Opinion ID: 1371140
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Stare decisis and the role of the Legislature.

Text: The principal reliance of the Deshotel court was on two related arguments broadly applicable to any proposed change in judge-made law. In the light of recent legal history it will be seen that both arguments have outlived their time. First and foremost, the Deshotel court emphasized that the overwhelming weight of authority supports the common law rule, and the courts are justifiably reluctant to depart from established limitations on recovery. (50 Cal.2d at pp. 667, 669.) In the 16 years since Deshotel was decided, however, there has been a dramatic reversal in the weight of authority on this question. At the time of Deshotel the majority of the states denied the wife the right to recover for loss of consortium, while that right was recognized in only five jurisdictions. [4] Today those 5 have grown in number to at least 31. In 26 of these jurisdictions the change was brought about by judicial decision, [5] while in 5 it was accomplished by statute. [6] Four states appear to have taken no definitive position on the question. [7] There remain 2 states with statutes which have been construed to deny by implication the right of the wife to recover for loss of consortium, [8] and only 13 which, like California, reached that result by judicial decision. [9] The authority of these 13, moreover, is considerably weakened by two factors: a number of the courts express support for the rule allowing recovery by the wife but thus far feel bound to await legislative action on the subject, while others rely heavily on a long line of decisions of their sister jurisdictions which have since been overruled. [10] The phenomenon of reliance on subsequently overruled authority is dramatically illustrated in Deshotel itself. There the court lists, as supporting the denial of the wife's right to recover for loss of consortium, an English case, a Ninth Circuit case finding no California law to the contrary, and, representing the vast majority of American jurisdictions, 20 cases from other states. (50 Cal.2d at pp. 665-666.) Today, however, no less than 17 of those same 20 cases are no longer the law in their own jurisdictions! The 2 Colorado cases cited in Deshotel were superseded by a contrary statute (see fn. 6, ante ), and the remaining 15 decisions have now been expressly or impliedly overruled by the highest courts of each state (see fn. 5, ante ). [11] Many of these holdings were unanimous, and in a number of instances the overruled decision or its progeny had been on the books a far shorter time than Deshotel has been in force in California. Nor were the rulings hesitant or grudging: for example, in Deshotel this court relied on the Missouri case of Bernhardt v. Perry (Mo. 1918) supra, 208 S.W. 462, but in Novak v. Kansas City Transit, Inc. (Mo. 1963) supra, 365 S.W.2d 539, 542, the Supreme Court of Missouri declared that Bernhardt is clearly erroneous and manifestly wrong and should not be followed. As the Massachusetts court observed, We should be mindful of the trend although our decision is not reached by a process of following the crowd. ( Diaz v. Eli Lilly and Company (1973) supra, 302 N.E.2d 555, 561.) [12] Quantitative at first, the trend took a qualitative leap when the American Law Institute reversed its position on the subject not long ago. Consonant with prior law, section 695 of the first Restatement of Torts, published in 1938, had declared that a wife was not entitled to recover for any harm caused to any of her marital interests by one who negligently injured her husband. In 1969, however, at a time when the weight of authority was still slightly against such recovery  although the trend was running in its favor  the institute adopted a new section 695, declaring in relevant part that One who by reason of his tortious conduct is liable to a husband for illness or other bodily harm is also subject to liability to his wife for resulting loss of his society, including any impairment of his capacity for sexual intercourse.... (Rest.2d Torts (Tent. Draft No. 14, Apr. 15, 1969) § 695, adopted May 21, 1969 (Proceedings of American Law Inst. (46th Annual Meeting, 1969) pp. 148-157).) [13] In these circumstances we may fairly conclude that the precedential foundation of Deshotel has been not only undermined but destroyed. In its place a new common law rule has arisen, granting either spouse the right to recover for loss of consortium caused by negligent injury to the other spouse. Accordingly, to adopt that rule in California