Brunner v. Hutchinson Div. Lear-Siegler, Inc.

• Decision Date: 15 March 1991
• Docket Number: No. Civ. 89-5065.,Civ. 89-5065.
• Parties: Laurie BRUNNER, As Guardian ad Litem for Jeremiah Brunner, A Minor, and Laurie Brunner, As an Individual, Plaintiff, v. HUTCHINSON DIVISION, LEAR-SIEGLER, INC., A Kansas Corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v. Brad BRUNNER and H.L. Brunner and Sons, Third-Party Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota

770 F. Supp. 517

Laurie BRUNNER, As Guardian ad Litem for Jeremiah Brunner, A Minor, and Laurie Brunner, As an Individual, Plaintiff, v. HUTCHINSON DIVISION, LEAR-SIEGLER, INC., A Kansas Corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v. Brad BRUNNER and H.L. Brunner and Sons, Third-Party Defendants.

No. Civ. 89-5065.

United States District Court, D. South Dakota, W.D.

March 15, 1991.

Ken Barker, Quinn Day & Barker, Belle Fourche, S.D., Robert A. Haivala, Sturgis, S.D., for plaintiff.

Gene Bushnell, Costello, Porter, Hill, Heisterkamp & Bushnell, Rapid City, S.D., for defendant and third-party plaintiff.

Craig Pfeifle, Lynn Jackson Shultz & Lebrun, Rapid City, S.D., for third-party defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BATTEY, District Judge.

This case arises from an injury to plaintiff's ward, Jeremiah Brunner, age 2½ at the time of the injury, which occurred on the Brunner family farm near Vale, South Dakota. The injury was the result of contact between the infant Brunner and machinery manufactured by defendant and third-party plaintiff Hutchinson Division, Lear-Siegler, Inc. (Lear-Siegler). Lear-Siegler subsequently filed a third-party complaint seeking indemnity and/or contribution from third-party defendants Brad Brunner and H.L. Brunner & Sons.

Third-party defendants have made a motion for summary judgment alleging that Lear-Siegler is barred by the doctrine of parental immunity from bringing a contribution claim against Jeremiah's father and his business partnership. Lear-Siegler defends against the summary judgment motion on the grounds that the State of South Dakota has never recognized the doctrine of parental immunity, and, to the contrary, has statutorily mandated access to the courts to all persons. This Court does not accept third-party defendants' arguments that the doctrine of parental immunity operates in this jurisdiction to shield a parent from a cause of action by the parent's offspring. For reasons set forth below, this Court prefers to adopt the more modern approach of the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 895(g) (1977), which simply recognizes that in limited circumstances a parent is privileged from liability with respect to certain causes of action. Among those causes of action for which a parent is privileged is a claim of negligent supervision, a cause of action that is not recognized at law in the State of South Dakota. Accordingly, the Court grants the third-party defendants' motion for summary judgment. Jurisdiction over this action is properly vested in this Court by reason that the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 1332 regarding jurisdictional amount and diversity of citizenship are satisfied.

FACTS

On the day of the accident Jeremiah was accompanying his father, Brad Brunner, as the elder Brunner carried out his day's labors on the Brunner farm. Among the chores Brad Brunner had scheduled for that day was the removal of corn from a storage bin for transportation to the cattle feedlot. The grain was to be removed from the bin and loaded onto the truck with the assistance of a mechanical auger, a screw device which scoops and pushes the grain from the silo through a series of rotating blades. The elder Brunner positioned the truck to receive the grain, switched the augers on, and took Jeremiah into the farm house to turn the boy over to his mother.

Jeremiah's mother, Laurie Brunner, was ill and unable to care her son at that time so the responsibility of supervising Jeremiah fell to Brad Brunner, who brought the boy back to the truck and sat with him in the cab while the augers were operating. Brad Brunner concedes that he was under no time constraints which required him to move the grain immediately. During the course of the unloading, Brad Brunner found it necessary to leave the truck to inspect the operation of the augers. Before leaving the truck, Brunner told the boy to stay in the truck, he locked the door of the truck, and walked over to where the sweep auger was operating to determine that everything was operating properly.

Brad Brunner entered an adjoining grain bin, losing visual contact with the truck and his son. Upon exiting the bin, Mr. Brunner found Jeremiah standing near the portable grain auger. He had suffered a traumatic amputation of the right hand. At the time of his injury, Jeremiah Brunner was approximately 70 percent permanently hearing impaired, and today he wears hearing aids. Jeremiah continues to live with his mother and father and two siblings on the farm near Vale.

