Court Opinion

ID: 9737137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:17:02.845583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.794522
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. I would adopt the rule recently adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Goller v. White, 20 Wis.2d 402, 122 N.W.2d 193: “After a careful review of the arguments for and against the parental-immunity rule in negligence cases, we are of the opinion that it ought to be abrogated except in these two situations: (1) where the alleged negligent act involves an exercise of parental authority over the child; and (2) where the alleged negligent act involves an exercise of ordinary parental discretion with respect to the provision of food, clothing, housing, medical and dental services, and other care. Accordingly the rule is abolished in personal injury actions subject to these noted exceptions.” Balts v. Balts, 273 Minn. 419, 142 N.W.2d 66 and Hebei v. Hebei (Alaska) 435 P.2d 8 also examine all of policy considerations involved in this decision and reach a far more persuasive result than that reached by the majority here.
II. We need not overrule any prior Iowa law to reach this thoroughly acceptable rule which seems consistent with the facts of modern life. . In Cody v. J. A. Dodds & Sons, 252 Iowa 1394, 110 N.W.2d 255, we took a long step in this direction. We now practically repudiate Cody v. Dodds by citing Aboussie v. Aboussie (Tex.Civ.App.) 270 S.W.2d 636 with approval. The two cases are flatly contradictory.
III. The injured child, aged six, was injured while at his father’s place of business. This is one of the exceptions to the general rule most often recognized by the courts. These cases are considered and rejected at Divisions IV and V of the majority opinion. It would serve no useful purpose to extend this opinion by detailed analysis of each of those cases. But the conclusion stated by the Ohio court, Signs v. Signs, 156 Ohio St. 566, *114103 N.E.2d 743 seems so reasonable that it is hard to see why it is rejected out of hand. “ * * .* an unemancipated child should have as clear a right to maintain an action in tort against his parent in the latter’s business or vocational capacity as such child would have to maintain an action in relation to his property rights.” (emphasis added)
That is the result reached in Cody v. Dodds, supra. We should not turn this case on the fact that this is a sole proprietorship while Cody v. Dodds involved a partnership. The distinction is too artificial.
IV. We are really considering, more than one public policy. Our Iowa Constitution, Article I, section 6 notes the first policy to be considered. “All laws of a general nature shall have uniform operation
It is not suggested recognition of the doctrine of parental-immunity would be unconstitutional. What is suggested is the existence of a public policy which has the force of constitutional recognition.
In Frost v. Des Moines Still College, 248 Iowa 294, 79 N.W.2d 306, we put the matter in stronger language: “Justice Rutledge, in President and Directors of Georgetown College v. Hughes, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 123, 130 F.2d 810, 827, pointed out that ‘the law’s emphasis ordinarily is on liability, not immunity, for wrongdoing’, and we may also observe that public policy abhors the classification and inference brought about by so-called ‘protected negligence.’ We strive to eliminate it — not foster and encourage it.”
We should strive to make justice even handed. This goal would be legitimate even without constitutional sanction. When we deny a litigant access to our courts because of his status, or his relationship to his adversary, or because of the adversary’s special status, to some degree we violate the spirit, if not the letter, of that ideal.
Whenever we set a class of people apart, tell them they are unlike other people and deny to them the process of the law we violate a strongly felt need for equal treatment. We immediately search for exceptions, create legal fictions and try in one way or another to do justice. We try to achieve a just result which would otherwise be summarily denied. As often as not, in the end, we abolish the special rule. Such will probably be the fate of the strong pronouncement made by the majority today.
This prediction seems reasonable in view of the demise of the doctrine of charitable immunity. Compare Mikota v. Sisters of Mercy, 1918, 183 Iowa 1378, 168 N.W. 219 with Andrews v. Y. M. C. A., 1939, 226 Iowa 374, 284 N.W. 186 and Haynes v. Presbyterian Hospital Ass’n, 1941, 241 Iowa 1269, 45 N.W.2d 151. The doctrine of governmental immunity received rough handling before it was finally laid to rest by the 61st General Assembly of the State of Iowa, Senate File 710, approved July 20, 1967. The many exceptions to the Iowa Guest Statute would indicate an effort to do justice despite “protected negligence.”
I respectfully submit the history of the development of the law favors the result reached by the Minnesota and Wisconsin courts and suggest that we should not reject such development. We can recognize the realities of modern life in this first clear consideration of the subject. Stare decisis presents no problem now. In this day in this factual situation the need to deny this child the use of the courts is not demonstrated.
MASON, J., joins in this dissent.