Court Opinion

ID: 9522925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:33:44.78869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:04:17.878851
License: Public Domain

*549O’Connor, J.
(dissenting in part). In Fidler v. Eastman Kodak Co., 555 F. Supp. 87, 91-93 (D. Mass. 1982), aff’d, 714 F.2d 192 (1st Cir. 1983), a judge of the United States District Court concluded that by September 7, 1978, Deborah Fidler “had reason to know or reasonably should have known of the causal link between her physical injuries and the chemical injections” of Pantopaque, and that, therefore, the applicable statutes of limitation barred her claims. Donald Fidler, Deborah’s husband, was not a party to that litigation, and, because Donald’s claim for loss of consortium is independent of Deborah’s claim for personal injuries, Olsen v. Bell Tel. Laboratories, Inc., 388 Mass. 171, 176-177 (1983), Donald was not in privity with Deborah. Consequently, no principle of collateral estoppel, as that doctrine has been applied heretofore, precludes Donald from relitigating any issue of fact or law that was decided in that case. Furthermore, even if Donald was in privity with Deborah for collateral estoppel purposes, that doctrine does not bar Donald from litigating the date on which his cause of action for loss of consortium accmed, because that issue was not determined in the Federal court litigation.
The court correctly states that, under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, a determination of fact or law by a court of competent jurisdiction cannot be disputed in subsequent litigation by a party to the earlier litigation or by one who is in privity with such a party. See Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153-154 (1979). The court also correctly applies that principle to bar Deborah from relitigating the date on which her cause of action accrued. But the court disregards the limits of that principle by applying it to bar Donald’s claim. Long ago, this court said that a married woman’s action to recover damages for personal injuries and her husband’s action for loss of consortium “are separate actions to recover damages which each suffered individually from the same wrong. Except so far as the consequences of the wrong are to be considered in assessing damages, the liability of the defendant depends upon the same facts in each case; but the actions are as independent of each other as are two actions founded on a collision of two teams, caused by the negligence of the defendant, one brought by the *550driver, a servant of the owner of the team, to recover for his personal injuries, and the other by the owner, to recover for damages to his horses and wagon. The defendant’s liability for the damages in the two cases depends upon the same facts, but there is no privity between the plaintiffs. Each is enforcing an independent right.
“A judgment in one of these cases cannot be put in evidence in a subsequent trial of the other. A former adjudication is binding only upon the parties to the suit and those who are in privity with them. ... As was said in Sturbridge v. Franklin, 160 Mass. 149, 151 [1893], ‘It creates no privity between two parties that, as litigants in two different suits, they happen to be interested in proving or disproving the same facts. ’ ” (Citations omitted. Emphasis added.) Duffee v. Boston Elevated Ry., 191 Mass. 563, 564 (1906). See also Feltch v. General Rental Co., 383 Mass. 603, 606-609 (1981) (because loss of consortium claim independent of personal injury claim, consortium claimant not subject to defenses available against personal injury claimant); Ferriter v. Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, 381 Mass. 507, 519-530 (1980) (even though Workmen’s Compensation Act bars employee’s personal injury claim, it does not bar spouse’s or minor children’s loss of consortium claims). Because Donald was not a party to the litigation in the Federal court nor a privy to a party in that litigation, principles of collateral estoppel do not bar Donald’s claim.
