Court Opinion

ID: 9702575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:17:25.161744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:39.028363
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Boberts :
I applaud our Court’s abandoning its prior doctrine and embracing the modern view with respect to intrafamily immunity, thereby bringing this Commonwealth into line with the ever increasing progressive repudiation of this rule. I only regret a similar interment was not accorded interspousal immunity of the sort present in this case.
The majority feels compelled to limit its reforms to intra-family actions on the basis of the Act of June 8, 1833, P. L. 344, §3, as amended, 48 P.S. §111, which provides: “Hereafter a married woman may sue and be sued civilly, in all respects, and in any form of action, and with the same effect and results and consequences, as an unmarried person; but she may not sue her husband, except in a proceeding for divorce, or in a proceeding to protect and recover her separate property; nor may he sue her, except in a proceeding for divorce, or in a proceeding to protect or recover his separate property; nor may she be arrested or imprisoned for her torts.”
In my view, the instant case does not come within the ambit of this statute, for the act only proscribes suit instituted directly between one spouse and the other. See Ondovchik v. Ondovchik, 411 Pa. 643, 192 A. 2d 389 (1963). In the case now before us, the defendant Pados joined Mrs. Falco as an additional defendant; Edward Falco did not institute the suit against his wife. My comments in an earlier similar *386situation are equally applicable here: “In the absence of any spousal conflict, dissension or disagreement created by the institution of the trespass action itself, there is no basis for concluding, as a matter of fact or policy, that domestic harmony is threatened or destroyed by litigation of the present nature. There is an obvious and significant difference in the impact which direct litigation . . . may have upon a marriage as contrasted to recovery, as here, on a judgment created by third party litigation in which both spouses unite in a joint effort to place liability upon an original defendant.
“All that is prohibited by our statute is a direct suit by one spouse against the other on a tort claim arising out of negligence. In the absence of a showing (or even a suggestion) that the circumstances here in any way offend the judicially announced public policy of preventing marital discord, there is no reason for denying the spouse enjoyment of the judgment. To do otherwise, on this record, is to employ the public policy doctrine where the reason for the rale does not, in fact, exist. So employed, the doctrine is not a concept for preserving domestic harmony, but becomes instead a misdirected application for defeating a fair and just result. Surely, developing concepts of proper responsibility for negligent conduct prompts the rejection of needless extensions of immunities.
“Realistically and practically, probably the only time one spouse will seek to secure the benefits of a judgment against the other in a trespass case will be in those instances where, as here, the husband has provided a fund for the satisfaction of such judgments by contract or liability insurance. This presents a situation which is especially and particularly free from concern that efforts to satisfy the judgment entail possibilities of marital discord. Undoubtedly, a wife is one *387of the persons a husband most desires to protect by his purchase of insurance, .... I question the wisdom of a rule which needlessly and invisibly inserts a large immunity clause into a policy which, on its face, reads otherwise.” Daly v. Buterbaugh, 416 Pa. 523, 542-43, 207 A. 2d 412, 420-21 (1964) (dissenting opinion) (citations omitted).