at this time would not constitute, as the court feared in Deshotel (50 Cal.2d at p. 667), an extension of common law liability, but rather a recognition of that liability as it is currently understood by the large preponderance of our sister states and a consensus of distinguished legal scholars. [14] The second principal rationale of the Deshotel opinion (at pp. 668-669 of 50 Cal.2d) was that any departure from the then-settled rule denying the wife recovery for loss of consortium should be left to legislative action, and defendants in the case at bar echo that plea. [15] But in the years since Deshotel the argument has fared badly in our decisions. As we summarized in People v. Pierce (1964) supra, 61 Cal.2d 879, 882, In effect the contention is a request that courts abdicate their responsibility for the upkeep of the common law. That upkeep it needs continuously, as this case demonstrates. The judicial responsibility to which we referred in Pierce arises from the role of the courts in a common law system. (1) In California as in other jurisdictions of Anglo-American heritage, the common law is not a codification of exact or inflexible rules for human conduct, for the redress of injuries, or for protection against wrongs, but is rather the embodiment of broad and comprehensive unwritten principles, inspired by natural reason and an innate sense of justice, and adopted by common consent for the regulation and government of the affairs of men. .... .... .... .... .... The inherent capacity of the common law for growth and change is its most significant feature. Its development has been determined by the social needs of the community which it serves. It is constantly expanding and developing in keeping with advancing civilization and the new conditions and progress of society, and adapting itself to the gradual change of trade, commerce, arts, inventions, and the needs of the country. (Fns. omitted.) (15 Am.Jur.2d, Common Law, §§ 1, 2, pp. 794-796.) [16] In short, as the United States Supreme Court has aptly said, This flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation is the peculiar boast and excellence of the common law. ( Hurtado v. California (1884) 110 U.S. 516, 530 [28 L.Ed. 232, 237, 4 S.Ct. 111, 292].) (2) But that vitality can flourish only so long as the courts remain alert to their obligation and opportunity to change the common law when reason and equity demand it: The nature of the common law requires that each time a rule of law is applied, it be carefully scrutinized to make sure that the conditions and needs of the times have not so changed as to make further application of it the instrument of injustice. Whenever an old rule is found unsuited to present conditions or unsound, it should be set aside and a rule declared which is in harmony with those conditions and meets the demands of justice. (Fns. omitted.) (15 Am.Jur.2d, Common Law, § 2, p. 797.) Although the Legislature may of course speak to the subject, in the common law system the primary instruments of this evolution are the courts, adjudicating on a regular basis the rich variety of individual cases brought before them. While the courts of California have long exercised this power to insure the just and rational development of the common law in our state (see, e.g., Katz v. Walkinshaw (1903) 141 Cal. 116, 123-124 [70 P. 663, 74 P. 766]), it is perhaps since Deshotel that the independence of the judicial branch in this regard has been most firmly asserted. Shortly after Deshotel the decision in Muskopf v. Corning Hospital Dist. (1961) 55 Cal.2d 211 [11 Cal. Rptr. 89, 359 P.2d 457], dealt a major blow to the contention that reconsideration of settled common law rules should await action by the Legislature. The issue there was the continued viability of the doctrine of sovereign immunity in California. In Talley v. Northern San Diego Hosp. Dist. (1953) 41 Cal.2d 33, 41 [257 P.2d 22], this court had unequivocally stated that Whether the doctrine of sovereign immunity should be modified in this state is a legislative question. In Vater v. County of Glenn (1958) 49 Cal.2d 815, 820 [323 P.2d 85], the court recognized that most contemporary legal scholars strongly advocated abolition of the principle of sovereign immunity, but nevertheless reiterated that the abrogation or restriction of this doctrine is primarily a legislative matter.... Less than three years later, however, Muskopf abolished sovereign immunity by judicial decree. We emphasized that the doctrine was originally court made (55 Cal.2d at p. 218), and observed that we are apt to forget that when there is