Court Opinion

ID: 9735498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:19:34.800537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:59.328950
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the court was delivered by
This appeal presents the single clear-cut question whether an unemancipated minor child may maintain a cause of action against her father for personal injuries caused by his simple negligence in the driving of an automobile in which she was a passenger when he was insured by a policy of liability insurance obligating his insurer to pay all sums for which he was legally obligated as damages because of injury to others arising out of the ownership, maintenance and use of the car.
Hall, J.
The child was four years of age at the time of the mishap and had lived with her parents since birth. Her father was her sole support. The suit, prosecuted by her mother as guardian ad litem, was instituted in the Bergen County District Court. The complaint alleged that injuries to face and head resulted from the father’s operation of the car in a careless manner so that he ran into the rear of a *249vehicle in front of him, and specifically set forth the insurance coverage. The insurer was not made a party. There is no suggestion the ear was being driven for business rather than family purposes.
The trial judge granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment before answer filed, and plaintiff’s appeal was certified oh our own motion before argument in the Appellate Division.
There is no doubt that the ruling below is strictly in accord with the present law in this State as laid down in the leading case of Reingold v. Reingold, 115 N. J. L. 532 (E. & A. 1935). See also Radelicki v. Travis, 39 N. J. Super. 263 (App. Div. 1956). It may be noted, in view of the significance which plaintiff attaches to the actual existence of insurance in the instant case, that the court in Reingold expressly mentioned the common practice of carrying automobile liability insurance, showing it was not unaware of the bearing of that factor- on the problem.
Plaintiff frankly concedes the controlling authority of Reingold and laudably further admits that no case holding to the contrary, where only simple negligence in a purely family relationship was involved, can be found in any other jurisdiction. Our own research confirms this and therefore extensive citations of outside authority become unnecessary. See cases collected in Annotation, 19 A. L. R. 2d 423, 439 (1951). See also Prosser, Law of Torts (2d ed. 1955), § 101, n. 61 and 77; Harper and James, The Law of Torts, § 8.11, n. 6 and 7 (1956). The case probably most often relied upon, as here, in contending for the opposite rule is Dunlap v. Dunlap, 84 N. H. 352, 150 A. 905, 71 A. L. R. 1055 (Sup. Ct. 1930). There the factual situation was one of employment of the child by the defendant father in the latter’s business, and an injury sustained in the course of employment. When a case exactly like ours came before the New Hampshire court, however, it refused to follow the reasoning and rationale of Dunlap and specifically held the child could not maintain the action. Levesque v. *250Levesque, 99 N. H. 147, 106 A. 2d 563 (Sup. Ct. 1954). See also Worrall v. Moran, 101 N. H. 13, 131 A. 2d 438 (Sup. Ct. 1957).
Plaintiff’s position is that we should now overturn the rule, and sole reliance in support of the contention is placed on expressions of theoretical opinion by text writers and authors of law review articles and notes during the past 30 years. While this court has not been hesitant or backward in overruling judge-made principles and concepts that have become outmoded in the light of modern thought, knowledge and conditions (see, for example, in the present term in the tort field, Faber v. Creswick, 31 N. J. 234 (1959); Smith v. Brennan, 31 N. J. 353 (1960); Duffy v. Bill, 32 N. J. 278 (1960); McAndrew v. Mularchuk, 33 N. J. 172 (decided June 28, 1960)), we have done so only when we have been thoroughly convinced that there is no longer any sound reason to retain the old rule and that essential justice compels a change. Sydney Grossman Hotel Corporation v. Lakewood Water Co., 27 N. J. 91 (1958). We,, along with every other court of last resort apparently, are not so convinced in the present situation.
The question is not one of the absence of a duty of reasonable care owed by the father to his child, but rather of immunity from suit thereon. Matters of immunity must be determined, in the absence of specific legislation, on the basis of policy or, perhaps more accurately, on the weighing of competing policies. Here we think the weight of a combination of policies dictates the result. In situations other than the precise one before us, consideration of the policies in the light of the specific facts may lead to different results, but it will be time enough to announce a conclusion on them when the occasion is specifically presented to us.
A succinct expression of the policies which have led other courts to reach the result we adhere to in this ease is, found in a recent opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court where it was called upon to decide the precise question for *251the first time. The case is Parks v. Parks, 390 Pa. 287, 135 A. 2d 65 (Sup. Ct. 1957), where it was said:
“It is a rule based on the sound principle of public policy to promote family unity and avoid family discord and disturbance, it prevents possible collusive action between parent and child in situations where the liability of either parent or child is covered by insurance and it is in line with the great weight of judicial authority represented by practically every court of every state in this country.” (135 A. 2d at p. 71).
