Court Opinion

ID: 9546029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:23:56.892219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:54.787119
License: Public Domain

DOOLING, J., Concurring.
Since I wrote the opinion for the District Court of Appeal in Deshotel v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., (Cal.App.) 319 P. 2d 357, in which that court held that the wife had a right of action for loss of consortium (hearing granted and opposite conclusion declared by this court, Deshotel v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 50 Cal.2d 664 [328 P.2d 449]), a brief explanation seems justified of my concurrence in the conclusion that the husband has no such right. The District Court of Appeal in Deshotel accepted Gist v. French, 136 Cal.App.2d 247 [288 P.2d 1003], as conclusively settling the law that the husband did have a right of action for loss of consortium of his wife; and it *479concluded, in view of the modern concept of our law, which recognizes so completely the separate personality of the wife, that her rights in that respect should be no different from her husband’s. We were not faced in Deshotel with the question of the husband’s right to sue for loss of consortium, since we considered that question settled by Gist. Now that this court is reexamining that question, I am satisfied with the conclusion that under our statutory law, the husband has no such right and that Gist v. French, supra, should be disapproved.