negligence, the rule is liability, immunity is the exception. ( Id. at p. 219.) Finding no valid reason for continuing the exception of sovereign immunity, we put an end to it. [17] More recently, we rejected the argument in favor of deferring to legislative action in our reconsideration of the rule denying liability for the sale of alcoholic beverages to a customer who becomes intoxicated and injures a third person. In Cole v. Rush (1955) 45 Cal.2d 345, 354 [289 P.2d 450, 54 A.L.R.2d 1137], this court squarely held that any change in the doctrine of immunity for such injury must come by legislative action: for the court to abrogate the common law rule, we said, would at the least constitute a departure from its constitutional function and an encroachment upon that of the Legislature. Yet we judicially abolished this doctrine in Vesely v. Sager (1971) supra, 5 Cal.3d 153, and we did so despite our recognition of the foregoing reasoning of Cole ( id. at p. 161) and of the fact that in many states the common law rule of immunity had been abrogated by statute ( id. at p. 159). The defendant in Vesely urged, as the court declared in Deshotel (50 Cal.2d at p. 668), that the matter should be left to the Legislature because that body is better equipped to define the scope of liability and resolve various related procedural problems. The argument fell on deaf ears. We simply stressed that the challenged immunity was based on a judicially created rule, which is patently unsound and totally inconsistent with the principles of proximate cause established in other areas of negligence law. Other common law tort rules which were determined to be lacking in validity have been abrogated by this court [citing Gibson and Muskopf ], and there is no sound reason for retaining the common law rule presented in this case. ( Id. at p. 166.) Finally, in several additional post- Deshotel decisions we have judicially abolished long-standing common law tort rules over the specific objection that the question should have been left for legislative action. (See, e.g., Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 121 [70 Cal. Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, 32 A.L.R.3d 496] [abandoning distinction between business invitee, social guest, and trespasser, with regard to liability for dangerous conditions of land]; Dillon v. Legg (1968) supra, 68 Cal.2d 728, 752 [allowing recovery for fear-induced bodily injury to parent caused by witnessing negligent injury to child]; Klein v. Klein (1962) supra, 58 Cal.2d 692, 697-699 [abrogating rule of interspousal unity for negligent torts].) (3) The rule denying the wife recovery for loss of consortium is no less a judicial creation than any of the foregoing. Recognizing this fact, the highest courts of our sister states have time and again rejected, since Deshotel, the argument that the rule can be changed only by legislative action. (See, e.g., Schreiner v. Fruit (Alaska 1974) supra, 519 P.2d 462, 465; Kotsiris v. Ling (Ky. 1970) supra, 451 S.W.2d 411, 412; Novak v. Kansas City Transit, Inc. (Mo. 1963) supra, 365 S.W.2d 539, 546, 547; Ekalo v. Constructive Serv. Corp. of Am. (1965) supra, 215 A.2d 1, 8; Hoekstra v. Helgeland (1959) supra, 98 N.W.2d 669, 683.) Thus in Montgomery v. Stephan (1960) supra, 101 N.W.2d 227, 229, the Michigan Supreme Court observed that Were we to rule upon precedent alone, were stability the only reason for our being, we would have no trouble with this case. We would simply tell the woman to begone, and to take her shattered husband with her, that we need no longer be affronted by a sight so repulsive. In so doing we would have vast support from the dusty books. But dust the decision would remain in our mouths through the years ahead, a reproach to law and conscience alike. Our oath is to do justice, not to perpetuate error. The court rejected the precedents denying recovery for loss of consortium as out of harmony with the conditions of modern society. They do violence to our convictions and our principles. We reject their applicability. The reasons for the old rule no longer obtaining, the rule falls with it. The obstacles to the wife's action were judge-invented and they are herewith judge-destroyed. ( Id. at p. 235.) In Dini v. Naiditch (1960) supra, 170 N.E.2d 881, 892, the Illinois Supreme Court cited Deshotel as illustrative of decisions holding the wife's remedy lies with the Legislature. The court totally disagreed with that reasoning, saying, We find no wisdom in abdicating to the legislature our essential function of re-evaluating common-law concepts in the light of