It will be recalled that we are dealing with a situation where parents and children are living together under the ordinary conditions of family life and the charge is one of mere negligence. Such a claim is a very thin thing. It implies no intentional or even thoughtless disregard of intrafamily responsibilities and benefits, which in the last analysis rest not on cold rules of law but on mutual love and affection. Legalistically speaking, under these circumstances simple negligence amounts to no more than a very slight breach of a parental duty, and the well established rule of law is that a parent should not ordinarily be accountable to the child in money damages in such a situation. See Dunlap v. Dunlap, supra (150 A., at p. 909). It appears quite unseemly, to say the least, to suggest that a mere act or omission within the family circle amounting to no more than carelessness, which the one to blame would do almost anything to avoid, should require the payment of money by one member of the group to another. We believe that true family life, so important to our civilization, should not include among its foundation stones the concept of recompensable fault between parents and unemancipated children. The idea seems utterly foreign, whether a family member or some third party is compelled to produce the money. And it should not be overlooked that the principle plaintiff asks us to establish would be applicable to injuries suffered in the home as well as in the family car and that an injured parent would also have to be permitted to sue his child for the latter’s negligence.
*252If the negligent parent were uninsured, so that judicial process in a real adversary proceeding would compel him to pay personally the child’s recompense, which would necessarily have to come from the family estate and exchequer created and intended for the benefit of all members, the likelihood of the disruption of family unity and discipline is obvious. Of course, the injured child knows nothing of legal duties and remedies and would have no idea of suing his parent. That decision has to be made for him by someone else, which in the usual situation is the other parent, the spouse of the one to be sued and to pay after a public litigation arraying the family members against each other.
But we all know that realistically such actions are never thought of, let alone commenced, unless there is an insurance policy, automobile or comprehensive personal liability (which ordinarily indemnifies against the legal consequences of acts or omissions of all members of the family), on the basis of which money can be sought to be obtained. Such contracts are not commitments to pay in all events, such as are policies providing for medical payments and weekly indemnity in case of accident or hospitalization and medical and surgical treatment, now so commonly held by families or individual members, but depend for their operative effect on the insured being found legally at fault. Again, practically speaking, an action is not going to be commenced unless the family member to be sued is in effect prepared to say that he was negligent. The decision for the child to sue will be determined within the family circle and obviously the proposed defendant is going to participate in making it, quite an unorthodox situation under our basic concept of adversary litigation, to say the least. The risk of collusion is indeed a very great and human one, when the insured’s own flesh and blood and the family pocketbook are concerned. It is unlikely in most instances that the insurance carrier, whose interests are the only ones really at stake, can adequately defend itself. The defendant under the insurance contract has the obligation to cooperate with *253the insurer, an obligation which, unless there is absolutely no question of his sole or concurrent and proximate negligence (a somewhat rare situation in everyday life), he will find it difficult to fulfill and at the same time further the successful outcome of the suit for the benefit of the child (and incidentally his own), which in reality is what he wishes to accomplish. The possibility of collusion, and the corollary of breakdown of most desirable individual integrity within the family frequently involving children as well, is so great in so many cases of the kind before us that we feel constrained to conclude, in conjunction with the other considerations previously mentioned, that sound public policy precludes their prosecution. It may be urged that the possibility of similar fraud also exists in other situations where our law permits suits, as in actions by guest against host, but we are convinced that the danger is not so great and the matter of integrity within the family is not involved.
While our Legislature has not acted directly on the question, we believe some measure of approval by that branch of the policy to which we adhere is found negatively in the fact of its inaction since the decision in Reingold and affirmatively in the withholding of the benefits of the Unsatisfied' Claim and Judgment Eund law to a plaintiff who has obtained a jrrdgment arising out of a motor vehicle accident against his uninsured spouse, parent or child. N. J. S. A. 39:6—70; L. 1952, c. 114, § 10, as amended. It is also interesting to note that in at least one state, New Hampshire, bills were introduced in the Legislature (after the decision in Levesque, supra) to permit the prosecution of a suit by an unemaneipated minor against his parent for negligence and were defeated. See Worrall v. Moran, supra (131 A. 2d, at p. 439).
The judgment is affirmed.