Opinion ID: 1489448
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Appellants' Loss of Consortium Claim

Text: Appellants claim the trial court improperly refused to instruct the jury on their claim of loss of consortium. We first note that the only statutory support we can find for such a claim is limited to cases involving the wrongful death of a minor. See KRS 411.135 (In a wrongful death action in which the decedent was a minor child, the surviving parent, or parents, may recover for loss of affection and companionship that would have been derived from such child during its minority, in addition to all other elements of the damage usually recoverable in a wrongful death action.). It suffices to say that Michael Bayless was not killed. Appellants cite Department of Education v. Blevins, 707 S.W.2d 782 (Ky. 1986), for the general proposition that a parent may bring a claim for loss of consortium. But the cause of action in Blevins was premised on KRS 411.135 and loss of consortium damages were alleged after the death of a child. Nothing in Blevins supports the expansion of loss of consortium claims beyond the extreme case of a wrongful death lawsuit. Even if it did, we would point out that the holding in Blevins is limited to the context in which it arose, namely as an action against a state entity, and not an individual tortfeasor, pursuant to the Commonwealth's Board of Claims Act. [4] Furthermore, Blevins 's allowance for parental loss of consortium claims under the act was abrogated by statute as recognized in Williams v. Kentucky Department of Education, 113 S.W.3d 145, 156 (Ky.2003). Appellants provide no binding authority suggesting that Kentucky law recognizes a cause of action for loss of parental consortium in a personal injury case such as this. Instead Appellants cite an opinion of the Ohio Court of Appeals, Rouse v. Riverside Methodist Hosp., 9 Ohio App.3d 206, 9 O.B.R. 355, 459 N.E.2d 593, 600 (1983), which they claim as proof that other courts have recognized and protected the right of a parent to be compensated for the interruption of parental rights. But Appellants' assertion about Rouse is clearly false. In fact, Rouse does not address the loss of consortium issue at all; rather it merely allow[s] a parent to recover from the wrongdoer the reasonable value of the care or attendance which he himself renders to his child as the result of a negligent injury. Id. at 600. Having cited no primary or secondary authority supporting their position, Appellants give us little reason to depart from the holding of the Court of Appeals in Humana of Kentucky, Inc. v. McKee, 834 S.W.2d 711 (Ky.App.1992). In that case, despite proof of serious and permanent injury to a child, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's denial of an instruction on the loss of [the child's] companionship, love and affection, that is, a claim for parental loss of consortium. Id. at 725. The Court of Appeals correctly noted that there is no Kentucky law which authorizes the giving of such an instruction. Id.