Court Opinion

ID: 9559828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:36:12.976561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:46.562053
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice.
I dissent.
The main- .opinion .interprets sections-30-2-2 and 30-2-4, U.C.A.19S3, in arriving at its result, construing them to include a. right in a wife to sue her husband in tort. These are but 2 of 10 sections under the general heading “Husband and Wife” and', the subtitle “Property .Rights.” All 10‘ deal with certain specific rights and obligations which a wife did not. have at common law, but they certainly do not cover the-.whole field. They give her the right or obligation 1) to own property separately, 2) to contract, 3) to deal in property with her husband, 4) to keep wages she earns and' damages she collects, S) to be exonerated" from her husband’s obligations, 6) to sue her husband for her own property, 7) to-be sued for civil injuries committed by her, 8) to act as agent for her husband, 9) to be charged for family expenses and. 10) to be secure in the homestead.
Nowhere in the sections mentipned can be found any reference to tort liability of one spouse against the .other, although specifically and- clearly the property rights and, *411liabilities among spouses are spelled out. Section 30-2-2, from which the main opinion has wrung not only tort liability but complete emancipation for wives, reads as follows: “Contracts may be made by a wife, and liabilities incurred and enforced by or against her, to the same extent and in the same manner as if she were unmarried.” (Italics supplied.) Nowhere is there any mention made of torts or anything else save contracts. If the section were intended to include torts and all other rights and liabilities as the main opinion holds, all of the other 9 sections which obviously deal with specific and particular rights, which wives did not have at common law, are composed of meaningless and -wasted words.
In my opinion; the decision in this case inverts every well-established rule of statutory construction we have, including the universally accepted doctrines of ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis which call for kinship of meaning among words, where, ■as here, general language follows the particular.1 Every such rule compels the conclusion that the word “liabilities” found in ■section 30-2-2 is related directly to the preceding word “contracts” and means liabilities founded on contract. The legislative history of 30-2-2 bears out such ■contention. The section dates back to Sec. 1199, Revised Statutes of 1898, whose language was slightly different, but the same so far as use of the-word “contracts” followed by “liabilities” is concerned. The heading of that section is “Wife’s Contracts” indicating that the Legislature had in mind contracts and contractual liabilities only. A compilation which follows, being Compiled Laws of Utah 1907, reads exactly the same, as does the Compiled Laws of Utah 1917. In Revised Statutes of Utah 1933 the heading of the pertinent section was changed to “Wife’s right to contract, sue and be sued”, and such heading persisted through the Utah Code Annotated 1943 and 1953. Nowhere can be found the slightest reference to any kind of tort liability. The change in title and wording appears not to have evidenced any change in legislative intent, since the. 1933 Code Commission in its report indicated .specifically whether any changes had been made in any of the titles, and no such indication of change in context or intent was made in the report as to 30-2-2. Apparently even counsel for plaintiff concedes' 'that 30-2-2 pertains only to conttactuál rights and liabilities, since nowhere in his' brief has he ‘ contended that this section specifically had' anything to do with tort liability,' b'Ut waS' only one section of many that indicated “the mind of the legislature was 'to completely emancipate women.” The writer believes the converse to be true, that the particularization of the legislature' showed' an intention to give a woman only those rights particularized, which she did not have at common law, and not those which were .not specified. The basis of the ma-. *412jority opinion appears to be something sua sponte.2
Even though we must construe statutes liberally and not strictly if they are in derogation of the common law,3 it does not follow that we are licensed to legislate by attaching unwarranted or unnatural significance to words in a statute, or to emphasize general language and say it connotes something other than that which clearly is meant by preceding particular language which it modifies. Furthermore, we should hesitate to depart from the fundamental principle that requires specificity and clarity of language in a statute before long-established rights, duties and privileges are attacked or destroyed, — there being neither specificity nor clarity of language in our statutes which would give to a wife an action in tort against her husband.
The main opinion quotes from the Illinois case of Brandt v. Keller, upon which it leans so heavily for support, in giving a wife an action in tort against her husband. The Illinois statute is completely different from ours and goes all out by saying a wife in all cases may sue and be sued to the same extent as if unmarried. It hardly can be any authority in helping us to construe our quite different statute.
It seems obvious to the writer, that instead of creating tort rights in the wife, section 30-2-4 is designed only to give to the wife and take from the husband the common law right to wages and to damages for torts committed by third persons upon her. Nothing is mentioned about any right against the husband. Certainly the section does not clearly and specifically give her any such right, but negatives any such idea by allowing her to recover only against third persons. If the legislature had intended to give her a right against her husband, it simply could have said she could “recover against all persons” instead of against only “a third person.” Proper application of the rules ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis requires that the words “may prosecute and defend all actions for the preservation and protection of her rights and property as if unmarried” be read in connection with and in modification of the previous words “wages for her personal labor,” so that the meaning of the section, properly paraphrased would be reflected in the following language: “may prosecute and defend all actions for the preservation and protection of her rights and property [hereby given, but denied her at common law] in said wages, as if unmarried.”
