Opinion ID: 1828257
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Immunity Defense

Text: The employer defendants also argue that even if Mrs. Landry can assert her cause of action for loss of consortium, because that cause of action did not arise until January of 2002, they are immune from tort liability by virtue of La. R.S. 23:1032. The employers argue they are immune because mesothelioma was recognized as a covered occupational disease in 1975, and the executive officers and directors argue they are immune because La. R.S. 23:1032 was amended in 1976 to extend tort immunity to them. [4] In Walls, this Court held that applying the 1976 amendment to La. R.S. 23:1032 to silicosis exposure that predated the statute, resulting in death after the effective date of the statute, did not result in an impermissible application of La. R.S. 23:1032. Therefore, we held that the plaintiffs could not assert a wrongful death action against the employers' executive officers because they were immune from suit. Crucial to our holding was a finding that a wrongful death cause of action does not accrue until death, because where a new substantive law essentially extinguishes a cause of action, the date that the cause of action accrues is a crucial determining point in considering the second condition of retroactivity of Plainiol's formula, i.e., whether the law modifies or suppresses the effects of a right already acquired. We clarified earlier in this opinion that a cause of action for loss of consortium does not accrue until the plaintiff suffers an actual loss of consortium, service or society. Indeed in Walls we stated that [a] negligence cause of action will arise only upon the happening of a wrongful act and the existence of an injury resulting in legally cognizable damages. 740 So.2d at 1269. Just as the wrongful death action arises at the death of the victim, and compensates the beneficiaries for their injuries that occur at the moment of the victim's death and thereafter, 740 So.2d at 1270, a loss of consortium action arises at the time an injured party's condition deteriorates to such an extent that his family is actually deprived of his consortium, service, or society and compensates the beneficiaries for their injuries at that moment and thereafter. Thus, since Mrs. Landry could not have been injured until Mr. Landry's condition deteriorated to that extent, which by all accounts was well after 1976, and her cause of action for loss of consortium did not arise prior to that date, it necessarily follows that she could not have acquired a right in their cause of action for loss of consortium prior to 1976. Plaintiffs argue that our holding in Walls was based on a specific finding that a wrongful death action was not a derivative action. 740 So.2d at 1274. Plaintiffs argue that derivative claims, such as loss of consortium claims, are by their very nature governed by the status of the primary victim's claim. They argue that Mr. Landry's claims are not governed by the Workers' Compensation Act under the exposure theory of Austin v. Abney Mills , and that therefore, the derivative loss of consortium claim is not either. They cite Walls for the proposition that only when the primary victim's claim falls within the exclusive remedy of the worker's compensation statute are the derivative claims also barred or governed by the workers' compensation act. In Walls, we addressed an identical argument made by the plaintiffs in that case by finding that a wrongful death action was not a derivative action. [5] In so doing, we stated that this Court had characterized the consortium claim as derivative of a primary victim's injury in Ferrell v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 96-3028, p. 2 (La.7/1/97), 696 So.2d 569, 574. 740 So.2d at 1274. In Ferrell, we were interpreting the single person policy limits of an insurance policy and held that, because the loss of consortium claim was derivative of the primary victim's injury, it was restricted to the single person policy limits of the defendant's policy. As one commentator has aptly explained, this limitation to the single person policy limits occurs because of the construction the courts have given the relevant liability insurance policy provisions, not because the derivative nature of the loss of consortium claim makes it merely a part of a single claim or cause of action (i.e., the primary victim's). Crawford, Developments in the Law 1993-1994, supra at 658. As further explained: The claim for loss of consortium is almost indistinguishable from the claim for wrongful death in that both causes of action are dependent on a primary tort to another person. Nonetheless, both claims are, beyond question, causes of action separate from any claim of the primary victim. The loss of consortium and wrongful death claims are thus derivative only in the sense that the damages suffered by these claimants flow from their relationship with the primary tort victim. Neither claim, however, is the assertion of the primary victim's cause of action itself, as in the case with a survival action. Id. We agree with Professor Crawford's conclusion that loss of consortium claims are derivative only in the sense that the damages suffered by these claimants flow from their relationship with the primary tort victim. However, this does not mean that the loss of consortium claim is governed by the status of the primary victim's claim. A loss of consortium claim, like a wrongful death claim, clearly compensates the beneficiaries for their own injuries, separate and distinct from the victim's injuries. Both are unlike a survival action, which we stated in Taylor v. Giddens, comes into existence simultaneously with the existence of the tort and is transmitted to beneficiaries upon the victim's death and permits recovery only for the damages suffered by the victim from the time of injury to the moment of death. It is in the nature of a succession right. 618 So.2d 834 (La.1993). Therefore, in spite of the fact that a loss of consortium claim is characterized as a derivative claim in the sense discussed above, that does not prevent the application of the holding in Walls in this case. Accordingly, we hold that because the loss of consortium claim arose after the 1976 amendment to La. R.S. 23:1032 granting tort immunity to executive officers and directors and after the 1975 amendment to La. R.S. 23:1032 to include all occupational diseases, both Avondale and McDermott, as well as the executive officer defendants, are immune from the loss of consortium claim in this case.