Opinion ID: 220369
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Calvin's Damages

Text: Dillard's makes several arguments in support of its contention that the district court erred in awarding $1 million to Calvin on his consortium claim. First, Dillard's argues that Calvin's damages were not foreseeable and, therefore, not proximately caused by the Dillard's incident. Second, Dillard's contends that full-time nursing care is not the type of service that is encompassed by the notion of consortium. Third, Dillard's asserts that, as a matter of Missouri law, a consortium award cannot be larger than the damages recovered by the injured party. Proximate cause requires something in addition to a `but for' causation test to exclude causes upon which it would be unreasonable to base liability ... because they are too far removed from the ultimate injury or damage. Alcorn v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 50 S.W.3d 226, 239 (Mo.2001) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). As noted above, [t]he general test for proximate cause is whether an injury is the natural and probable consequence of the defendant's negligence. Stanley v. City of Independence, 995 S.W.2d 485, 488 (Mo.1999) (en banc). An element of this examination is foreseeability, but with the advantage of hind-sight. Alcorn, 50 S.W.3d at 239. Foreseeability is not a matter of mathematical certainty. No event is entirely foreseeable. Robinson, 24 S.W.3d at 78 (internal quotation marks omitted). As such, the test for proximate cause is not whether a reasonably prudent person would have foreseen the particular injury, but whether, after the occurrences, the injury appears to be the reasonable and probable consequence of the act or omission of the defendant. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We do not believe it is entirely unforeseeable that an injured spouse might be married to an invalid, nor that an invalid's spouse might be acting as the invalid's primary care-giver. Nevertheless, we agree with Dillard's that current Missouri law does not contemplate an unlimited consortium claim of the sort awarded to Calvin by the district court. As a federal court, our role in diversity cases is to interpret state law, not to fashion it. Orion Fin. Corp. of S.D. v. Am. Foods Grp., Inc., 281 F.3d 733, 738 (8th Cir.2002); see also Homolla v. Gluck, 248 F.2d 731, 734 (8th Cir.1957) (This Court is not an appellate court of the State of Missouri and establishes no rules of law for that State.). When determining the scope of Missouri law, we are bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of Missouri. If the Supreme Court of Missouri has not addressed an issue, we must predict how the court would rule, and we follow decisions from the intermediate state courts when they are the best evidence of Missouri law. Eubank v. Kan. City Power & Light Co., 626 F.3d 424, 427 (8th Cir.2010) (internal citation omitted). No Missouri court has ever allowed a spouse to recover on a consortium claim for life-long professional nursing care. Indeed, as far as this court's research reveals, extending the law of consortium to embrace such a claim would be unprecedented nationwide. [2] Further, our review of related Missouri case law does not foreshadow such an expansion of the law of consortium, and [i]t is not the role of a federal court to expand state law in ways not foreshadowed by state precedent. Ashley Cnty. v. Pfizer, Inc., 552 F.3d 659, 673 (8th Cir.2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). When a married person is injured, two causes of action arise: one accrues to the injured person for the injuries suffered directly by him or her, and the other accrues to the injured person's spouse for damages suffered as a result of the loss of the injured person's services, society, companionship, and sexual relations (loss of consortium). Thompson v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 207 S.W.3d 76, 112-13 (Mo.Ct.App.2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). The cause of action for loss of consortium seeks to compensate the uninjured spouse for the disruptive influence in the sphere of family and social life caused by the negligently inflicted injury to his spouse. Helming v. Dulle, 441 S.W.2d 350, 355 (Mo.1969). Thus, an uninjured husband can recover for the loss of his wife's share of those mutual contributions that are normally expected in the maintenance of a household. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 693 cmt. f; see also Gooch v. Avsco, Inc., 340 S.W.2d 665, 670 (Mo.1960) (allowing an uninjured husband to recover for his injured wife's future inability to perform her spousal duties and obligations). Missouri courts have recognized a variety of household and domestic duties as belonging to this category of services for whose loss the uninjured spouse may recover, including: housework, such as cooking, cleaning, sewing, and ironing; yard work and gardening; and assistance in raising and supervising children. See, e.g., Gooch, 340 S.W.2d at 670 (cooking, cleaning, sewing); Messina v. Prather, 42 S.W.3d 753, 758 (Mo.Ct.App.2001) (housework, ironing, yardwork, cleaning, sewing, crocheting, knitting, cooking, gardening); O'Neal v. Agee, 8 S.W.3d 238, 242 (Mo.Ct.App.1999) (raising and supervising children, repairing and maintaining house, yard, and automobiles). Additionally, the uninjured spouse may recover on a consortium claim when the injury to the injured spouse requires the uninjured spouse to take on varied and sundry duties above and beyond the norm. Helming, 441 S.W.2d at 355 (explaining that [t]aken together these varied and sundry duties now fall upon the wife and constitute a disruptive influence in the sphere of family and social life between the parties); cf. Shepherd v. Consumers Coop. Ass'n, 384 S.W.2d 635, 640 (Mo.1964) (en banc) (recognizing that an uninjured wife's consortium claim included the fact that she was now required, due to her husband's injury, to remain at home for long periods of time and to forego social engagements she previously enjoyed). Some nursing care is usually performed by and expected of a wife. See Hodges v. Johnson, 417 S.W.2d 685, 692 (Mo.Ct.App.1967) (reducing the damages awarded in a consortium action in part because the uninjured spouse had not administered any nursing care or services unto her husband other than those usually performed by and expected of a wife). However, Missouri courts have allowed the uninjured spouse to recover for providing additional nursing services of the sort that professional