Opinion ID: 1758792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Cost-Benefit Analysis

Text: The Court correctly notes that, [w]hen recognizing a new cause of action and the accompanying expansion of duty, we must perform something akin to a cost-benefit analysis to assure that this expansion of liability is justified. 111 S.W.3d at 118. In performing its analysis, however, the Court proceeds as if we have never before considered the relative advantages and disadvantages of permitting consortium claims for injuries to the parent-child relationship. Ultimately, the Court concludes that we should reject filial consortium claims associated with a child's injury because permitting parents a separate cause of action will further uncertainty in the law and widen the divergence in recoveries among similarly situated victims. Id. And, asserts the Court, it is not at all clear that this additional layer of liability will produce corresponding benefits of deterrence or fair compensation. Id. But we have already given due consideration to these principles and concluded that consortium damages should be available for injuries to the parent-child relationship. See Reagan, 804 S.W.2d at 464-66; Cavnar, 696 S.W.2d at 551; Sanchez, 651 S.W.2d at 253-54. In balancing parents' interests in compensation for the lost society and companionship of their injured children against tortfeasors' interests in freedom from additional liabilitygiving appropriate consideration to the social consequences of each alternativethere are, of course, numerous influencing factors, included but not limited to: (i) whether recognizing filial consortium claims will yield a significant social benefit; (ii) the relative costs born by parents versus those born by the general public; (iii) the nature of the asserted loss; (iv) the connection between the plaintiff and defendant; and (v) the ability to fairly assess damages. In Reagan, Cavnar, and Sanchez, we considered similar factors and concluded that, on balance, they weigh in favor of permitting parents to recover consortium damages related to their children's injuries, there is no need to analyze them again here. It should suffice to say that, as a matter of stare decisis, our conclusions in those cases govern today.