Opinion ID: 1060766
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: loss of parental consortium

Text: The wrongful death statute precludes neither a minor child nor an adult child from seeking compensation for the child's consortium losses. Moreover, Tenn.Code Ann. § 20-5-110 provides that a suit for the wrongful killing of the spouse may be brought in the name of the surviving spouse for the benefit of the surviving spouse and the children of the deceased. This provision when read in pari materia with Tenn.Code Ann. § 20-5-113 seemingly permits consideration of parental consortium damages. See Foster v. Jeffers, 813 S.W.2d 449, 451 (Tenn.Ct.App.1991) (holding all wrongful death statutes must be construed with reference to one another). A review of case law in other jurisdictions indicates a trend to expand consortium claims to include the impairment of a child's relationship with a parent. Comment, Belcher v. Goins: West Virginia Joins the Distinct Minority of Jurisdiction in Recognizing a Claim for Loss of Parental Consortium, 94 W. Va. L.Rev. 261, 262 (1991). In cases involving a parent's death, [t]he general rule. . . followed is that a child's loss of nurture, education and moral training which it probably would have received from a parent wrongfully killed is a pecuniary loss to be considered as an element of the damages suffered by the child. Recovery for Wrongful Death at § 3:47 (listing thirty-four jurisdictions so holding). See also 94 Va. L.Rev. at 266 (Most states . . . allow a surviving . . . child . . . to recover for loss of consortium where a parent is tortiously killed.); Prosser, § 127, at 952 (Even jurisdictions that have rejected the loss of society or consortium claim, as such, have permitted one form of it, namely a loss of guidance and advice that the decedent would have provided [to the child].). A basis for placing an economic value on parental consortium is that the education and training which a child may reasonably expect to receive from a parent are of actual and commercial value to the child. Accordingly, a child sustains a pecuniary injury for the loss of parental education and training when a defendant tortiously causes the death of the child's parent. Moreover, we recognize that: normal home life for a child consists of complex incidences in which the sums constitute a nurturing environment. When the vitally important parent-child relationship is impaired and the child loses the love, guidance and close companionship of a parent, the child is deprived of something that is indeed valuable and precious. No one could seriously contend otherwise. Still by Erlandson v. Baptist Hosp., 755 S.W.2d 807, 812 (Tenn.App.1988) (quoting Hoffman v. Dautel, 189 Kan. 165, 368 P.2d 57, 59 (Kan.1962)). The additional considerations employed for spousal consortium may be applicable to parental consortium claims. We agree with the observation of one court that companionship, comfort, society, guidance, solace, and protection . . . go into the vase of family happiness [and] are the things for which a wrongdoer must pay when he shatters the vase. Spangler v. Helm's New York-Pittsburgh Motor Exp., 396 Pa. 482, 153 A.2d 490 (Penn.1959). Adult children may be too attenuated from their parents in some cases to proffer sufficient evidence of consortium losses. Similarly, if the deceased did not have a close relationship with any of the statutory beneficiaries, the statutory beneficiaries will not likely sustain compensable consortium losses or their consortium losses will be nominal. The age of the child does not, in and of itself, preclude consideration of parental consortium damages. The adult child inquiry shall take into consideration factors such as closeness of the relationship and dependence (i.e., of a handicapped adult child, assistance with day care, etc.).