Court Opinion

ID: 9648151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:04:52.60386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:27.416544
License: Public Domain

EAGER, Judge
(dissenting).
Here a six-year-old minor sues the estate of her mother and the father-husband sues also; both claims are founded upon allegations of simple negligence in an automobile collision, i. e., in failing to exercise the highest degree of care. The mother died *75as a result of the collision which injured the child. The majority opinion relies heavily on Ennis v. Truhitte, Banc, Mo., 306 S.W.2d 549. I dissented there and I dissent here.
It has long been' the general rule that in the absence of an express statute an un-emancipated minor child might not maintain an action against his parent in tort, at least for ordinary negligence. 67 C.J.S. Parent and Child § 61, pp. 787-790; Annotation 19 A.L.R.2d 425; Baker v. Baker, 364 Mo. 453, 263 S.W.2d 29. This has been said to rest upon a “sound public policy * * * and the best interests of society * * Hewlett v. George, 68 Miss. 703, 9 So. 885, 887, 13 L.R.A. 682. The Ennis case involved a suit by a wife against her husband’s estate, but little, if any, distinction has been made in principle between the two classes of cases. Baker, supra; Willott v. Willott, 333 Mo. 896, 62 S.W.2d 1084, 89 A.L.R. 114; Wurth v. Wurth, Banc, Mo., 322 S.W,2d 745; Rogers v. Rogers, 265 Mo. 200, 177 S.W. 382. We have recently and very definitely reaffirmed the rule that one spouse may not maintain an action against the other for a negligent injury inflicted during the marriage. Brawner v. Brawner, Banc, Mo., 327 S.W. 2d 808. Thus, any direct or indirect criticisms of the general rule of immunity which seem to appear in Hamilton v. Fulkerson, Mo., 285 S.W.2d 642, and in the majority opinion here, should be stilled, at least, for the present. And Brawner would seem to have effectively disposed of the extended arguments to the effect that the Missouri Married Women’s Statutes affirmatively gave to the wife a right to sue her husband, and vice versa.
The opinions in Ennis, in Hamilton and in the present case have shown an inclination to restrict this immunity to its most elementary essentials. I think that these opinions are out of harmony with the broad rule announced in Brawner and in its predecessor cases. The immunity springs from a disability imposed by reason of public policy, the underlying reason for which is a desire to protect the family relationship and interests, social and economic. The reason for the rule may extend beyond the death of a wife, or a mother, or a father. In this case a father and at least one child survive; the father proceeds to sue the mother’s estate for himself and for a six-year-old child. We shall not elaborate here upon the possible effects of such litigation in a family (disregarding insurance for the moment), the bitterness engendered, the estates destroyed, the relationships disrupted. The evils may depend, in some measure, upon what members of the family remain. The reasons for the rule may often outlive a death.
The majority opinion recognizes the existence of the general rule of immunity in Missouri and elsewhere, but apparently considers the case of Ennis v. Truhitte, supra, as controlling; perhaps it is. Then, partly relying on Ennis, and partly proceeding on its own, the court seizes upon the survival statute, § 537.020, V.A.M.S., as preserving and continuing the tort cause of action against the estate of the wife or mother. We agree (and did in Ennis) that a wrong against a spouse or a child is a tort. We believe, however, that in such a tort as the present one an immediate disability is im.posed upon the right of action; that this attaches to the right and that it is permanent in nature. If the right of action survives, it survives only with the disability attached. The present majority opinion, and those in the Ennis case, the Hamilton case, and in Berry v. Harmon, Mo., 329 S. W.2d 784, whittle down the basic rule of immunity announced in Baker, Willott and Brawner. They pay lip service to the rule, but reject it upon distinctions which to me seem more fancied than real. There is no .doubt of our power to change a common law rule where necessity and justice demand (State v. Kollenborn, Banc, Mo., 304 S.W.2d 855), and assuming that we do not feel obligated to leave that function to the legislature. But if we are to change it, we should do so forthrightly and abandon the old rule in toto. It is particularly difficult *76to reconcile the Hamilton opinion with Brawner; to me there is in it a definite rejection of the basic rule itself, although without attempting to overrule the prior cases specifically. (And see the construction of Hamilton in the dissenting opinion in Brawner, 327 S.W.2d loe. cit. 819.)
No one seems to doubt that there are and should be exceptions to this rule of immunity in flagrant cases involving criminal •■acts, some forms of malice, and perhaps where certain other relationships are imposed upon the family relationship. These may be taken care of as they occur. We are not concerned with such cases here,— but only with a simple, unadorned case of motor vehicle negligence. At least three courts have openly held that the existence of liability insurance, along with the imposition of some additional relationship (such as master and servant or carrier and passenger) removes the reasons for the doctrine of immunity. Worrell v. Worrell, 174 Va. 11, 4 S.E.2d 343, 350; Lusk v. Lusk, 113 W.Va. 17, 166 S.E. 538; Dunlap v. Dunlap, 84 N.H. 352, 150 A. 905, 71 A.L.R. 1055. Missouri has consistently maintained that the existence of liability insurance is wholly immaterial. Baker v. Baker, 364 Mo. 453, 263 S.W.2d 29; Brawner v. Brawner, Banc, Mo., 327 S.W.2d 808; Dille v. St. Luke’s Hospital, 355 Mo. 436, 196 S.W. 2d 615. The present case is impregnated with liability insurance, as the majority opinion shows. The courts need not be ignorant of what the general public knows, and certainly the great majority (to put it conservatively) of these inter-family suits are inspired by the existence of insurance. In my opinion it is contrary to human experience to say, as indicated in Prosser on Torts (2nd Ed.), § 101 (quoted in majority opinion), and stated in Hamilton v. Fulkerson, Mo., 285 S.W.2d 642, 647, that “the danger of fraudulent and trivial claims is no more real (in these cases) than * * in litigation between other parties * * That may depend to some extent on what one considers to be fraud, but when both parties want the plaintiff to win and only the insurance company can lose, the situation is unwholesome and the interests of justice and decency are not served. We have been reaching for distinctions which are without sufficient substance while protesting that the existence of liability insurance is wholly immaterial; I, for one, fear that reasons of expediency engendered by the very prevalent existence of insurance, are playing a major part. Mr. Pros-ser himself states that the liberalizing of the doctrine of disability has been “encouraged by the presence of liability insurance in automobile cases * * * ” (Torts, 2nd Ed., § 101, p. 675). If our rule of disability is to be abandoned, or whittled down to a state of impotency, I think that the legislature should do it. We are now discriminating against wives and children whose husbands and parents happen to survive until the time of suit, in favor of those whose husbands and parents die at the times of common injuries or indeed at any time within the period of the statutes of limitations. The present situation is incongruous and illogical.
I realize that the views expressed here represent a distinct minority of this court. But I remain a “voice crying in the wilderness” against the gradual gnawing away at •a fundamental principle of sound public policy when the asserted reasons therefor are more artificial than real.
I would affirm the judgment in this case, overrule Ennis and Hamilton, and modify Berry.