Court Opinion

ID: 9560670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:53:29.528757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:05.686451
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
In this case a mother has sued a motorist for: (1) injuries she sustained in an automobile accident; (2) medical expenses related to the injuries of her minor child in the same accident; and, (3) the mother’s loss of the child’s services and consortium. The trial court held that under Rule 19(a) W. Va. R.Civ.P., the child must be joined as a party so that all issues relating to the liability of the defendant can be litigated in the same proceeding. The majority reverses, and for the reasons set forth below I respectfully dissent.
The effect of the majority’s decision is that the identical issue of the defendant’s liability can now be litigated twice — in this case and then again later in an action brought by the child or on the child’s behalf many years hence. Under the majority’s analysis, the child may sue in a subsequent action to recover damages for a chipped tooth and several stitches, even if a jury decides now that the defendant is not liable for the child's injuries.
Notwithstanding the majority’s citation to sixty-four assorted cases (which could not have been more incisively selected if a Westlaw computer had been attached to a random number generator), the foundation of the majority’s analysis are: (1) an overruled federal trial court opinion;1 (2) a dissent that objects to a pragmatic reading of Rule 19;2 and (3) two West Virginia cases that clearly are not on point.3 The ultimate logic of today’s decision would allow a myriad of separate lawsuits to arise from a single injury to one person.4
Aguilar v. Los Angeles County, supra, note 2, held that Rule 19(a) requires joinder of the medical malpractice claims of a minor child and the claims of the child’s parents for pre-majority special damagers arising out of the same alleged malpractice. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit overruled (the court used the weasel language “declined to follow”) Cortez v. County of Los Angeles, supra, note 1, and rejected the argument that the parents and child possessed distinct legal interests arising from the child’s injuries. The court held that the close familial relationship between parents and child must be seen as the type of privity that compels joinder of claims arising from the same operative facts. The Court of Appeals stated:
“The Aguilar’s approach, which emphasizes the distinct legal causes of action asserted by parents and child, focus*394es on strict legal technicalities and runs contrary to the prevailing view that “interest” under Rule 19 should be determined from a practical, and not technical, perspective.”
Aguilar, supra, note 2, at p. 1093. Our majority’s decision today relies on the hy-pertechnical view of Rule 19 espoused by the Aguilar dissent and the overruled Cortez.5 Central to the majority’s reliance on the Aguilar dissent was Aguilar’s treatment, in the majority’s opinion, of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The majority in Aguilar noted that:
"... the California Supreme Court has applied the collateral estoppel doctrine to prevent children from relitigating an issue decided in a previous action brought by their mother ... [a] California court could well apply the collateral estoppel doctrine to bar [the child’s] suit if his parent’s suit is allowed to proceed and proves unsuccessful, since the underlying issue of the County’s negligence is identical in both suits.” [citations omitted],
Aguilar at p. 1093. In the ease before us, our majority feels compelled to “agree with the reasoning of the dissent because it comports with our law on collateral estoppel.” Thus, in addition to its hypertechnical reading of Rule 19, the majority now compounds its error by misconstruing the law of collateral estoppel in West Virginia.
Contrary to what the majority implies, we have never held that privity does not arise from the relationship of parent and child. The only two West Virginia cases that the majority cite to support their view mfes the mark entirely. Galanos v. National Steel Corp. supra, note 3, rejected a collateral estoppel argument where unrelated plaintiffs in separate actions had no kinship or privity with one another except that each plaintiff was injured in the same explosion.6
The majority further suggest that Conley v. Spillers, supra, note 3, supports its view that collateral estoppel does not apply in this case. Conley, at best, asserts that the doctrine of privity does not necessarily apply to estop collaterally those persons who have previously litigated an issue in a representative capacity. In the case before us, however, the mother has filed suit to recover damages on her own behalf. There is no issue of representative capacity; clearly Conley is distinguishable and cries out to be distinguished.7
*395Interestingly enough, the majority’s opinion may already be limited to the facts of this case.8 In Phyllis Belcher and Stephanie L. Belcher v. Sherry L. Goins, 184 W.Va. 395, 400 S.E.2d 830 (1990), a decision filed a month after the majority decision in this case,9 syllabus point 5 states:
“A claim for parental consortium ordinarily must be joined with the injured parent’s action against the alleged tort-feasor.”
Although the facts in the case before us are reversed from Belcher (in the sense that the damages claimed in the case before us are the loss of consortium and services of the parent related to injuries of the child), the principle is exactly the same; syllabus point 5 of Belcher should be the rule in this case, and the fact that it is not is precisely my complaint.
Belcher was a case in which the child’s loss of consortium was dependent on the parent’s injuries. It is indeed odd that the same members of the majority who concurred with syllabus point 5 of Belcher also agreed to syllabus point 4 in the case before us. Syllabus point 4 of the case before us states:
“Although [the parent’s action for damages related to the child’s injuries] is based upon and arises out of the negligence causing injury to the child, the parent’s right of action for consequential damages is separate and distinct from the child’s right of action for his or her injuries.”
Furthermore, to add insult to injury, footnote 7 of Belcher cites the case before us and states, “We, like other courts recognizing the claim in question, adopt [the approach of requiring joinder of the minor child’ parental consortium claim with the injured parent’s claim] as a fair and practical solution, not because Rule 19(a) of the W.Va.R. of Civ.P. would technically require such joinder.” [emphasis added]. Of course, as already noted, four members of this same majority rejected the language of Aguilar, which states, “that ‘interest’ under Rule 19 should be determined from a practical, not technical, perspective.”

