLY, Jr.
No. 52012.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Dec. 11, 1972.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 16, 1973.
Dissenting Opinion Jan. 19, 1973.
Peter A. Ciambotti, Lake Charles, for plaintiff-applicant.
Stockwell, St. Dizier, Sievert & Viccel-lio, Fred H. Sievert, Jr., Lake Charles, for defendant-respondent.

Opinion:
SUMMERS, Justice.
William Wooten sued for damages for injuries suffered by his 6j^ year old son. The claim arose out of an accident in Cal-casieu Parish on May 7, 1965, while the child was riding a bicycle and turned abruptly into the path of an automobile being driven by Howard Wimberly, Jr. At the time Howard Wimberly, Jr. was twenty years of age. Wooten sued Howard Wim-berly, Sr., father of the driver, and Wim-berly, Sr.'s liability insurer, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.
The trial court found Wimberly, Jr., to be free of fault and dismissed Wooten's suit. The Third Circuit affirmed on April 14, 1970, 233 So.2d 682, and writs were refused by this court on June 26, 1970. 256 La. 359, 236 So.2d 496.
In the meantime, Wimberly, Jr., attained the age of majority. After the adverse judgment in the Court of Appeal, but while the application for certiorari, or writ of review, was pending here, Wooten filed, a second, the instant, suit against Wimberly, Jr., on June 17, 1970, based upon the identical facts relied upon to support the claim of the first suit.
Exceptions of res judicata, prescription, improper division of a cause of action and a plea of collateral estoppel were filed on behalf of Wooten, Jr. Since the plea of prescription was maintained by the trial court and Court of Appeal, resulting in the dismissal of plaintiff's suit, we shall consider that plea first. See 254 So.2d 120.
Wooten contends that at the time of the injury to his 61/2 year old son, the driver of the automobile, Wimberly, Jr., was a minor, twenty years old, and, therefore, his father Wimberly, Sr., was by law responsible for his minor son's tortious conduct. Assuming for the purpose of the plea prescription that Wimberly, Jr., was negligent, the father's responsibility is imposed by Article 2318 of the Civil Code in these terms: of
The father, or after his decease, the mother, are responsible for the damage occasioned by their minor or unemanci-pated children, residing with them, or placed by them under the care of other persons, reserving to them recourse against those persons.
See also Article 237 of the Civil Code.
Thus plaintiff argues: because the father was responsible for the alleged tor-tious conduct of his son, and the minor son is also liable for his own misconduct, the father and son were solidary obligors, for each were "obliged to the same thing, so that each may be compelled for the whole, and . . . payment which is made by one of them, exonerates the others toward the creditor." La.Civil Code art. 2091. See also La.Civil Code arts. 1785, 1874 and 2227. And, because "A suit brought against one of the debtors in solido interrupts prescription with regard to all", La.Civil Code art. 2097, the first suit against the father interrupted prescription as to the son with whom he was liable in solido. Therefore, the argument continues, when the instant suit against the son was filed just prior to the termination of the suit against the father the instant suit was timely.
Consideration of this contention should be guided by this proposition:
An obligation in solido is not presumed; it must be expressly stipulated.
This rule ceases to prevail only in cases where an obligation in solido takes place . by virtue of some provision of law. (La.Civil Code art. 2093.)
When Article 2093 declares that an "obligation in solido is not presumed" but must be "expressly stipulated", this means solidarity may not be presumed in contracts or other writings or in laws creating obligations in solido. That part of the rule which "ceases to prevail" when some "provision of law" creates the solidarity refers to the requirement that the solidarity be "expressly stipulated" in a contract or other writing. It does not mean that the rule that a solidary obligation cannot be presumed is inapplicable to laws imposing the solidary obligation. In other words, a solidary obligation is not imposed by express stipulation in written instruments alone, and the requirement that it be by express stipulation in a contract or other writing ceases only when it is imposed by "some provision of the law." In either case, however, it is not presumed.
The words in solido, solidarity and solidarily are not sacroscant, but the law which creates the solidary obligation should clearly set forth the requisite elements of a solidary obligation. Drafters of the Code have undoubtedly recognized the need to clearly express the solidarity, for they have almost invariably used the words in solido to create or define the obligation.
Solidarity among debtors may be created by contract, by disposition mortis cmisa, or by operation of law. Since the relationship between Wimberly, Sr., and Wimberly, Jr., is not contractual and no testament is involved, if a solidary obligation existed between this father and son it must have been created by operation of law. That is to say, Article 2318 imposing responsibility on the father for the torts of his minor must, in the main, define the in solido obligation affecting them. In our opinion it does not, and the obligation in solido cannot be presumed. La.Civil Code art. 2093.
An obligation is not solidary merely because each creditor may enforce payment. Nor is it always sufficient to constitute an obligation in solido, that each of the debtors is debtor of the whole thing. For these elements are likewise characteristic of indivisible obligations, and also, in certain respects, to divisible obligations dealt with in Articles 2108 to 2115 of the Civil Code.
In like manner, although the obligation of suretyship is one of the oldest forms of solidary obligations in our law, it is not always regulated by the rules which govern obligations in solido. The surety is liable for the whole debt as is the solidary debtor but as he is an accessory debtor the surety is given privileges such as the pleas of discussion and division which do not extend to the ordinary debtor in solido. La. Civil Code arts. 3045, 3046, 3049. These distinctions are inapplicable, however, when the surety stipulates that he is bound in solido.
