Court Opinion

ID: 9629663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:46:55.693656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:22.417624
License: Public Domain

Justice LONG,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I am in full agreement with that portion of the majority’s decision that removes reckless parental conduct from the umbrella of protection afforded by the doctrine of parental immunity. By further narrowing the substance of parental immunity, the Court continues on the course that we charted in France v. A.P.A. Transport Corp., 56 N.J. 500, 267 A.2d 490 (1970) (permitting suit by child against parent in auto negligence setting) and Foldi v. Jeffries, 93 N.J. 533, 461 A.2d 1145 (1983) (excluding willful or wanton conduct by parents from operation of parental immunity doctrine).
I part company from my colleagues, however, insofar as they have chosen to extend the doctrine to bar the claim of an innocent third-party victim injured by the acts of a child and his parents. Up until now, only dictum in Foldi could be looked to as support for the application of the doctrine of parental immunity in a third-party context. In Foldi, the third-party case was settled long before the matter reached the Supreme Court. Thus, the few lines devoted to it in the opinion were wholly gratuitous dictum. *147There is not even a hint in Foldi that the Court ever considered the application of the doctrine of parental immunity to apply in a third-party victim case.
Yet, here the Court has simply adopted the Foldi dictum as gospel without explaining why it should be given force and effect, and, more important, without justifying the application of what Foldi actually said about third-party tortfeasors to bar the claims of third-party victims. In the face of that expansion, the majority’s holding is neither “narrow” nor “circumscribed.” By its opinion, the Court expands the doctrine to bar the claim of an innocent third-party victim, a position that no other court in New Jersey has ever taken.
I question that conclusion from several perspectives. First, the doctrine of parental immunity has come under nearly universal criticism by legal scholars, who challenge its vitality in twenty-first century America, both in connection with the rationale underlying it and its harsh effects. Joseph J. Basgier, III, Children’s Rights: A Renewed Call for The End of Parental Immunity in Alabama and Arguments for The Further Expansion of A Child’s Right To Sue, 26 L. & Psychol. Rev. 123, 123 (2002) (declaring parental immunity a doctrine “whose time has passed”); Harlin Ray Dean, Jr., It’s Time to Abolish North Carolina’s Parent-Child Immunity, But Who’s Going To Do It? — Coffey v. Coffey and North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-539.21, 68 N.C. L.Rev. 1317, 1317 (1990) (recognizing that immunity is not “good for all time”); Martin J. Rooney & Colleen M. Rooney, Parental Tort Immunity: Spare the Liability, Spoil the Parent, 25 New Eng. L.Rev. 1161, 1184 (1991) (recommending “a middle of the road approach which recognizes that a parent has a duty in tort to the child, and which allows suit where the plaintiff has shown by clear and convincing evidence that the act complained of does not fall within the, retained immunity for parental acts involving instruction and discipline or the provision of necessities----”); Melissa B. Gosart-Convertito, Casenote, Ascuitto v. Farricielli: Connecticut’s Failure To Reform Familial Tort Liability, 19 Quinnipiac L.Rev. 581, *148620 (2000) (states should completely abolish doctrine of parental immunity); Sandra L. Haley, Comment, The Parental Tort Immunity Doctrine: Is It A Defensible Defense ?, 30 U. Rich. L.Rev. 575, 603 (1996) (flimsy rationales for doctrine and unjust results of its application have rendered it “anachronism”); Sean S. Modjarrad, Comment, Hartman v. Hartman: Is “Parental Immunity” Recognized?, 22 Am. J. Trial Advoc. 463, 463-64 (1998) (noting that movement to abrogate parental immunity is so extensive that viability of doctrine is questionable).