. Cortez v. County of Los Angeles, 96 F.R.D. 427 (C.D.Cal.1983.)

. Aguilar v. Los Angeles County, 751 F.2d 1089 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1125, 105 S.Ct. 2656, 86 L.Ed.2d 273 (1985).

. Conley v. Spillers, 171 W.Va. 584, 301 S.E.2d 216 (1983); Galanos v. National Steel Corp., 178 W.Va. 193, 358 S.E.2d 452 (1987).

. Also, carried to its logical conclusion, today’s decision would permit six children of the same mother injured simultaneously in the same accident to bring six separate lawsuits against a defendant driver for their own injuries — even after a jury had concluded in their mother’s lawsuit that the mother was 100 percent at fault. Consider too, the situation where divorced parents of an injured child may, under our decision today, sue in separate actions — one to recover for the medical expenses of the child, and the other to recover for loss of services and consortium. Criticism of this type of overkill has been severe. See R. Freer, Avoiding Duplicative Litigation: Rethinking plaintiff Autonomy and the Court's Role In Defining the Litigative Unit, 50 U.Pitt L.Rev. 809 (1989) arguing that:
”[m]ultiplicity is a harm to society’s legitimate interest in judicial efficiency. Courts are a public resource, providing publicly financed resolution of private disputes. We pay for them, and we have a right to insist that their services not be squandered. What was acceptable in an earlier day has simply become untenable in an era of spiraling attorney’s fees and increasing delays between filing and trial. The duplication of effort is the major cause of the protraction of time needed to resolve cases and cannot be justified by plaintiffs’ selfish strategic desire to sue separately.”
Professor Freer’s argument is broader than necessary to decide the present case, but the point is well taken that at some point, duplication of litigation must be limited, and clearly that point is reached in the case before us.

. Using decisional law this way gives a whole new and wonderfully creative dimension to archaic notions like “authority” and "stare deci-sis.”

. The majority quotes Galanos as holding that "mere involvement in a common accident, without more, does not create a privity relationship among the participants for purposes of collateral estoppel.” Although this may be true, it is not relevant to cases where there is more than "mere involvement” — such as the close familial relationship of parents and minor child combined with issues of damages that arise only by virtue of such relationship.

. It should also be noted that although the plaintiffs in Conley and the prior action (Long v. City of Weirton, 158 W.Va. 741, 214 S.E.2d 832 (1975)) were blood relatives, the causes of action in each case arose out of injuries to different people, not injuries to the same person, as in the case at bar. The mother's cause of action is derivative of her child's injuries. Moreover, the majority neglects to recognize that Conley addresses the related problem of plaintiffs’ avoiding joinder and using collateral estoppel as a sword:
"Courts have recognized that it is possible for a plaintiff to deliberately avoid consolidation or joinder in an earlier suit where there are common questions of law and fact in order to wait and see how a fellow plaintiffs suit is decided.
If the first suit is successful then the plaintiff can seek to utilize its judgment by way of collateral estoppel in his suit. If the first suit is unsuccessful, since he was not a party to that suit the judgment cannot be asserted against him by the defendant. Because one of the purposes underlying the collateral es-toppel doctrine is to limit repetitive litigation and encourage joinder courts have concluded that a plaintiff may be denied collateral estop-pel benefits if he cannot advance a substantial reason why he did not join in the original litigation.”
Conley 171 W.Va. at 592, 301 S.E.2d at p. 223. Further, syllabus point 2 of Conley states (in relevant part):
Collateral estoppel is designed to foreclose relitigation of issues in a second suit which have actually been litigated in the earlier suit even though there may be a difference in the cause of action between the parties of the first and second suit.
It seems obvious that Conley, far from supporting the majority opinion, actually contradicts it.

. Indeed, the entirely context specific case that tempers the wind for the shorn lamb on a one-time basis but does not go on to do further, extensive damage is an old and honored tradition in our jurisprudence. See, The 'King’s Case’, Tres anden coutumier. ed. Tardif, p. 13. The ‘King’s Case’ emerges from the infamous taking of the English throne by Prince John upon the death of Richard Coeur de Lion, to the exclusion of Richard’s son Arthur. For many years thereafter English courts declined to decide whether an eldest son of a deceased father could evict an uncle in possession of his father’s estate. See Pollack & Maitland, History of English Law, Vol. 1, p. 514.

. The decision in Belcher was filed a month after the majority opinion in the case at bar, but due to a difference in filing deadlines for majority and dissenting opinions in this Court, the majority opinion in Belcher was filed while this dissent was being researched and written.