Court Opinion

ID: 9561492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:10:32.435524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:50.070212
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the Gillispies cannot claim loss of society damages for their child’s death under Alaska’s wrongful death statute, AS 09.55.-580 (Supp.1991). Although I further agree with the majority that the minor child’s parents are not without recourse, I can not join the majority in its reliance upon AS 09.15.010 and its conclusion that this statute creates a separate, independent parental cause of action for loss of consortium arising out of the death of a child. Rather than attempting to resuscitate AS 09.15.-010,1 conclude, as a matter of common law interpretation, that the non-dependent parents of a minor decedent have a common law cause of action for loss of their child’s society and that this action is not precluded, or preempted, by operation of our wrongful death statute.
This conclusion logically follows from the court’s prior precedents. Schreiner v. Fruit, 519 P.2d 462, 466 (Alaska 1974), established that a wife has the right to sue for loss of “care, comfort, companionship, and solace of her spouse” resulting from an injury to her husband. Schreiner was followed by Hibpshman v. Prudhoe Bay Supply, Inc., 734 P.2d 991, 994 (Alaska 1987) which held that a child had a cause of action for loss of parental consortium. In rejecting the contention that we should defer to the legislature rather than deciding this question we observed:
Moreover, loss of consortium has been repeatedly recognized as a cause of action created by and developed by the courts. We have long recognized our responsibility to adapt the common law to the needs of society as justice requires where the legislature has not spoken.
Id. at 995 (footnote omitted).
Given our recognized obligation to develop the common law, and the fact that loss of consortium is a cause of action which has been created and developed by the courts, I fail to perceive any persuasive reason why a non-dependent parent’s right to a claim for loss of consortium for the death of his or her child should not be recognized. As the Ninth Circuit noted:
[Fjollowing Alaska law and based on the reasoning of the Hibpshman case, the district court could reasonably have concluded that a parent’s claim for damage to the parent-child relationship is not sufficiently distinguishable from spousal or children’s consortium claims to warrant nonrecognition.
*1275Scott v. United States, 884 F.2d 1280, 1282 (9th Cir.1989); see also Yako v. United States, 891 F.2d 738, 747 (9th Cir.1989).
Furthermore, I would hold that our wrongful death statute, AS 09.55.580 (Supp.1991) does not preclude recognition of the existence of an independent claim by a non-dependent parent for loss of consortium arising from the death of his or her minor child. On this point Haakanson v. Wakefield Seafoods, Inc., 600 P.2d 1087, 1092 n. 11 (Alaska 1979) is of particular relevance. There we said:
“We do not find the statute [Alaska’s wrongful death statute] to be in derogation of the common law of Alaska because, if there were no statute, we would in all probability follow the lead of the United States Supreme Court in Moragne v. States Marine Lines, Inc., 398 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 1772, 26 L.Ed.2d 339 (1970), in which it established a maritime wrongful death action....” 1
In the case at bar I would explicitly hold that non-dependent parents have an independent cause of action for loss of consortium based on the death of their minor child.

. See also Hanebuth v. Bell Helicopter International, 694 P.2d 143, 145 (Alaska 1984) (rejecting the proposition that wrongful death statutes should be construed narrowly because they are in derogation of the common law).