It becomes further obvious that the majority opinion is in error so far as section 30-2-4 is concerned, when the history of the section upon which it relies is traced. The provisions of section 30-2-4, U.C.A.. 1953, first appeared in Utah as Sec. 1201, Revised Statutes of Utah 1898, which latter section was taken from McClain’s Annotat*413ed Code of Iowa, Revised Statutes 1888, § 3402, which used identical language: “may prosecute and defend all actions for the preservation and protection of her rights and property as if unmarried.” The language in the McClain Code was in turn taken from Sec. 2211 of the Iowa Code of 1873. Between 1873 and 1888, McClain Code, the case of Peters v. Peters, 1875, 42 Iowa 182, was decided, in which the Iowa Supreme Court clearly held that such language did not give a wife a right of action against her husband for assault and battery. Hence, when Utah took its statute from Iowa, in accordance with well-established principles of construction, it took it as it was construed by the highest court of the state from whence it came,4 which held that in a case identical to the instant case, the wife had no right of action to sue her husband for an assault and battery. The construction placed on the statute by the Iowa Supreme Court, obviously is not so unreasonable as to permit us to ignore it, as conceivably we might do.5
Looking at the authorities generally, practically all of them preclude recovery by a wife for tortious acts committed by her husband, absent a statute which specifically and clearly gives her such right. It is conceded that a respectable minority, supported generally by textwriters, opposes such a view. Both are represented by cases advancing various and different reasons for their conclusions. Some, supporting the majority, say that in absence of statute, the common law principle that wife and husband are one persists; that one spouse cannot sue the other; that such suits would be against public policy; that marriage implies consent not present in other relationships ;, that for a wife to sue her husband is useless since such right and the proceeds thereof are the husband’s at common law; that to sanction suits by a wife against her husband, a statute must specifically and clearly permit them, etc. Cases sympathetic to the minority almost crusadingly talk about Married Women’s Acts emancipating women expressly or by necessary implication; that the fiction that wife and husband are one is so archaic as to merit no consideration; that it is not against public policy for one spouse to sue the other; that a wife always had a right but no remedy at common law because of the fiction, which, once removed, gives her a right to assert her cause; that if the purpose of marriage has disappeared, there is no reason to deny the wife redress; that there is no reason why she should be able to recover for a broken promise but not for a broken arm; that any injury to her is a cause of action which in turn is a constitutionally protected property right, etc. This wide divergence is accentuated by the fact that more than usual the cases are punctuated by split decisions, and more than usual *414strong and almost angry language is used; Without referring to the many cases, few of which are helpful here, it is suggested that the subj ect almost can be exhausted by reading Courtney v. Courtney, 184 Okl. 395, 87 P.2d 660, the authorities therein cited and searching backward and forward therefrom.
Everyone sympathizes with the beaten wife and abhors the wife-beater, who almost invariably assumes not only the role mentioned, but that of a coward. If what plaintiff alleges be true, a bread and water diet at an appropriate place for an extended period of time would be all too good for him. Concededly there seems to be little or no logical reason why a wife should be able to recover against her husband for a. broken promise but not for a broken arm. However, it is for the legislature, not us, to give such a right. Such right has not been given by the Utah legislature, and this court should not legislate by writing into our statute words designed to eliminate common law disabilities relating to cover-ture which simply are not there. Plaintiffs cause must be statutory, if one she has, since this State has adopted the common law of England where not constitutionally or statutorily repugnant6 and no end of rhetoric or. argument about .public policy, archaic principles, protected property rights, obsolete fictions, historical sex equality, destruction of the purpose of marriage, and the like, can change the basic questions: Have our statutes specifically and clearly given a wife the right to sue. her husband for an assault and battery, a right she did not have at common law? To answer this question, we must look at this case through the eyes of a fish, and hear it with an ear deafened to emotion, quite apart from what we might like the result to be, or its popularity, and in doing so, I believe we should and must conclude that our statutes have given a wife no clear, specific right to sue her husband in • tort, and that we must resort therefore, to the common law,.which denied her such right.
So far as authorities from sister states are concerned, few are helpful because of the wide divergence in fact, reason and result. I believe that those which are more nearly analogous to our instant case, are superior- numerically and • in . reasoning.7. *415California for many years and in several cases reached the result contended for by the writer. In a supplemental' memo of authorities, counsel for plaintiff presented the case of Carver v. Ferguson, Cal.App., 254 P.2d 44 (Jan. 27, 1953), which appeared to reverse California’s line of decisions and permitted a wife to sue her husband in tort. Investigation indicates that the California Supreme Court granted a review of this case on March 26, 1953, and that, at the instance of the parties the case was dismissed on June 4, 1953, and thereafter remitted, which, I am informed, has the effect of rendering the decision of the District Court of Appeals impotent so far as being a precedent is concerned.
It would appear that whether the tort is committed before the interlocutory period begins to run or after it begins but before final decree, is immaterial as to whether the wife may or may not sue.8
In conclusion, the writer believes and there is ample material in the cases to substantiate such conclusion, that any movement in the direction of the minority view, that a wife should be able to sue her husband in tort, is the result of a desire on the part of courts to allow a wife to recover from insurers in automobile accident cases where her husband is the owner and driver of the insured vehicle and where recovery on her part is dependent on her being able to sue her husband in tort to establish liability. In accomplishing such a result, it seems to me that courts simply are inviting fraud and collusion, besides invading the legislative domain. They are inviting fraud not only in the auto accident cases, but in other types such as divorce cases, where, after this decision becomes the law of Utah, there will be considerable temptation for some litigants to join in a divorce action, a healthy count for damages arising out of some real or imaginary physical encounter occurring prior thereto.
McDONOUGH, C. J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of HENRIOD, J.

