Hartman v. Cold Spring Granite Co.

• Decision Date: 22 June 1956
• Docket Number: No. 36961,36961
• Citation: 247 Minn. 515,77 N.W.2d 651
• Parties: Margaret HARTMAN, Appellant, v. The COLD SPRING GRANITE COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 651

77 N.W.2d 651

247 Minn. 515

Margaret HARTMAN, Appellant, v. The COLD SPRING GRANITE COMPANY, Respondent.

No. 36961.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 22, 1956.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where injured husband recovers benefits under Workmen's Compensation Act, wife may not maintain common-law action for loss of consortium of such husband.

Lauerman, Johnson & Gustafson, Olivia, for appellant.

Henry Halladay, Gregg Orwoll, William J. Erickson and Dorsey, Owen, Barker, Scott & Barber, Minneapolis, Francis W. Russell, Cold Spring, for respondent.

KNUTSON, Justice.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment entered in favor of defendant.

On or about August 16, 1949, Edmund C. Hartman, while employed by defendant, was seriously injured in the course of his employment. He was awarded workman's compensation benefits by the Industrial Commission. The award was affirmed here. Hartman v. Cold Spring Granite Co., 243 Minn. 264, 67 N.W.2d 656. The facts relating to the accident and injury are stated sufficiently in our opinion in that case.

Plaintiff in this action was then, and still is, the wife of Hartman. Subsequent to the award of compensation to Hartman, she commenced this action alleging that because of Hartman's injuries, which were caused by the negligence of defendant, he was rendered impotent. She sues to recover for loss of consortium. On motion of defendant, the court granted summary judgment.

Two questions are presented for our determination: (1) Does plaintiff have a right of action at all to recover for loss of consortium? (2) If she has such right, is it barred by our Workmen's Compensation Act?

The first question above has heretofore been decided adversely to plaintiff in Eschenbach v. Benjamin, 195 Minn. 378, 263 N.W. 154. ¹ That decision is in harmony with the great weight of authority. The cases are collected and reviewed exhaustively in Annotation, 23 A.L.R.2d 1378. It would serve no useful purpose to further review the cases here.

Prior to the case of Hitaffer v. Argonne Co., Inc., 87 U.S.App.D.C. 57, 183 F.2d 811, 23 A.L.R.2d 1366, certiorari denied, 340 U.S. 852, 71 S.Ct. 80, 95 L.Ed. 624, the authorities were unanimously in harmony with Restatement, Torts, § 695, which reads:

'A married woman is not entitled to recover from one who, by his tortious conduct against her husband has become liable to him for illness or other bodily harm, for harm thereby caused to any of her marital interests or for any expense incurred in providing medical treatment for her husband.'

In that case, under facts strikingly similar to those involved here, the court, while recognizing that it stood alone, held that a wife should not be denied the right to sue in a common-law action for loss of consortium caused by the negligence of an employer of her husband and that the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 44 Stat. 1424, 33 U.S.C.A. § 901, et seq., which is substantially the same as our Workmen's Compensation Act, did not bar such action. While there is much logic in the reasoning of the court on the first question stated above and much criticism of the rule discarded by that court, ² we think it is clear that, under our Workmen's Compensation Act, regardless of what the decision was to be on the right of a woman to sue for loss of consortium of her husband, the action cannot be maintained.

The pertinent portion of our Workmen's Compensation Act reads as follows:

M.S.A.1949, § 176.02. '* * * All employers and employees, except those excluded by section 176.05, and those professional baseball players who have elected not to be bound by the provisions hereof, as hereinbefore set forth, shall be subject to the provisions of the workmen's compensation act, and every such employer shall be liable for compensation, medical and other benefits according to the schedules of the workmen's compensation act, and all acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, and pay compensation in every case of personal injury or death of his employee, caused by accident arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment without regard to the question of negligence, except injury or death which is intentionally self-inflicted or when the intoxication of such employee is the natural or proximate cause of the injury, and the burden of proof of such fact shall be upon the employer.'

The pertinent portion of M.S.A.1949, § 176.04, reads as follows:

'The liability of an employer prescribed by sections 176.02 and 176.03 shall be exclusive and in the place of any other liability to such employee, his personal representative, surviving spouse, parents, child or children, dependents or next of kin, or any other person entitled to recover damages at common law or otherwise on account of such injury or death, * * *.'

On the question of whether Workmen's Compensation Acts, of the same nature as our act, bar the right of a spouse to sue for loss of consortium of an injured spouse, no appellate court has been willing to follow the decision in Hitaffer v. Argonne Co. Inc., supra, as far as we have been able to find. Many courts, both before ³ and after ⁴ that decision, have held the opposite way. Text and note writers as well disagree with the decision. ⁵ The Circuit Court for the Tenth Circuit refused to follow it. Underwood v. United States, 10 Cir., 207 F.2d 862. The same court which decided the Hitaffer case has refused to extend it to cases in which the injured person died, ⁶ and, in fact, the case of Brown v. Curtin & Johnson, Inc., 95 U.S.App.D.C. 234, 221 F.2d 106, ⁷ has cast some doubt upon the future status of that decision on the issue now before us. In that case the court said, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 235, 221 F.2d 108:

'Appellee suggests that we consider whether Hitaffer was erroneously decided, insofar as it declined--on the facts there presented--to give effect to the exclusive liability provisions of the Compensation Act. Powerful arguments are advanced on the point, some of a nature not put before us when Hitaffer was argued. It will be time enough for us to consider them, however, when a case reaches us in which resolution of the point is necessary to a decision.'

While this question has not been decided heretofore under our present compensation act, a similar question was involved in Novack v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 158 Minn. 505, 198 N.W. 294, ⁸ under our former compensation act. In that case a minor...