Court Opinion

ID: 9560257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:46:03.99062+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:32.279308
License: Public Domain

McInturff, C.J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part)—I concur with the majority's conclusion that dismissal on summary judgment was proper as to Mr. Strickland's and Robert Weaver's causes of action because the causes of action did not survive their deaths.
On the second issue, whether the Weavers had standing to bring a claim of outrage, I must dissent. The majority determined that the class of "immediate family members" entitled to recover under a theory of outrage consists of those who are permitted to bring wrongful death actions. Majority, at 268. The majority noted the wrongful death statute, RCW 4.20.020, was amended in 1985 to include "stepchildren" as beneficiaries. See footnote 3. Where the majority and I disagreé is on the determination that the Weavers were not "stepchildren" for purposes of bringing an action for outrage.
The Weavers were the sons of Joan Weaver, whose marriage to Mr. Strickland was invalidated when it was discovered she was still married to another man. Mr. Strickland did not adopt James or Robert Weaver, but he raised the Weaver boys for over 10 years during their formative years, *271wherein a father-son relationship developed.
There is precedent under the Washington wrongful death statute which supports my conclusion that the Weavers were stepchildren in spite of the fact that the marriage between Mr. Strickland and their mother was declared invalid. In Armijo v. Wesselius, 73 Wn.2d 716, 719, 440 P.2d 471 (1968), the court interpreted the word "child" in the wrongful death statute to include an illegitimate child, recognizing that statutes designed to benefit children should be liberally construed to benefit children regardless of the child's legitimacy or illegitimacy.
The purpose of adopting the standing limitations from the wrongful death statute is to come to a reasonable interpretation of "immediate family members" entitled to recover under the tort of outrage. It is unfair to exclude the Weavers, whose development of a close relationship with Mr. Strickland in no way could be impeded by the technical invalidity of Mr. Strickland's marriage to their mother. The dissent in Klossner v. San Juan Cy., 93 Wn.2d 42, 605 P.2d 330 (1980) was written before the 1985 amendments to the wrongful death and survival statutes. Klossner, at 50, explained: "the modern tendency has been, and rightly so, to assimilate the stepchild to the natural child." The dissent in Klossner also stated at page 50:
Just as they do not ask for the status of illegitimacy, neither do they become stepchildren through their own devices. . . .
The trend in the law is toward according stepchildren rights equal to those of natural children.
Because here the Weavers' relationship with Mr. Strickland has more to do with their status as stepchildren in fact, if not technically in law, I would hold the Weavers have standing as "immediate family members" to maintain a cause of action based on the tort of outrage.
Review denied by Supreme Court July 1, 1987.