Court Opinion

ID: 9687726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:43:54.894592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:30.526728
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Justice
(dissenting):
My disagreement with the majority opinion is not with a question of law but with the judicial policy which is advocated and followed.
This court has followed and applied English common law principles since Alabama became a state, but for the first time in the Code of 1907, the Legislature officially declared us to be a common law state. The Code section was again adopted in the 1923 Code and is presently Tit. 1, § 3, Code 1940, and reads:
“The common law of England, so far as it is not inconsistent with the constitution, laws and institutions of this state, shall, together with such institutions and laws, be the rule of decisions, and shall continue in force, except as from time to time it may be altered or repealed by the legislature.”
At the time this statute was enacted, and to the present, the common law of England was that a husband did have a cause of action for the loss of his wife’s consortium and the wife did not have a right of action for the loss of her husband’s consortium.
The question of the wife’s cause of action did not arise in this court until 1960, and in Smith v. United Construction Workers, District 50, 271 Ala. 42, 122 So.2d 153, the trial court had followed the common law and we affirmed. This court said:
“We are compelled to follow the common law on any subject when the same has not been changed by the legislative branch of our government. * * *
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“ * * * In the light of such a situation, we can but say that it is not our function to change the law, but to determine what it is. The former is vested totally in the legislature.”
This court quoted extensively from Ripley v. Ewell, (Fla.), 61 So.2d 420 (1952). We copy two paragraphs:
“ ‘The common law has been adopted by legislative act. It has been modified to some extent by legislative acts. If further changes are desirable in the public interest, the changes should come from legislation. This case illustrates the wisdom of such a rule and strict adherence to it. In the first place if a change in this common law is to be made it is a legislative rather than a judicial function to decide whether it is more desirable in the public interest to take away the husband’s cause of action for loss of consortium which has existed since the beginning of our jurisprudence or to recognize a similar right in the wife which has never before been considered to exist. In the second place we would be blinding ourselves to known conditions if we did not appreciate the fact that almost daily accidents occur which come within the scope of the questions here presented and that in most cases the parties responsible make settlements with those injured.
“ ‘If we were to adopt the rule asserted by appellant, all such cases, when the husband was the injured party, and within the statute of limitations, would be reopened and a new claim presented by the wife, and new liabilities imposed upon persons who have already paid once for the result of their negligent acts. While we should not hesitate to declare the law as we find it, even though the unwary *453who have been ill advised in their action may suffer, we should not by judicial fiat make changes in established law that will injuriously affect many persons who could not possibly foresee or anticipate such action on our part.’ ”
Our opinion in Smith was not lengthy, and there was no application for rehearing. I considered the quoted parts from Smith to be good law then and I think they are good law now and should be followed.
So, from 1952 to the present, the wife had no cause of action in a suit like the instant case and the trial court so held.
The majority’s action today has created a new cause of action in Alabama where one never existed at common law and has never been created by the Legislature.
Some of our statutes are merely declarations of the common law, but most of them alter, modify or are in derogation of, the common law. But the changes were made by the Legislature, the proper department in our state to effect such changes. For example, at common law, there was no cause of action for wrongful death. But the Legislature, not the courts, correctly provided for such a cause of action.
And insofar as I am informed, there has been no demand from the public that the Legislature create this cause of action. Three members of the present court served in the Legislature, others have been closely connected with it, and all of us have tried to keep informed as to bills introduced that would affect the judiciary. I do not remember that any bill creating this cause of action ever came before the House or the Senate, and I doubt if one has ever received a favorable recommendation from a standing committee if introduced.
It seems to be the present fad for appellate judges to be activists, and regardless of how long a principle has been imbedded in the law of their state, if some good argument is made for a different holding, just go ahead and change it. And this is no longer confined to changing holdings, but to inventing or creating causes of action that did not exist before.
I have joined in overruling previous der cisions of this court and will continue to do so if convinced they are wrong, but I feel that I ought to leave the creation of causes of action to the Legislature where consideration can be given to many aspects of the problem and decisions as to retroactivity, etc. can be made in the statute.
Causes of action in Alabama are either statutory or common law, yet the majority has, despite the separation of powers doctrine of our Constitution, stepped over into the legislative field and created a new cause of action.
The fact that several courts of last resort have done in recent years what the majority is doing here does not automatically make it right. This does not include those courts in those states where the change was made by statute instead of court edict. Some common law states have, by statute, denied recovery for loss of consortium to both husband and wife. Others have granted it to both. And we are informed that in one state, where its court did as our majority is doing, — created a new cause of action in favor of the wife, the Legislature came right back and, by statute, abolished the newly court-created cause of action. It was an apt reminder that legislative matters, such as creating new causes of action, were in the legislative branch and not in the judicial branch of government.
I think it is still the function of this court to determine what the law is and to exercise judicial restraint when opportunities arise to change the law by judicial legislation.
I am aware that I am not in the present judicial stream on the subject of judicial legislation. I still feel, as Justice Cardozo wrote in “The Nature of the Judicial Process,” that the judge “ * * * legislates only between gaps. He fills the open spaces in the law. * * * He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness. * * * ”
This position on my part is not new. In Hamilton v. State, 264 Ala. 199, 86 So. *4542d 283, I wrote for the court: “ * * * There are occasions when courts must correct or ignore or supply obvious inadvertences in order to give a law the effect which was plainly intended by the legislature, but we do not subscribe to the doctrine that the judiciary can or should usurp the legislative function in a republican form of government. * * * ” And this statement was repeated in the opinion of Drake v. Pennsylvania Threshermen & Farmers’ Mutual Casualty Ins. Co., 265 Ala. 444, 92 So.2d 11.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court and, therefore, respectfully dissent.
COLEMAN, MADDOX and McCALL, JJ., concur.