care-givers ordinarily provide. See, e.g., Helming, 441 S.W.2d at 354-55 (permitting an uninjured wife to recover for the various new duties she was required to take on as a result of her husband's injury, including among other things, assisting him when he ate meals, shaving him, and buttoning his clothing); cf. Pretre v. United States, 531 F.Supp. 931, 936 (E.D.Mo.1981) (holding that because the injured spouse was already receiving adequate nursing care from hospital staff, the uninjured wife's care-giving activities were superfluousdone out of the extra measure of devotion that may be expected of a spouseand, therefore, could not be included in the wife's consortium claim); accord Wright v. Standard Oil Co., 470 F.2d 1280, 1292-93 (5th Cir. 1972) (applying Mississippi law and holding that a husband's consortium claim did not include the nursing services provided by his wife in the care of their paraplegic child because these activities are far beyond those contemplated by the marital relationship and cannot be characterized as normal household and domestic duties which by entering into the marriage she impliedly agreed to perform without compensation, and thus they exceed those [services] which the law includes under the consortium label). These cases imply that professional nursing care is not included in the ordinary services that Missouri expects a wife to provide to her husband. Therefore, Missouri precedents do not foreshadow the extension of the law of consortium to encompass recovery for the loss of such services. Further, the Kingmans have not cited any Missouri authority for the proposition that a consortium award may exceed by a factor of five the damages awarded to the injured spouse. In Hodges v. Johnson , the Missouri Court of Appeals observed that [t]here should be some reasonable relationship between the size of a verdict awarded in a consortium action and that given the injured spouse, and that [i]n the usual case, ... the damages to the uninjured spouse are necessarily considerably less than those suffered by the one injured. 417 S.W.2d at 693. To be sure, this is not the usual case. However, this court is not aware of a single Missouri case in which the consortium award to the uninjured spouse exceeded the damages judgment to the principal plaintiff. To the contrary, the Supreme Court of Missouri has suggested that the extent of the uninjured spouse's recovery for loss of consortium depends, in large measure, upon the extent of the injured spouse's injuries. State ex rel. St. Louis Pub. Serv. Co. v. McMullan, 297 S.W.2d 431, 436 (Mo.1956) (en banc) (It is true that the wife's claim for her own injuries, and the husband's claim for expenses and loss of services and society are separate claims.... [But t]he real point is that the separate claim of the husband arises directly out of, and is based directly on, the wife's personal injuries. Were it not for those injuries he would have no suit, and upon the extent of those injuries depends, in large measure, the extent of his recovery for a loss of services and society. (emphasis in original)). Thus, we do not believe that state precedent foreshadows a disproportionately large consortium claim of the sort awarded to Calvin by the district court. Finally, the Supreme Court of Missouri has previously recognized some limits on the concept of consortium. See Powell v. Am. Motors Corp., 834 S.W.2d 184, 191 (Mo.1992) (en banc) (refusing to recognize a cause of action for parental or filial consortium). In Powell, the Supreme Court of Missouri held that creat[ing] an action for parental or filial consortium ... is a matter of public policy, and that [q]uestions of public policy are to be determined by the legislature. Id. Therefore, we think it unlikely that, absent legislative action, the Supreme Court of Missouri would expand the concept of consortium to include a claim for lifetime professional nursing services that vastly exceeds the underlying award to the injured spouse. Consequently, it is not our role to do so. Ashley Cnty., 552 F.3d at 671 (refusing to expand Arkansas law to recognize a cause of action previously unrecognized by Arkansas courts); accord Birchler v. Gehl Co., 88 F.3d 518, 521 (7th Cir.1996) (When we are faced with opposing plausible interpretations of state law, we generally choose the narrower interpretation which restricts liability, rather than the more expansive interpretation which creates substantially more liability.); Pearson v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 979 F.2d 254, 259 (1st Cir. 1992) (plaintiffs who chose a federal forum cannot justifiably complain if the federal court manifests great caution in blazing new state-law trails); Villegas v. Princeton Farms, Inc., 893 F.2d 919, 925 (7th Cir.1990) (Federal court is not the place to press innovative theories of state law. (internal quotation marks omitted)). [3] Accordingly, we reverse the consortium award to Calvin as contrary to Missouri law. We remand Calvin's loss-of-consortium claim for reconsideration by the district court. While professional nursing services are not encompassed by the notion of consortium under Missouri law, Calvin's invalid status and Paula's former role as his primary care-giver are not entirely irrelevant to Calvin's loss-of-consortium claim. A consortium award seeks to compensate for the domestic services that have been lost. Thus, an invalid spouse might be entitled to a greater recovery than a healthy spouse if his injured wife had previously been undertaking a greater share of the household services that are encompassed by the notion of consortium. See Gooch, 340 S.W.2d at 670; Messina, 42 S.W.3d at 758; O'Neal, 8 S.W.3d at 242. Additionally, an invalid's spouse might have previously been providing services not required by a healthy spouse yet falling short of professional nursing care. These services, such as, for example, driving the invalid to medical appointments, picking up medications, or assisting the invalid with basic personal care and hygiene, seem to us to belong to the category of services for whose loss an uninjured spouse may recover on a consortium claim. Therefore, we predict that the Supreme Court of Missouri would permit a higher consortium award when, as here, the uninjured spouse is an invalid. Still, there should be some reasonable relationship between the size of a verdict awarded in a consortium action and that given the injured spouse, Hodges, 417 S.W.2d at 693, and it would be a highly unusual case in which the consortium award exceeded the damages award to the principal plaintiff.