Court Opinion

ID: 9641099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:23:15.852471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:35.043486
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
GONZALEZ, Justice.
On motion for rehearing, Vaughn, among other things, requests that we clarify whether this court’s holding that a child may recover for loss of consortium when a third party causes serious, permanent and disabling injuries to her parent should be given retrospective or prospective application. There is also confusion as to whether there must be a threshold finding by the finder of fact as to the nature of the injury before the consortium damage issue would be submitted or whether the issue of serious, permanent and disabling injury is to be submitted by the court to a jury by an instruction. Reagan’s motion for rehearing is overruled and Vaughn’s motion for rehearing is overruled in part and granted in part.
After this court allowed recovery under the Wrongful Death Statute for loss of consortium for the death of a minor child or parent, respectively, in Sanchez v. Schindler, 651 S.W.2d 249 (Tex.1983) and Cavnar v. Quality Control Parking, Inc., 696 S.W.2d 549 (Tex.1985), the judgments were applied partially retrospectively by limiting recovery to future causes and those still in the judicial process. In Sanchez, this court concluded that considerations of fairness and policy preclude full retroactivity when the court’s decision establishes a new principle of law that either *468overrules clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied or decides an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed. In these wrongful death cases, then, this court reasoned that it was likely that litigants and trial courts had justifiably relied on previous interpretations of damages under the Wrongful Death Act.
Under similar policy considerations, however, this court in Whittlesey v. Miller, 572 S.W.2d 665 (Tex.1978), found that sound administration and fairness required only prospective application for a spouse to recover loss of consortium when the other spouse had been negligently injured by a third party. See also Minyard Food Stores v. Newman, 612 S.W.2d 198, 199 (Tex.1981). Prospective application was also applied in Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 414 (Tex.1984), based on the court’s reasoning that litigants and trial courts had faithfully relied upon prior interpretations of comparative causation for strict liability in tort, and it would be unfair to apply the decision retrospectively.
In the case at bar, we announced a new rule of law. The purpose of the new rule is to allow children the same protection allowed spouses when a third party causes serious, permanent, and disabling injuries to their parent. Like these other personal injury cases, past litigants and trial courts have relied upon previous interpretations of recovery for loss of parental consortium so that applying complete retrospective application would subject numerous defendants to claims in cases they previously believed had been finalized.
If we were to apply this holding retroactively to all minors whose claims have not been extinguished by expiration of the statute of limitations, we would open up a pandora’s box. Attorneys would be under an ethical duty to find, review and evaluate every personal injury case over the last twenty years in which there are minor children involved to determine if the facts of these old cases came within the purview of Reagan. The uncertainty and potential increase in cases would be administratively burdensome on all concerned including the courts. It would also place professional responsibility on lawyers to inform applicable past litigants of the potential cause of action.
Therefore, we declare, as a matter of sound administration and fairness, that this holding shall be applicable only in the present case; those actions arising on or after December 19, 1990; causes of action for loss of parental consortium pending in the courts on December 19, 1990; and causes of action derived from a parent’s claim so long as the parent’s claim had not been extinguished by settlement, final judgment on appeal, or expiration of the statute of limitations on December 19, 1990.
We also note that the cause of action for loss of parental consortium, like the cause of action for loss of spousal consortium is a derivative cause of action. As such, the defenses which bar all or part of the injured parent’s recovery have the same effect on the child’s recovery. Any percentage of negligence attributable against the parent under Texas’ comparative negligence statute will reduce the amount of the child’s recovery. See Whittlesey v. Miller, 572 S.W.2d 665 (Tex.1978). In this case, however, the defendants’ have waived their claim for this relief by failing to raise this point in their motion for rehearing.
Finally, when the facts are disputed, there must be a threshold finding by the finder of fact that the injury to the parent was a serious, permanent, and disabling injury before the finder of fact determines the consortium damage issue.
Concurring and dissenting opinion on motion for rehearing by HECHT, J., joined by CORNYN, J., and in part by PHILLIPS, CJ.
Concurring and dissenting opinion on motion for rehearing by DOGGETT, J., joined by MAUZY, J.