Court Opinion

ID: 9505702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:14:56.208175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:43.057457
License: Public Domain

BOEHM, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority’s careful analysis of the language of the statute and its legislative history leads inescapably to the conclusion that the statute is internally inconsistent, and somebody failed at the drafting stage to consider all of the implications of subsection (f) for other provisions of the statute. The rest is guesswork. The majority offers one plausible explanation — that the addition of psychiatric costs, etc., to the recoverable items was accompanied by a desire to limit these items to age twenty-three as a political compromise, and the draftsperson simply overlooked the apparent inconsistency with subsection (g). I find it equally plausible that some late night drafter intended to embody a compromise that left in the new items of recoverable damage, but limited all items to age twenty-three.
I cannot find anything in the statute that resolves this inconsistency or that points in the direction of resolving this dispute in favor of either party. However, it seems to me that the internal logic of the statute is more offended by the majority’s result than by a literal reading of subsection (f) to limit all damages under “this section” to age twenty-three for students and age twenty for others. I reach this conclusion, fortified by some legal maxims, including strict construction of the statute in derogation of the common law, but in the face of those cited by the majority, including the specific governs over the general. The result of the majority’s view, however is that the legislature intended the following results:
1) Economic loss from the loss of the child’s services and out of pocket expenses for the survivors’ psychiatric care are not recoverable after age twenty three, but loss of love and affection is recoverable beyond that time; and
2) A child who is killed at age 23 and one day is wholly not compensable, but loss of love and affection from the death of that child’s twin that occurs two days earlier is compensable for the life of the parents.
It seems to me that these results are sufficiently bizarre that it is unlikely that the legislature would have approved them. I would conclude that subsection (g) was inadvertently left in the statute when subsection (f) was expanded to cover all damages recoverable under “this section.” The issue is purely a matter of legislative policy, and the majority may well be correct in divining the legislature’s intentions. If so, this decision will stand. If not, the General Assembly can fix it.