. Sutherland, Statutory Construction, Vol. II, P, 814; Crawford, Statutory Construction, p. 527, Sec. 265.

. Thompson v. Industrial Comm., 99 Utah 234, 104 P.2d 629.

. Section 68-3-2, U.O.A.1953.

. 2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, Sec. 5209.

. Holloway v. Wetzel, 86 Utah 387, 45 P. 2d 565, 98 A.L.R. 1006; In re Reynolds Estate, 90 Utah 415, 62 P.2d 270.

. Section 68-3-1, U.C.A.1953.

. Conley v. Conley, 92 Mont; 425, 15 P.2d 922; McKinney v. McKinney, 59 Wyo. 204, 135 P.2d 940; Watson v. Watson, 39 Cal.2d 305, 246 P.2d 19; Paulus v. Bauder, 106 Cal.App.2d 589, 235 P.2d 422; Cubbison v. Cubbison, 73 Cal.App.2d 437, 166 P.2d 387; Peters v. Peters, 156 Cal. 32, 103 P. 219, 23 L.R.A.,N.S., 699; Willott v. Willott, 333 Mo. 896, 62 S.W. 2d 1084, 89 A.L.R. 114; Peters v. Peters, 42 Iowa 182; Bandfield v. Bandfield, 117 Mich. 80, 75 N.W. 287, 40 L.R.A. 757; Keister’s Adm’r v. Keister’s Ex’rs, 123 Va. 157, 96 S.E. 315, 1 A.L.R. 439. See also arguments in cases cited in the recent case of Ball v. Ball, Wyo.1954, 269 P.2d 302, having to do with the rule that an unemancipated child cannot sue its parent' in tort, which arguments seem .somewhat apropos, at least in some respects, where a wife seeks to sue her husband, in tort. Contra: Lorang v. Hays, 09 Idaho 440, 209 P.2d 733; Rains Rains, 97 Colo. 19, 46 P.2d 740.

. Watson v. Watson Paulus v. Bauder, See note 5, supra.