Court Opinion

ID: 9677850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:02:02.097067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:59.065210
License: Public Domain

ALLISON B. HUMPHREYS, Special Justice,
dissenting.
I concur in Justice Harbison’s dissent, and add some observations of my own.
The forces that pull a judge in the direction of allowing a person a day in court for redress of an alleged wrong are very strong. These forces have found expression in statements such as, “do justice though the heavens fall,” “there is no wrong without a remedy,” and so on. But all of us know that there are some wrongs that cannot be remedied and that we should not bring down the heavens in order to give a litigant a day in court. We know that when to create a new remedy will weaken one of the foundations of our society we must refrain from doing it. Society must not be in any degree destroyed or even weakened in order that one litigant may be afforded a remedy.
We must remember that without society, without the social contract under which we all live being kept strong, there would be no judiciary. There would be no need for it. Society does not exist because of the judiciary. The judiciary exists because of society. So the first obligation of the judiciary is to do nothing that would weaken society even if this means denying, in the exceptional instance, a day in court to a party who has suffered an injury.
I am afraid the majority has ignored this basic truth in this case, for it cannot be denied that the family unit is one of the indispensable foundations of society and *760that our first obligation is to do nothing that may weaken it.
So, because it is inevitable that the newly created-right of spouses to resort to court in every instance of thoughtless failure of one spouse to exercise ordinary care, will weaken, if not destroy, the trust and tranquility and unity necessary to a family life, I elect not to take a hand in doing this. There are already enough forces at work in present day society tending to weaken the family unit, without this additional blow being struck at it.
Weaken the family unit, what is being done today will do it: for, if in the name of abstract justice, it is reasonable for one spouse to have the right to sue the other for simple negligence, how can this right be denied to the child? Of course, it cannot.
If all of the family members are free to sue each other, and they are if the majority reasoning is carried to its logical end, what becomes of the family unit then?
Under the common law of the state, the husband is already liable to furnish his wife and children with the reasonable necessities of life: such as clothing, shelter, food, medical attention, et cetera. How is this obligation affected by this new inchoate liability we are creating? How is this obligation affected by final judgment and right to execution against the father or husband?
How will this new potential liability affect the exercise of parental discipline?
With excellent law schools spawning ingenious new lawyers in ever-increasing numbers we can look forward to the day when there will be clinics specializing in this new branch of family law we are creating. We may even see the day when clinics will advertise that interspousal and interfa-mily lawsuits are a specialty of the house.
So, while it is invigorating to take part in opening new frontiers, the opening of this one is something I prefer not to have part in.
If it is indispensable that a cause of action be provided for interspousal and inter-family torts, the providing of this remedy should be left to the Legislature. The Legislature can deal with all of the ramifications that the application of logic to the general premise will necessarily lead to. The Legislature will not be bound to make these logical extensions of the general premise. It could exempt spouses from suits because of failure to exercise ordinary care in the home. There should not be a cause of action because one member of the family has left a book on a staircase or a wife has waxed the floor under a throw rug, or one using the shower or the bathtub has failed to remove the remnants of a bar of soap, and these things have led to an accident. It is simply unreasonable to cast this pall of liability over everything that is done by all the different family members in the home that can and sometimes do result in injury. But, under the logical extension of the rule adopted in this case, suits can be brought because of the doing of any of these things.
The Legislature could also define the circumstances under which a child could sue its parents. The Legislature could recognize that the right of the child to sue its parents would tend to destroy the right and power of the parent to exercise disciplinary control over the child, and make provision for this; something this Court cannot do unless it is truly going to act as a legislature.
In fact, the Legislature could consult the will of the people who elect them for the express purpose of making new law (the purpose for which judges are not elected) and act according to the people’s will in the matter, a will which may be, after all, that matters be left as they are.