Court Opinion

ID: 9543112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:42:17.358873+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:42.859434
License: Public Domain

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent for all the reasons this court, less than three years ago, gave for rejecting the rationale the majority now adopts. See Bearbower v. Merry, 266 N.W.2d 128 (Iowa 1978). I believe juries are as capable of deciding alienation cases as any other type of case entrusted to them.
I. The majority generalizes that juries are incapable of dispassionately resolving the factual disputes in alienation cases because this jury “apparently rejected the testimony of plaintiff’s and Susan’s own daughter, Kathleen Neumiller,” who said there was no love in the family. Until today we have always followed the rule that the jury is the sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses, Smith v. Darling & Co., 244 Iowa 133, 141, 56 N.W.2d 47, 52 (1952), and that a witness’s testimony need not be accepted as a verity, even where it is not contradicted, Schmitt v. Jenkins Truck Lines, Inc., 170 N.W.2d 632, 643 (Iowa 1969).
This jury obviously believed the testimony of other disinterested witnesses who provided evidence that refuted Kathleen’s testimony. They may have reasoned Kathleen’s views were not shared by her twenty-year-old sister and her sixteen-year-old brother, who chose to remain with their father. Or the jury may have concluded Kathleen was merely attempting to justify her action in running away from home at age seventeen to live in her boyfriend’s Minnesota home.
Nor is the majority’s theory that jurors become emotional basket cases “after learning of conduct of which they strongly disapprove and which society condemns” any more viable. Logically, applied, this concept would require us to set aside most jury verdicts in criminal and intentional tort *795cases. The majority’s analysis also ignores those numerous alienation cases in which there is no sexual involvement, only a stubborn and spiteful parental decision not to cut the umbilical cord:
Out of some 41 alienation cases reaching this court, 22 were prosecuted against immediate family members of a spouse, absent any allegations of sexual involvement. Seventeen were brought by the wife against one or both of the husband’s parents.
Bearbower, 266 N.W.2d at 132 (citations omitted).
Trial court’s instructions to this jury followed the Iowa State Bar Association’s Uniform Jury Instructions. The jury was instructed the law imposes a duty on every person not to intentionally interfere with the relations between a husband and wife; that to do so is wrongful conduct. The burden was cast on this plaintiff to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) defendant engaged in conduct with plaintiff’s wife that was wrongful toward plaintiff, (2) plaintiff lost the affection and consortium of his wife, (3) defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in this loss, and (4) plaintiff suffered damage, and the extent thereof. “Substantial factor” was defined as the moving or producing cause. The jury was cautioned to use its own “good common sense and guarded judgment” and “to arrive at the very truth of the matter without sympathy, bias, passion or prejudice.” See Giltner v. Stark, 219 N.W.2d 700, 704 (Iowa 1974); Allen v. Lindeman, 164 N.W.2d 346, 348-50 (Iowa 1969); Castner v. Wright, 256 Iowa 638, 643, 127 N.W.2d 583, 586 (1964).
The majority holds that jurors who were carefully selected to be impartial and disinterested nevertheless were incapable of following and applying the above instructions. This amazing and unsubstantiated conclusion rejects everything this court ever has written on the function and insight of a jury. See, e. g., Barnhill v. Davis, 300 N.W.2d 104, 106 (Iowa 1981) (“The responsibility of weeding out fraudulent claims on a case-by-case basis rests on courts, juries and the adversary system.”); Shook v. Crabb, 281 N.W.2d 616, 620 (Iowa 1979) (“We do an injustice not only to the intelligence of jurors, but to the efficacy of the adversary system, when we express undue concern over the quantum of collusive or meritless law suits.”); State v. Reese, 272 N.W.2d 863, 869-70 (Iowa 1978) (McCormick, J., dissenting) (“Our system depends on society’s trust in juries, and history proves this trust is justified. See Bearbower v. Merry, 266 N.W.2d 128, 134 (Iowa 1978).”).
The majority excuses the jury’s perceived collapse when confronted by these issues on the ground the theory of recovery is “flawed” because it is rooted in property rights. But Bearbower made it clear that in Iowa the cause of action is not based on property rights, but on the protection of conjugal rights and the spouses’ reasonable expectations surrounding the marital relationship. See Bearbower, 266 N.W.2d at 130, 133. “[T]he law of torts is concerned not only with the protection of interests of personality and of property, tangible or intangible, but also with what may be called ‘relational’ interests .... An interference with the continuance of the relation, unimpaired, may be redressed by a tort action, and of this the relations of the family are a conspicuous example.” W. Prosser, The Law of Torts § 124, at 873 (4th ed. 1971) (emphasis supplied).1
