Opinion ID: 1655462
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Heading: Guardian's Cause of Action for Medical and Hospital Expenses

Text: Barger contends that she has an independent right of recovery for medical and hospital expenses incurred by her on behalf of her injured child that survives a bar to the child's recovery under our former guest statute, SDCL 32-34-1. [] In granting a defense motion for summary judgment on the issue, however, the trial court held that Barger's right of recovery is derivative in nature and not a new cause of action and, therefore, SDCL 32-34-1 applied to her claim. We agree. A number of courts have held that a parent's right of action for consequential damages incurred because of negligent injury to a child, although distinct from the child's right of action, is derivative therefrom inasmuch as it is based upon and arises out of the negligence which caused the injury. See, e.g., Warner v. Pruett, 599 S.W.2d 207 (Mo.App.1980); O'Hearn v. O'Hearn, 55 A.D.2d 766, 389 N.Y.S.2d 651 (1976); Whitehead v. General Telephone Co., 20 Ohio St.2d 108, 254 N.E.2d 10 (1969); 59 Am.Jur.2d Parent and Child § 112 (1971). Consequently, the parent cannot recover unless the child also has a good cause of action. Welter v. Curry, 260 Ark. 287, 539 S.W.2d 264 (1976); Bias v. Ausbury, 369 Mich. 378, 120 N.W.2d 233 (1963); Fekete v. Schipler, 80 N.J.Super. 538, 194 A.2d 361 (1963); Dudley v. Phillips, 218 Tenn. 648, 405 S.W.2d 468 (1966). In Irlbeck v. Pomeroy, 210 N.W.2d 831 (Iowa 1973), a case similar to the instant action, the Iowa Supreme Court held that although the minor was a guest passenger in the vehicle in question, Iowa's guest statute was not a defense to the mother's action for loss of services, companionship and society. The Court stated: A true derivative action is one which a person may institute to redress a wrong done to another. Our survival statute Code § 611.20 is an example. The cause of action accruing to a fatally injured person survives his death and is maintainable by his estate representative, subject to any defense which could have been raised against the decedent.... The present action is not that kind of derivative action....    [T]he wrongful or negligent death of a minor gives rise in Iowa to two causes of action, one on behalf of the minor's administrator for those injuries which are personal to the decedent, section 611.20, the other on behalf of the father for loss of services during minority and expenses incurred on account of those injuries, rule 8. Actions brought under rule 8 are not for the injury to the child but for the injury to the father as a consequence of the injury to the child.... Wardlow v. City of Keokuk, [190 N.W.2d 439, 443 (Iowa 1971)] supra. [Emphasis added by the Iowa court.] 210 N.W.2d at 832-33. Although it may be correct to say that actions such as this are not truly derivative in the sense that the person who incurs the medical and hospital expenses, i.e., the parent, is the person injured, nonetheless that injury arises out of and is a consequence of the injury to the child. As stated in Shiels v. Audette, 119 Conn. 75, 78, 174 A. 323, 325 (1934): An act or omission of a person which causes a loss of the services of a minor child to a parent, or necessitates expenditures to cure an injury done to the child, entitles the parent to recover damages when it appears that the act or omission is one which the law holds to be a legal wrong.... [I]n such a case as this, where the basis of the claimed wrongful conduct is the failure of the defendant to take certain steps to prevent the child from suffering injury, the parent cannot recover unless that failure constituted a legal wrong to the child. Accord: Tisko v. Harrison, 500 S.W.2d 565 (Tex.Civ.App.1973). There is an analogy to the situation where husband and wife have causes of action for injuries to the wife. In Callies v. Reliance Laundry Co., 188 Wis. 376, 380, 206 N.W. 198, 200 (1925), it was stated: The parent is by law required to support and care for his child. In return for the performance of such obligation, the law gives to the parent the right to a part of the child's cause of action in case he is negligently injured by another. So also since the husband is required to support his wife the law likewise gives him a part of the wife's cause of action in case she is negligently injured by another. This splitting up of the cause of action resulting in some of the damages being given the child and some to the parent, or some to the wife and some to the husband, is due solely to the parental and marital relations existing between the parties.... But for such relations and obligations the entire damages would belong to the child or wife[.] In Titze v. Miller, 337 N.W.2d 176 (S.D. 1983), we classified a husband's cause of action for loss of consortium as derivative in nature, even though the right of consortium is a personal right and a separate and distinct cause of action. If the injured spouse is unable to recover for his own personal injuries, the cause of action of the other for loss of consortium also fails. Bitsos v. Red Owl Stores, Inc., 350 F.Supp. 850 (D.S.D.1972); Budahl v. Gordon David & Associates, 287 N.W.2d 489 (S.D. 1980); Wilson v. Hasvold, 86 S.D. 286, 194 N.W.2d 251 (1972). We conclude, therefore, that the trial court was correct in ruling that our former guest statute operated as a bar to Barger's action for medical and hospital expenses. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's summary judgment on this issue.