Moreover, “[tjoday a majority of jurisdictions have either completely abrogated parental immunity or have restricted its application.” Jonathan Cardi, Apportioning Responsibility To Immune Nonparties: An Argument Based on Comparative Responsibility and the Proposed Restatement (Third) of Torts, 82 Iowa L.Rev. 1293, 1314 (1997); see, e.g., Hebel v. Hebel, 435 P.2d 8 (Alaska 1967); Gibson v. Gibson, 3 Cal.3d 914, 922, 92 Cal.Rptr. 288, 479 P.2d 648 (1971) (referring to doctrine as “deadwood”); Diehl v. Diehl, 421 N.W.2d 884 (Iowa 1988); Anderson v. Stream, 295 N.W.2d 595 (Minn.1980); Hartman by Hartman v. Hartman, 821 S.W.2d 852 (Mo.1991) (abrogating parental immunity); Guess v. Gulf Ins. Co., 96 N.M. 27, 627 P.2d 869 (1981); Falco v. Pados, 444 Pa. 372, 376, 282 A.2d 351 (1971) (doctrine serves “no rational purpose”); Elam v. Elam, 275 S.C. 132, 136, 268 S.E.2d 109 (1980) (abolishing parent-child immunity, calling the family harmony rationale “specious”). In the face of that movement, for this Court to extend parental immunity to bar third-party victims from redress places us in stark opposition to the direction of our nation’s jurisprudence.
It is further well-established that “[wjhen ... a rule is the product of a conceptualism long ago discarded, is universally criticized by scholars, and has been qualified or abandoned in many jurisdictions, it should receive the most careful scrutiny.” Hawkins v. United States, 358 U.S. 74, 81, 79 S.Ct. 136, 3 L.Ed.2d 125 (1958) (Stewart, J., concurring). In applying and expanding Foldi’s dictum, without seriously questioning it, the majority has *149not only violated that precept but has failed to account for the rule of strict construction that universally applies where immunity is concerned. See Eden v. Conrail, 87 N.J. 467, 471, 435 A.2d 556 (1981) (noting that “this railroad immunity statute, like all immunity enactments, must be strictly construed”); Potter v. Charles V. Finch & Sons, 76 N.J. 499, 502, 388 A.2d 614 (1978) (“[I]mmunity from tort liability is not favored in the law since it bars the injured person from the recovery of compensatory damages against the party who is otherwise responsible for the injury. For that reason, [immunity] statutes ... must be strictly construed and not extended beyond their plain meaning.”) (citations omitted). By widening the margins of the doctrine to include innocent- third parties, the majority has violated the goal that strict construction was meant to achieve — the cabining-off of immunity.
I note as well that after the initial justifications for parental immunity (family harmony, deterrence of fraud and collusion, and protection of the family’s coffers) were debunked, Foldi supra, 93 N.J. at 545, 461 A.2d 1145 (citing Immer v. Risko, 56 N.J. 482, 267 A.2d 481 (1970) and Merenoff v. Merenoff, 76 N.J. 535, 388 A.2d 951 (1978)), courts began to explain the doctrine in terms of parental autonomy. France, supra, 56 N.J. at 505, 267 A.2d 490; Foldi supra, 93 N.J. at 547, 461 A.2d 1145. As the majority recognizes, that theory has its limits. Honoring a parent’s authority over the physical, moral, emotional, and intellectual growth of children is based on the judgment that a parent’s “philosophy” of child rearing requires deference. That is quite different from giving a parent a free pass regarding issues that do not implicate the subjective exercise of that philosophy. See, e.g., Mancinelli v. Crosby, 247 N.J.Super. 456, 463, 589 A.2d 664 (App.Div.1991) (allowing child to cross street in unsafe manner is not insulated by parental immunity). I view this case as falling squarely within the Mancinelli rationale.
But even if it is characterized as a legitimate autonomy case, suit should not be barred. The exercise of parental autonomy should, at most, insulate parents from suit by their own children *150but should not allow them to escape liability when an improper choice is made and a third-party suffers harm. Whatever the balance of interests may be in a case between parent and child, it is clear that when parental autonomy is balanced against the right of an innocent third-party victim to redress, that autonomy must yield.
Finally, it seems to me that the majority’s invocation of the old saw about the “floodgates of intrusive litigation” should be taken with a grain of salt. Our courts exist so that innocent victims may be made whole for the injuries they have sustained at the hands of others. By rejecting the expansion of parental immunity that the majority here approves, that salutary goal would be advanced. The fear of increased filings pales in comparison.
Justices ZAZZALI and ALBIN join in this opinion.