Opinion ID: 1758792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Filial Consortium Claims and Wrongful Death

Text: As another justification for denying filial consortium claims, the Court maintains that when the child survives, there is no need to recognize a parent's action to prevent the tortfeasor from escaping liability. 111 S.W.3d at 120. Thus, concludes the Court, it is not anomalous to recognize a parent's intangible damages in death but not personal injury actions. Id. But see Miles, 967 S.W.2d at 383 (it would be anomalous to recognize a cause of action for loss of consortium for a severe injury to a loved one when there is no recovery for the death of that same family member). Applying this rationale consistently, however, would preclude consortium damages in all personal injury cases. But, as previously discussed, this Court has already recognized that both spouses and children may recover consortium damages in personal injury actions. Thus, I do not understand how denying the parents' filial consortium claims here, while permitting recovery in other personal injury cases, does not create an aberration in Texas law. [3] By focusing on the differences between wrongful death and personal injury cases, the Court attempts to make more palatable the fact that some plaintiffs may recover consortium damages while others in a similar position may not. While this conclusion itself is problematic, the Court misapprehends the true nature of the inconsistency created by its opinion: two of the three plaintiff groups identified in the wrongful death statute can recover consortium damages in personal injury actions but the third is walled off. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 71.004(b) (identifying persons who may recover under wrongful death statutes). The Court's decision today also relegates parents to second-class status and reneges on the Court's earlier promise to protect the familial relationship as a whole. See, e.g., Reagan, 804 S.W.2d at 466; Sanchez, 651 S.W.2d at 252.