Court Opinion

ID: 9844209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:59:00.651844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:29.796570
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice
(dissenting) :
In addition to the reasons expressed by Chief Justice Shepard in his dissent, I wish to add my objection to the analysis given to the application of I.C. § 32-906 by the majority opinion. The majority view skirts the statute by stating, “We believe the correct concept is first to consider the nature of the right or interest invaded” in determining the nature of the recovery. Then, relying upon the cliché spawned by the New Mexico Supreme Court — “She *25brought her body to the marriage and on its dissolution is entitled to take it away” —concludes that negligent injury by one spouse to another results in a claim by the injured spouse which is that spouse’s own separate property.
If the development of the law is going to be based upon clichés rather than reason, at least those clichés should be accurate. Even with today’s high divorce rate most marriages still are dissolved by death and as a result the body is entirely consumed in keeping the marital vows. Even where there is a divorce, it is certainly unrealistic to assume that the divorced party several years after the marriage gets back the same body that he or she brought to the marriage. To be more accurate, the cliché should at least state that “upon its dissolution she is entitled to take it away — reasonable wear and tear excepted.” While reasonable wear and tear would not require one spouse to tolerate intentional physical abuse from the other, as this Court said in Lorang v. Hays, 69 Idaho 440, 209 P.2d 733 (1949), the decisions of this Court have uniformly held that negligent conduct such as excessively slick waxed floors, a husband’s tools lying on the stairs, bad cooking, and even the husband’s negligent driving (which could consist of his paying too much attention to his passenger wife), have always been part of the “reasonable wear and tear excepted.” The statutes enacted by the legislature and the consistent line of authority from this Court deserve more consideration than being brushed aside by an inaccurate cliché.
And what of the future? The majority opinion sounds like it will only apply to negligent automobile accident cases, which is another way of saying that the action is limited to situations where the judgment will be paid by an insurance company. However, if the doctrine of inter-spousal immunity is waived there, and the recovery is the separate property of the injured spouse, then there is no logical reason to preclude recovery in all types of negligence actions, and even tort cases such as strict liability, invasion of privacy, etc., where no negligent conduct may be involved at all. The only rational distinction for not including these other types of tort actions in the sweeping scope of the majority opinion is the general absence of insurance to cover the liability. Viewed in this way, the majority opinion appears for what it really is, a thinly disguised assault upon liability insurance carriers. That’s a lot of mileage to get out of one inaccurate cliché.