Furthermore, even if Donald had been a party or privy to a party in the Federal litigation, principles of collateral estoppel would not bar him from litigating whether the statutes of limitation bar his claims. Collateral estoppel “can be used only to prevent ‘relitigation of issues actually litigated’ in a prior lawsuit.” Nevada v. United States, 468 U.S. 110,130 n.11 (1983), quoting from Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 326 n.5 (1979). The court fails to recognize that the Federal judge did not decide in Deborah’s case the date on which Donald first sustained his claimed loss of consortium. While resolution of that issue is essential to a determination whether Donald’s claim is time-barred, no court has yet resolved it. Loss of consortium consists of the loss of companion*551ship, affection, and sexual enjoyment of one’s spouse. Feltch v. General Rental Co., supra at 609. Agis v. Howard Johnson Co., 371 Mass. 140, 146 (1976). Often it occurs simultaneously with the occurrence of a spouse’s injury, but, depending on the nature and progression of the injury, an appreciable loss of consortium may not occur until long after the injury. See Olsen v. Bell Tel. Laboratories, Inc., supra at 176-177. Until Donald knew or reasonably should have known that he had sustained an appreciable loss of consortium, his cause of action did not accrue. Massachusetts Elec. Co. v. Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple, P.C., ante 265, 268 (1985). The Federal judge’s determination that Deborah’s cause of action arose on September 7, 1978, did not address the question when Donald’s cause of action arose, Fidler v. Eastman Kodak Co., 555 F. Supp. at 87, and, absent a finding as to when Donald experienced an appreciable loss of consortium, his presence at the September 7, 1978, meeting with Dr. Butler is immaterial to a determination of when Donald’s cause of action accrued. Donald’s claim is not “based upon the identical facts that led the Federal court to rule against his wife.” Ante at 548. His claim is based on his injuries, while her claim is based on her injuries. The date of accrual of each cause of action must be determined separately. Olsen v. Bell Tel. Laboratories, Inc., supra at 177.
The court detects a “trend in the law . . . against allowing suits for loss of consortium where the injured spouse would be collaterally estopped from litigating the same or similar issues.” Ante at 547. For proof of that trend, the court offers one decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 48 (1982). In Roy v. Jasper Corp., 666 F.2d 714 (1st Cir. 1981), construing New Hampshire law, the court concluded that “[ejven though the spouses are separate individuals, there is no point in allowing litigation of issues in a loss of consortium action when those same issues have been litigated in the underlying claim. Collateral estoppel, issue preclusion, was therefore proper against Mrs. Roy with respect to the causation issue which had been determined in her husband’s workmen’s com*552pensation suit” (emphasis added). Id. at 718. Because, in the instant case, the Federal judge did not determine when Donald first suffered an appreciable loss of consortium, Roy v. Jasper Corp., supra, does not support the application of issue preclusion against Donald.
Neither does § 48 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments support the court’s position. Comment c to § 48 states that loss of consortium can be characterized either as independent of the underlying personal injury claim or as derivative from it. “The position taken [here],” the comment continues, “is that the claim for these losses should be regarded as derivative. ” Of course, if Donald’s loss of consortium claim were not considered independent of Deborah’s personal injury claim, any defense to Deborah’s claim would likewise apply to Donald’s claim. But the law of this Commonwealth is otherwise. In Feltch v. General Rental Co., supra at 606-607, this court wrote: “[A] claim for loss of consortium [may] be viewed as a derivative or an independent claim. The courts that have characterized the consortium action as derivative have viewed the husband and wife as a single unit or have viewed the cause of action for loss of consortium as arising from the physical injury to one spouse. . . . Those courts which view the action as independent have analyzed the differences in the damages sustained by each spouse and have concluded that these differences create distinct causes of action, despite the fact that the consortium action and the negligence action arise out of injuries to one spouse. . . . Our prior cases indicate that a claim for loss of consortium is independent of the damage claim of the injured spouse.” (Citations omitted.)
Apparently accepting the result that recognition of Donald’s and Deborah’s claims as independent would require, the court characterizes the claims as only “technically independent,” ante at 548, as if to say that they are not independent at all. But the court can reach its result only by ignoring or overruling the longstanding rule that declares a spouse’s loss of consortium claim independent of the underlying personal injury claim. That rule is a good one, and it should not be overruled, obliquely or otherwise. Donald’s claim is technically, legally, and fully *553independent of Deborah’s claim, and therefore, the court’s conclusion that “Donald Fidler stands on the same footing as his wife for the purpose of the statutes of limitation defenses to his loss of consortium claim,” ante at 548, is incorrect. Because the claims are independent, a determination that the underlying personal injury claim is time-barred should not bar the loss of consortium claim.
Because collateral estoppel should not bar Donald’s claim for loss of consortium, and because the defendants have failed to support their motion for summary judgment with unrefuted affidavits or other documents establishing as a matter of law that Donald’s cause of action arose more than three years before the commencement of his action, I would reverse the judgment against Donald and remand his case to the Superior Court for further proceedings.