DISCUSSION

In the motion for summary judgment, third-party defendants ask the Court to dismiss the third-party complaint based upon the doctrine of parental immunity, despite the absence of any legal authority establishing, or for that matter disparaging, the operation of such immunity in this jurisdiction. In the alternative, third-party defendants request this Court to certify the question to the Supreme Court of South Dakota pursuant to SDCL 15-24A.

The United States Supreme Court has instructed district courts hearing diversity cases that "except in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state." Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78, 58 S.Ct. 817, 822, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938).¹ The Erie Court noted that in a diversity context, the "law of the state" includes not only state statutes, but also the corpus of interpretive law as pronounced by the state courts. Erie, 304 U.S. at 78, 58 S.Ct. at 817.

The question presented by the defendant's motion of whether a parent is immune from suit, either directly or upon a third-party claim of contribution, for certain acts arising out of the prosecution of parental functions is one of first impression for this jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of South Dakota in Kloppenburg v. Kloppenburg, 66 S.D. 167, 280 N.W. 206 (1938), had an opportunity to rule on an issue related to the one presented in this case. Kloppenburg involved a claim by a mother against her allegedly emancipated minor son for injuries sustained in an automobile collision while a passenger in an automobile driven by her son. Kloppenburg is distinguishable from the case now before the Court in that the South Dakota Supreme Court's determination that the doctrine of intra-family immunity barred the mother's action was based upon an interpretation of Minnesota, not South Dakota, law and therefore does not provide this Court with clear controlling precedent on the question presented.

In the absence of a definitive expression of state law on any matter which comes before a district court, it is the duty of the court to conscientiously apply state law as the court believes it would be applied in the state courts in order that the court may "make its own determination of what the Supreme Court of the State would probably rule in a similar case." King v. Order of United Commercial Travelers, 333 U.S. 153, 161, 68 S.Ct. 488, 492, 92 L.Ed. 608 (1948); 19 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4507 (1982). Thus, even though the South Dakota Supreme Court's decision in Kloppenburg is not an unequivocal statement of state law on the issue raised by the defendant's motion to dismiss, this Court will nonetheless endeavor to follow the guidance provided by other relevant judicial and statutory authority in interpreting South Dakota's approach to the question of parental immunity as this Court conscientiously believes this dispute would be resolved by the South Dakota Supreme Court. King, 333 U.S. at 161, 68 S.Ct. at 492.

Of historical note, the doctrine of parental immunity has no roots in the general common law adopted by many states at the time of their political organization, but instead has its origins in the Mississippi case of Hewellette v. George, 68 Miss. 703, 9 So. 885 (1891). In refusing to permit a suit by a minor daughter against her mother for false imprisonment, the Hewellette court relied exclusively on public policy arguments stating:

the peace of society, and of the families composing society, and a sound public policy, designed to subserve the repose of families and the best interests of society, forbid to the minor child a right to appear in court in the assertion of a claim to civil redress for personal injuries suffered at the hands of the parent. The state, through its criminal laws, will give the minor child protection from parental violence and wrong-doing ...

Hewellette, 9 So. at 887. Forty-two states followed Mississippi's lead and adopted some form of parental immunity. See Hollister, Parent-Child Immunity: A Doctrine in Search of Justification, 50 Fordham L.Rev. 489, 494 (1981-82).

Among the various rationale that have provided the basis for the parental immunity doctrine are included: (1) the disruption of domestic tranquility and the family as the basic social unit of American society; (2) the threat to parental discipline and control; (3) the proliferation of fraudulent and collusive suits; and, (4) the depletion of family resources. See Begley v. Kohl & Madden Printing, 157 Conn. 445, 254 A.2d 907 (1969); Barlow v. Iblings, 261 Iowa 713, 156 N.W.2d 105 (1968); Skinner v. Whitley, 281 N.C. 476, 189 S.E.2d 230 (1972); Orefice v. Albert, 237 So.2d 142 (Fla.1970).

These policy arguments, however, have not proven capable of withstanding judicial or scholarly scrutiny over time and have been found to be insufficient to justify the continued application of the doctrine. With respect to the family harmony justification, some courts have argued that family harmony and parental authority is more seriously disrupted when a victim of another's negligence is permitted to go uncompensated. Rousey v. Rousey, 528 A.2d 416, 421 (D.C.App.1987); Lee v. Comer, 159 W.Va. 585, 224 S.E.2d 721, 722 (1976). Other courts point to the illogic of permitting a child to sue one or both parents in contract and property disputes but not in tort. The domestic tranquility...