*796The gravamen of the alienation of affections action is loss of consortium. See Acuff v. Schmit, 248 Iowa 272, 276, 78 N.W.2d 480, 483 (1956); Pyle v. Waechter, 202 Iowa 695, 701, 210 N.W. 926, 929 (1926). Consortium is conjugal fellowship of wife and husband, and the right of each to the company, cooperation, affection and aid of the other in every conjugal relation. Lampe v. Lagomarcino-Grupe Company, 251 Iowa 204, 206, 100 N.W.2d 1, 2 (1959). We routinely have recognized a jury’s ability to measure its value where the loss was caused negligently. Id.; see Jansen v. Harmon, 164 N.W.2d 323, 324 (Iowa 1969). Compare I.S.B.A. Uniform Jury Instructions (Civil), instruction 3.17 (Damages — Consortium) with instruction 27.8 (Alienation of Affections — Actual or Compensatory Damages).
The difficulty of translating damage to intangible rights into money judgments has deterred us not at all in other law areas. We recognize violation of the intangible right of privacy as an actionable tort. Bremmer v. Journal-Tribune Publishing Company, 247 Iowa 817, 821-822, 76 N.W.2d 762, 765 (1956). We permit actual damages to be awarded for the intentional infliction of emotional harm. See Hall v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 252 N.W.2d 421, 423 (Iowa 1977); Barnett v. Collection Service Co., 214 Iowa 1303, 1312, 242 N.W. 25, 28 (1932). We have held a plaintiff could sue for damages for emotional distress arising from breach of a funeral service contract. Meyer v. Nottger, 241 N.W.2d 911, 921 (Iowa 1976). We early allowed money compensation for mental pain as a component of damages for a physical impact tort. Collins v. The City of Council Bluffs, 35 Iowa 432, 436 (1872). In Wardlow v. City of Keokuk, 190 N.W.2d 439, 448 (Iowa 1971), we held a wrongful death case jury could assign a dollar value to the loss of companionship and society of a minor child.
Bearbower, 266 N.W.2d at 133.
Even if marriage is viewed merely as a “civil contract” pursuant to section 595.1, The Code 1979, the majority opinion is a departure from our modern recognition of the tort of wrongful interference with contractual relations. See Charles Gabus Ford, Inc. v. Iowa State Highway Commission, 224 N.W.2d 639, 646 (Iowa 1974) and citations.
The majority cites no definitive studies and no objective research to support its opinion. The assertion the result is mandated by “human experience” is a mere distillation of individual subjective reactions. We should honor the jury’s verdict, which was constrained, controlled, and molded by instructions based on law.
II. The majority opinion leaves the impression that much has happened nationally in this area since Bearbower. A careful comparison of the statutory and case history set out in its decision with that set out in Bearbower will show very little has changed. The Bearbower majority opinion, 266 N.W.2d at 132, discussed the Washington Court of Appeals decision abolishing the alienation cause of action. Wyman v. Wallace, 15 Wash.App. 395, 549 P.2d 71 (1976). Since then the Washington Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, has affirmed. Wyman v. Wallace, 94 Wash.2d 99, 615 P.2d 452 (1980). The Rhode Island statute referred to merely imposes a one-year statute of limitations for such actions, and was last amended in 1976, two years before Bearbower. See R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-14 (Bobbs-Merrill Supp. 1980).
The majority opinion highlights eighteen states in which alienation actions have been abolished by statute, one state that has abolished the cause of action by judicial pronouncement, and one state in which the cause of action never has existed. However, it follows that in nearly two-thirds of the nation’s jurisdictions the cause of action remains viable. This statistic remains virtually unchanged since Bearbower. See 266 N.W.2d at 131 (noting the tort had been abolished “in approximately one-third of the states”).
Iowa thus has the questionable distinction of being the second supreme court in the nation to deny access to the courts in these *797cases, relegating the parties to the street to settle their differences. This result doubtlessly will be hailed by those who believe extramarital conduct should be accorded a constitutional right of privacy,2 and those who support the increasing amoralization of public policy. Cf. Comment, 22 Vill.L.Rev. 1253, 1264 (1977). However, the majority’s rationale, with its unreasoned emphasis on the perceived incapacity of the jury and its erroneous characterization of the marital interest as a “property” interest, has not convinced me Bearbower should be overruled. I would retain the action for its deterrent effect and for the reasons expressed in Bearbower.
LeGRAND, McGIVERIN, and SCHULTZ, JJ., join in this dissent.

. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 683 (1977):
One who purposely alienates one spouse’s affections from the other spouse is subject to liability for the harm thus caused to any of the other spouse’s legally protected marital interests.
and comment “c” (“legally protected marital interests”), together with comment “g”:
One does not become liable for alienation of affections, without any initiative or encouragement, merely by becoming the object of the affections that are transferred from a spouse. It is only when there is such active participation, initiative or encouragement on the part of the defendant that he or she has in fact played a substantial part in inducing or causing one spouse’s loss of the other spouse’s affections, that liability arises.

. See Note, 56 N.D.L.Rev. 239, 255 (1980).