Court Opinion

ID: 9768007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:38:01.23683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:35.450483
License: Public Domain

HARBISON, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the results stated in the majority opinion to the effect that a wife may have a duty to furnish necessaries to her husband under certain circumstances. I concur, however, only with the understanding that all other issues raised by the defending parties are still open. The case was disposed of in the trial court upon summary judgment, although upon a very meager record. • It was shown, however, that at the time of the accident out of which the claim arose the plaintiff and her husband were separated. Ordinarily the duty to furnish necessaries to a spouse living apart is quite different from that obtaining when the spouses are living together. Generally there is no such duty unless the separation was the fault of the party against whom a claim for necessaries was made. See generally 41 Am.Jur.2d Husband and Wife §§ 356-360 (1968).
It is unclear that any claim was made against the wife for the hospital expenses, and it is also unclear that she made any actual payments. Payments seem to have been made by an insurance company under whose policy the husband was a named and covered beneficiary as well as the wife. There is no showing that any credit of the wife was pledged in connection with the hospital expenses, or that the husband did not contract for these himself.
I think that all of these issues need to be clarified before it can be concluded that the wife has any viable claim in this case. I realize that the majority opinion states that no position is being taken concerning the merits. Nevertheless it was incumbent upon the wife, in my opinion, when faced with a motion for summary judgment, to adduce proof sufficient to show a clear entitlement to maintain this action. On the present record she has not done so, and I can concur in the result only with the understanding that the defendant is not foreclosed in further proceedings. The majority opinion overrules the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and orders a *935trial on the merits. I think that it would be preferable to remand the case for reconsideration of all of the issues raised in the motion for summary judgment, or at least I would give the trial judge discretion in that regard.
COOPER, J., concurs in this opinion.