Court Opinion

ID: 9651308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:13:09.925763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:50.346980
License: Public Domain

Hicks, J.,
concurring specially. I concur in the judgment of the majority because the issue of abolishing the common law necessaries doctrine was not raised by either party. I write separately, however, because anachronisms in the doctrine, which are evident in the court’s discussion of its origins, raise questions about its continued applicability in the modern world.
The necessaries doctrine “originated in English common law over three centuries ago when married women had no property or contractual rights and their husbands controlled their financial affairs. . . . The primary purpose of the doctrine was to assure that dependent wives received support from neglectful husbands.” Medical Center Hosp. of Vt v. Lorrain, 675 A.2d 1326, 1328 (Vt. 1996).
In Cheshire Medical Center v. Holbrook, 140 N.H. 187 (1995), we were called upon to reexamine the necessaries doctrine in light of subsequent changes in the legal status of women. More specifically, Holbrook presented the question whether the doctrine, as it then existed in our common law, violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions. Holbrook, 140 N.H. at 188. After chronicling the legal advances that “dissipated the marital disabilities of women,” id. at 189, we concluded that “[t]he traditional formulation of the necessaries doctrine, predicated on anachronistic assumptions about marital relations and female dependence, does not withstand scrutiny under the compelling interest standard,” id. at 190. We then “expand[ed] the common law doctrine to apply to all married individuals equally, regardless of gender.” Id.
Although we purported to “determine whether the [necessaries] doctrine should be abolished or revised,” id. at 190, we undertook none of the traditional analysis for determining whether to abolish existing precedent. Thus, while the holding in Holbrook may appear broad, it bears recalling that the specific question before us was whether the gender distinctions in the common law necessaries doctrine violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Thus, Holbrook’s revision of the doctrine may be viewed as simply the abolition of gender distinctions that violated equal protection, *723rather than a considered expansion of the doctrine. An examination of the doctrine under the traditional factors for determining whether to abrogate precedent, however, reveals that it has long outlived its relevance and should be abandoned.
We do not lightly overrule longstanding precedent. See Alonzi v. Northeast Generation Servs. Co., 156 N.H. 656, 659 (2008). “The doctrine of stare decisis demands respect in a society governed by the rule of law, for when governing legal standards are open to revision in every case, deciding cases becomes a mere exercise of judicial will with arbitrary and unpredictable results.” Id. at 659-60 (quotation omitted). Nevertheless, we will abandon precedent when “the ruling has come to be seen so clearly as error that its enforcement was for that very reason doomed.” Id. at 660 (quotation omitted). In determining whether to overrule prior case law, we consider several factors, including:
(1) whether the rule has proven to be intolerable simply in defying practical workability; (2) whether the rule is subject to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the consequences of overruling; (3) whether related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine; and (4) whether facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification.
Id. (quotation omitted). Most, if not all, of these factors apply to the common law doctrine of necessaries.
The necessaries doctrine arose out of the legal disabilities imposed upon married women under the common law; those restrictions on property ownership and contractual capacity are the raison d’etre for the doctrine. As we stated in Holbrook, “Because the wife could not contract for food, clothing, or medical needs, her husband was obligated to provide her with such ‘necessaries.’ ” Holbrook, 140 N.H. at 189 (citation omitted). Without the underlying legal disability of the wife, the common law justification for binding her husband to her contracts for necessaries disappears. See Lorrain, 675 A.2d at 1329 (noting that since women now have the same property and contractual rights as men, “the circumstances that led to the emergence of the necessaries doctrine no longer exist”). Viewed in this light, the doctrine of necessaries is “no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine” that has been “robbed ... [of its] justification.” Alonzi, 156 N.H. at 660 (quotation omitted).
The doctrine also defies practical workability. See id. As the Supreme Court of Vermont noted in Lorrain, “because the husband’s liability under the doctrine had substantial limitations, the doctrine never accomplished its *724purported purpose — to be an effective support mechanism for neglected wives.” Lorrain, 675 A.2d at 1329; see Note, The Unnecessary Doctrine of Necessaries, 82 MICH. L. Rev. 1767, 1799 (1984) (concluding that the necessaries doctrine “is generally an ineffective means of providing spousal support” and finding “no persuasive evidence that the doctrine is useful in the context of the narrow support problem it was intended to alleviate”).
Finally, there appears to be little reliance upon the doctrine “that would lend a special hardship to the consequences of overruling” it. Alonzi, 156 N.H. at 660 (quotation omitted). In fact, “studies indicate that in deciding whether to extend credit, creditors give little weight to a married woman’s support rights.” Lorrain, 675 A.2d at 1329.
Consideration of the foregoing factors leads to the conclusion that the common law doctrine of necessaries is no longer viable. Furthermore, while our gender-neutral revision of the doctrine in Holbrook may have alleviated then extant equal protection concerns, it is doubtful that it solved any of the underlying problems with the doctrine or rendered the doctrine more effective in fulfilling its original purpose. There is, in fact, some indication that “the modern[, gender-neutral] doctrine seems to result in less available credit for needy spouses.” Note, The Unnecessary Doctrine of Necessaries, supra at 1780. As the Lorrain court noted, “In truth, extension of the doctrine serves creditors’ rights, not spousal support rights,” Lorrain, 675 A.2d at 1329, in stark contradiction to its genesis. For the foregoing reasons, should a case presenting the issue come before us, the necessaries doctrine should be abolished.