Opinion ID: 1687940
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: peace and harmony

Text: We also agree with petitioner that domestic tranquility is no longer realistically served by the existence of the doctrine. As we initially noted, in this state spouses are free to sue each other for breach of contractual obligations and to protect separate property rights, but may not bring interspousal actions for tortious injury. Bencomo v. Bencomo ; Dodson v. National Title Insurance Co .; sections 708.08 and 708.09, Florida Statutes, (1977). The inconsistency in this approach was identified in a dissent to an opinion of the United States Supreme Court construing a District of Columbia women's property act to permit interspousal actions in tort only for the recovery of property. Justice Harlan dissented, noting that such a construction would allow: [A] married woman to sue her husband separately, in tort, for the recovery of her property, but deny . .. her the right or privilege to sue him separately, in tort, for damages arising from his brutal assaults upon her person. Thompson v. Thompson, 218 U.S. 611, 623, 31 S.Ct. 111, 114, 54 L.Ed. 1180 (1910). It is not logical to permit one and not the other. If marital tranquility is preserved when lawsuits are permitted between spouses over property and contract rights, we see no reason to conclude that tort actions between spouses should destroy it. We find support for this view in Dean Prosser's criticism of the doctrine. He writes: The chief reason relied upon by all these courts, however, is that personal tort actions between husband and wife would disrupt and destroy the peace and harmony of the home, which is against the policy of the law. This is on the bald theory that after a husband has beaten his wife, there is a state of peace and harmony left to be disturbed; and that if she is sufficiently injured or angry to sue him for it, she will be soothed and deterred from reprisals by denying her the legal remedy  and this even though she has left him or divorced him for that very ground, and although the same courts refuse to find any disruption of domestic tranquility if she sues him for a tort to her property, or brings a criminal prosecution against him. If this reasoning appeals to the reader, let him by all means adopt it. Prosser, Law of Torts, section 122, page 863 (4th Ed. 1971). We agree, and conclude that the doctrine of interspousal tort immunity cannot be validly justified on grounds that it serves to maintain marital peace and harmony.