Opinion ID: 1057886
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rightful Remedies

Text: We recognize the essential value of protecting a parent's right to form a relationship with his or her child. We have previously acknowledged that the relationship between a parent and child is constitutionally protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Copeland v. Todd, 282 Va. 183, 198, 715 S.E.2d 11, 19 (2011) (citing Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255, 98 S.Ct. 549, 54 L.Ed.2d 511 (1978)). Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States has characterized a parent's right to raise his or her child as perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000). It follows, then, that a parent has a cause of action against third parties who seek to interfere with this right. In the analogous case of Chaves v. Johnson, 230 Va. 112, 335 S.E.2d 97 (1985), we explicitly recognized the common law tort of tortious interference with contract rights for the first time, noting its historical basis in the Commonwealth. We said: We have not previously had occasion to consider this precise aspect of the law of torts, although in Worrie v. Boze, 198 Va. 533, 95 S.E.2d 192 (1956), we affirmed a judgment granting relief for a tortious conspiracy to procure a breach of contract. There, we said: It is well settled that the right to performance of a contract and the right to reap profits therefrom are property rights which are entitled to protection in the courts. Consequently, suits for procuring breach of contract proceed on this basis. Id. at 536, 95 S.E.2d at 196. Id. at 119-20, 337 S.E.2d at 102. In Chaves, we were not creating a new tort but rather recognizing that the common law provided a cause of action for tortious interference with contract rights. The historical happenstance that the tort in question had not previously been invoked in Virginia did not prevent us from recognizing that the common law right of contract necessarily brought with it, as a corollary, a right to seek recompense against those who interfered with a valid contract. Noting the recognition of tortious interference with contract by many of our sister states, by many English courts, and in the Restatement of Torts, we concluded that a claim for tortious interference with contract could be brought in Virginia. Id. It would be remarkable indeed if the common law right to be free from interference in contract were to be deemed to be more valuable than the common law right of a parent to be free from interference in a relationship with his or her child. In this case, following the blueprint set forth in Chaves, we would not be creating a new tort, but rather recognizing that the common law right to establish and maintain a relationship with one's child necessarily implies a cause of action for interference with that right. To hold otherwise in this case would be to recognize a right without a remedya thing unknown to the law. Norfolk City v. Cooke, 68 Va. (27 Gratt.) 430, 439 (1876). We acknowledge that the most direct and proper remedy, the return of the child and restoration of the parent-child relationship, may never be achieved through a tort action. When a parent has been unduly separated from a child by a third party for a substantial period of time without due process of law, however, other legitimate harms may be suffered that are properly recoverable in tort, including loss of companionship, mental anguish, loss of services, and expenses incurred to recover the child. An examination of our law shows that the redress of these wrongs is in some circumstances otherwise unavailable in the Commonwealth. Wrongful custodial interference is codified in Code § 18.2-49.1 as a criminal offense, but this statute provides no civil recovery. Virginia also has well-developed custody laws to manage intra-familial disputes, but custody disputes do not implicate rights or duties of third parties, such as are at issue here. [2] The Commonwealth provides for causes of action for fraud and constructive fraud, but a third party can wrongfully interfere with parental rights without engaging in fraudulent behavior. There remain many cognizable scenarios in which intentional tortious interference with parental rights could be invoked not as a legal redundancy, but as a unique remedy.