Opinion ID: 2386366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recovery for Medical Expenses and Loss of Earning Capacity

Text: Though there is room for a difference of opinion, our research indicates that the recovery for medical and related expenses is for the community. The reasoning has been that it is the burden of the community to pay these expenses. Moynihan in 2 American Law of Community Property (1952) says at page 160, Although it would on principle seem the sounder view that damages recovered for pain, suffering and bodily disfigurement are the separate property of the injured spouse, it does not follow that all elements of damage for personal injury are properly classified as separate property. Damages for impairment of earning capacity and consequential damages in the nature of medical, hospital and nursing expenses are properly recoverable for the community. De Funiak writes in Section 82 of Principles of Community Property, that while recovery for injuries to the spouse should be separate, the rule is different for other elements of recovery: But on the other hand, if injury deprives the marital community of the earnings or services of the spouse, that is an injury to the marital community; likewise there is loss to the community where the community funds are expended for hospital and medical expenses.    [5] If the wife is contributing earnings to the marital community, any injury interrupting or lowering those earnings is equally, as in the case of the husband, an injury to the community.... He also states that: The earning capacity, as such, would presumably be translated into earnings during the marriage, which would be community property. To the extent that the marital partnership has incurred medical or other expenses and has lost wages, both spouses have been damaged by the injury to the spouse; and both spouses have a claim against the wrongdoer. The recovery, therefore, is community in character. This Court has held, however, that the wife could bring suit alone for medical services. Few v. Charter Oak Fire Ins. Co., 463 S.W. 2d 424 (1971).