Court Opinion

ID: 9601837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:50:04.120852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:12.877415
License: Public Domain

Roe, J.
(concurring specially) — Thirteen years ago Stevens v. Murphy, 69 Wn.2d 939, 421 P.2d 668 (1966), a case squarely in point factually, held that parental immunity as to this type of action had not been abrogated in Washington. That holding has not been modified by the legislature nor the Supreme Court in the intervening time. The majority does not seek to reverse or distinguish that *617case, which would compel affirmance, except to point out that in the case at bench, the mother (alleged tort-feasor) died in the same accident. Since the parental defense was personal to the divorced parent mother, under the rationale of Johnson v. Ottomeier, 45 Wn.2d 419, 275 P.2d 723 (1954), that personal defense expired with the mother and does not survive to her personal representative. I can agree with that very narrow result, even though there are considerations in intrafamily immunity not present in spousal immunity. Thus, there may be a very limited action for wrongful death and injuries by the children against their deceased parent.
I do not find Hoffman v. Tracy, 67 Wn.2d 31, 406 P.2d 323 (1965), which refers to abdication of parental responsibility, relevant.
I am troubled by the fact that the father of the children is a convicted felon who has not cared for or supported them, that he would be the sole beneficiary of the deceased child's estate, that he may seek to bring an action against the deceased mother's estate for the wrongful death of his minor child, even though he did not have custody, and exhaust the estate the surviving children might inherit from their mother. That precise issue is not before us at this time.
The extent of my concurrence is that the preclusive parental immunity of Stevens v. Murphy, supra, upon which the trial court based its conclusion, is personal to the parent and does not inhere in the tort; since she was killed in the same accident, her personal representative may not assert this defense.