No article of the Code has been cited which either expressly or otherwise imposes solidary liability upon the father for the torts of his minor child residing with him. It is true that Article 2324 of the Code provides that "He who causes another person to do an unlawful act, or assists or encourages in the commission of it, is answerable, in solido, with that person, for the damages caused by such act." But the father is not a joint tort feasor; no negligence is charged to him.
Article 2317 places the Article 2318 responsibility of the father in a class separate and apart from the class of persons responsible for their faults, negligence, imprudence and want of skill referred to in Articles 2315 and 2316. "We are responsible," according to Article 2317, "not only for the damage occasioned by our own act, but for that which is caused by the act of persons for whom we are answerable." Article 2318 is an example of this latter class of responsibility and it docs not involve the element of solidarity contained in Article 2324 which requires that the party "causes another person to do an unlawful act, or assists or encourages in the commission of it." Indeed, Article 2318 requires no action or inaction on the part of the father. The status of father alone is sufficient to impose responsibility. Pothier said:
Observe, that those who are liable to the reparation of an injury committed by another person, in which they have not concurred, are obliged in a different manner from the authors of the injury. (Pothier, On Obligations, Vol. 1, Part I, Chapter II, § 2 (1792))
In still another respect the father's responsibility under Article 2318 is not soli-dary. Article 3552 of the Civil Code provides that the acknowledgment of the debt by one debtor in solido interrupts prescription with regard to all the others. In Cox v. Shreveport Packing Co., 213 La. 53, 34 So.2d 373 (1948) this Court denied the application of this article to the parent-child responsibility under Article 2318 by saying:
We do not understand the law to be that an admission of fault and liability by the perpetrators of a wrong is conclusive as to him who is only secondarily liable such as a master answerable for the torts of his servant or parents responsible for the damages occasioned by their minor children residing with them.
The responsibility imposed on the father by Articles 237 and 2318 is said to be "vicarious". Williams v. City of Baton Rouge, 252 La. 770, 214 So.2d 138 (1968). As more fully stated in Deshotels v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 257 La. 567, 243 So.2d 259 (1971), the status of the father is "vicarious, secondary and derivative"; his liability is, in reality, an absolute liability imposed by statute — a liability without fault. Williams v. City of Baton Rouge, supra; Johnson v. Butterworth, 180 La. 586, 157 So. 121 (1934); Sutton v. Champagne, 141 La. 469, 75 So. 209 (1917). See also Barham, Liability Without Fault, 17 La.Bar J. 271 (1970).
There is more: The liability of the father-son relationship cannot be characterized as solidary because nothing in the relationship enables the son to avail himself of the advantages stipulated for co-debtors in solido by Article 2104: "If one of the codebtors in solido pays the whole debt, he can claim from the others no more than the part and portion of each . . . . " That is to say, it is plain that a minor son who discharges a debt created by his own independent tortious conduct cannot claim contribution from his father, who had no part in the tortious action but who is nevertheless responsible under Article 2318. It follows, then, that the father who is "answerable" and "responsible" for the minor's torts is also without right to claim contribution from the son, contribution being a right accorded to all solidary obligors. See La. Civil Code arts. 2103, 2104.
In the absence of policy considerations to the contrary, however, it would appear, without deciding the question, that the father has a right to be subrogated to the claim of the party whose damages he has paid and who was injured by his minor son. La. Civil Code art. 2161(3). Or the father's claim may be based upon a theory of indemnity or unjust enrichment. E. g., Minyard v. Curtis Products, Inc., 251 La, 624, 205 So.2d 422 (1968). But, in any event, this right to subrogation, indemnification or unjust enrichment is not one arising out of solidarity.
The legal consequences attaching to soli-dary obligations properly-so-called do not necessarily extend to the legal responsibility of the father for the torts of his minor child. For these reasons, the father in this instance was not a solidary co-debtor with his minor son for the alleged tortious conduct of the son. Therefore, when the first suit was filed against the father, without joining the son, there was no interruption of prescription against the son, and the one year prescription ran its course during the protracted litigation against the father lasting more than four years, ending in June 1970. This suit was therefore vulnerable to the plea of prescription. Cf. Britton & Moore v. Bush, 31 La.Ann. 264 (1879); Croning v. Woods, 15 La.Ann. 168 (1860); Hickman v. Stafford, 2 La.Ann. 792 (1847); McCalop v. Newcomb, 2 La.Ann. 332 (1847) and Jacobs v. Williams, 12 Rob. 183 (La.1845).
Counsel for plaintiff has urged this Court to be controlled in this case by the holding of the Court of Appeal in Kern v. Knight, 127 So. 133 (1930). As the reasons assigned in the case at bar make clear, there are expressions in Kern v. Knight which are contrary to those announced here. Insofar as Kern v. Knight is in conflict, it is overruled.
For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed.
TATE, J., concurs and assigns reasons.
BARHAM, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
DIXON, J., dissents, being of the opinion that the obligation is solidary.
. See La.Civil Code arts. 437, 1681, 2082, 2083, 2087, 2088, 2091, 2107, 2113, 2285, 2324, 2804, 2872, 2905, 2957, 3009, 3014, 3026, 3039, 3045, 3049.
. Aubrey and Rau, Cours DeDroit Civil Eraneais, Vol. IV-6th Ed, Obligations § 298b, an English Translation by the Louisiana State Law Institute.
. Ibid. § 298b.
. Pothier, A Treatise on the Law of Obligations, Vol. 1 § 262 (1762).
. Cohen, Solidary Obligation, 25 Tul.L.Rev. 217 (1951).