present day realities. Nor do we find judicial sagacity in continually looking backward and parroting the words and analyses of other courts so as to embalm for posterity the legal concepts of the past. In Millington v. Southeastern Elevator Co. (1968) supra, 293 N.Y.S.2d 305, 313, the New York Court of Appeals correctly conceived its common law responsibilities in rejecting the argument that any change in the rule against recovery for loss of consortium should come from the Legislature: No recitation of authority is needed to indicate that this court has not been backward in overturning unsound precedent in the area of tort law.... `We act in the finest common-law tradition when we adapt and alter decisional law to produce common-sense justice.... Legislative action there could, of course, be, but we abdicate our own function, in a field peculiarly nonstatutory, when we refuse to reconsider an old and unsatisfactory court-made rule.' Other courts have been faced, as we are today, with earlier decisions of their own declining to change the rule against recovery for loss of consortium on the express ground that the question was for the Legislature. Despite this fact, these courts did not await legislative action once they became convinced the rule was outdated and unjust. Instead they forthrightly so declared and overruled their decisions to the contrary. Thus in Jeune v. Del E. Webb Const. Co. (1954) 77 Ariz. 226 [269 P.2d 723, 724], relied on in Deshotel, the court said we have no right to remake the common law as was attempted in Hitaffer v. Argonne Co., supra. But in City of Glendale v. Bradshaw (1972) supra, 503 P.2d 803, 805, the court unanimously overruled Jeune, quoted with approval from Hitaffer, and explained that `When we find that the common law or judge-made law is unjust or out of step with the times, we have no reluctance to change it.' In Ripley v. Ewell (Fla. 1952) 61 So.2d 420, 423, also relied on in Deshotel, the court said that many of the Hitaffer arguments are founded on sound reasoning and ... logically support the conclusion reached if considered as an argument of what the law should be. They might well appeal to the Legislature, and concluded that If further changes are desirable in the public interest, the changes should come from legislation. ( Id. at p. 424.) Yet in Gates v. Foley (Fla. 1971) supra, 247 So.2d 40, 43, the court rejected the identical argument, unanimously overruled Ripley, and observed, The law is not static. It must keep pace with changes in our society, for the doctrine of stare decisis is not an iron mold which can never be changed. [18] Perhaps the most striking example of this sequence of rulings took place recently in Massachusetts. In 1971 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reaffirmed its earlier decisions adopting the common law rule against recovery for loss of consortium; although recognizing the contrary trend in other states, the court said, If a rule of such long standing is to be changed, we are of opinion that any modification should be accomplished by the Legislature and not by judicial decision. ( Lombardo v. D.F. Frangioso & Co. (1971) 359 Mass. 529 [269 N.E.2d 836, 837].) Only two years later, however, the court itself changed the rule, saying, In a field long left to the common law, change may well come about by the same medium of development. Sensible reform can here be achieved without the articulation of detail or the creation of administrative mechanisms that customarily comes about by legislative enactment. Indeed the Legislature may rationally prefer to act, if it acts at all, after rather than before the common law has fulfilled itself in its own way. In the end the Legislature may say that we have mistaken the present public understanding of the nature of the marital relation, but that we cannot now divine or anticipate. (Fns. omitted.) ( Diaz v. Eli Lilly and Company (1973) supra, 302 N.E.2d 555, 563-564.) We agree with this reasoning. Whatever may have been the correct approach at the time of Deshotel, the question today is whether the rule against recovery for loss of consortium should survive on its merits as a judicially declared principle of our tort law. If upon further analysis it appears the remaining reasons given in Deshotel no longer support that rule  no new reasons are suggested by the parties to this appeal  we shall have no hesitation in abrogating it. (4) Such a step would not be a usurpation of legislative authority, but a reaffirmation of our high responsibility to renew the common law of California when it is necessary and proper to do so.