Court Opinion

ID: 9648942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:39:10.336145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:06.665815
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
dissenting.
Having successfully purged the common law of the tort of alienation of affections in Hoye v. Hoye, Ky., 824 S.W.2d 422 (1992), the majority of this Court now consigns to oblivion yet another ancient tort, the breach of promise to marry. While I claim no affection for either of these musty causes of action, I do defend this Court’s obligation to apply the law with some degree of consistency, including the application of constitutional principles to ourselves the same as we apply them to the General Assembly. In Williams v. Wilson, Ky., 972 S.W.2d 260 (1998), a majority of this Court reiterated the constitutional myth that common law causes of action which existed prior to the adoption of the present Constitution are “jural rights” which cannot be abolished. Like the cause of action for alienation of affections, the cause of action for breach of promise to marry falls into that category. Burnham v. Cornwell, 55 Ky. 284, (16 B. Mon. 284) (1855); Burks v. Shain, 5 Ky. (2 Bibb) 341 (1811). Far be it from me to defend the jural rights doctrine. Williams v. Wilson, supra, at 269-76 (dissenting opinion). However, if a pre-1891 cause of action is cloaked with constitutional protection, it is protected as well from an act of this Court as it is from an act of the legislature. Id. at 274.
I am aware that some advocates of the jural rights doctrine now assert that it applies only to “rights of action for damages for death or injuries caused by negligence.” See Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Government Employees Ins. Co., Ky., 635 S.W.2d 475, 478, n. 7 (1982), overruled on other grounds, Perkins v. Northeastern Log Homes, Ky., 808 S.W.2d 809 (1991), narrowing the scope previously established in Happy v. Erwin, Ky., 330 S.W.2d 412, 413 (1959). However, the jural right protected in Williams v. Wilson, supra, was the right to punitive damages, which are awarded not as damages to compensate for death or injuries, but to punish and deter wrongdoing. Id. at 273 (dissenting opinion), citing Hensley v. Paul Miller Ford, Inc., Ky., 508 S.W.2d 759, 762-63 (1974) and Ashland Dry Goods Co. v. Wages, 302 Ky. 577, 195 S.W.2d 312, 315 (1946). See also Kentucky Utilities Co. v. Jackson County R.E.C.C., Ky., 438 S.W.2d 788, 790 (1968), deeming a cause of action for indemnity to be a jural right, and Meyers v. Chapman Printing Co., Ky., 840 S.W.2d 814, 820 (1992), declaring that the protections contained in the Civil Rights Act are jural rights.
The majority opinion asserts that today’s decision does not implicate the jural rights doctrine at all, because “we are not eradicating the ability of a party to seek a remedy for such a wrong, but rather we are modifying the form that remedy may take.” (op. at 776.) In Williams v. Wilson, supra, the jural rights doctrine was extended past protection against the abolition of a common law right of action to protection against any impairment thereof. (The statute at issue in Williams did not abolish punitive damages, but only set standards to guide the jury in determining whether to award such damages and how much to award.) Regardless, the majority opinion states that “the action for Breach of Promise to Marry is no longer a valid cause of action before the courts of the Commonwealth.” (op. at 776.) That language can lead to but one conclusion: the cause of action for breach of promise to marry has thereby been abolished.
GRAVES and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join this dissent.