Heino v. Harper
Decision Date | 02 August 1988 |
Citation | 759 P.2d 253,306 Or. 347 |
Parties | Dorothy M. HEINO, Petitioner on Review, v. Roy L. HARPER, Defendant, Arno Heino, Respondent on Review. TC A8404-02592, CA A37137, SC S33273. |
Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
We are asked in this case to reconsider the rule of law in Oregon that a person is immune from liability for negligent torts committed against his or her spouse. This court first announced the rule for this state as a matter of common law in Smith v. Smith, 205 Or. 286, 287 P.2d 572 (1955); see also Apitz v. Dames, 205 Or. 242, 287 P.2d 585 (1955), and later followed the rule in Chaffin v. Chaffin, 239 Or. 374, 397 P.2d 771 (1964); see also Moser v. Hampton, 67 Or.App. 716, 679 P.2d 1379, aff'd by an equally divided court 298 Or. 171, 690 P.2d 505 (1984). Upon further consideration, however, we now agree with the overwhelming number of jurisdictions which have concluded that the public policy rationale traditionally asserted in favor of a doctrine of interspousal immunity for negligent torts does not support the rule. 1 Accordingly,
we hold that the common-[306 Or. 350] rule of interspousal immunity is no longer available in this state to bar negligence actions between spousesThe facts, as alleged in plaintiff's complaint, present a typical case of interspousal negligence. On May 5, 1982, plaintiff Dorothy Heino (wife) was riding as a passenger in an automobile driven by her husband, defendant Arno Heino (husband). At an intersection in north Portland, husband turned left into the path of an oncoming automobile driven by defendant Harper. The resulting collision injured wife. Wife [306 Or. 351] filed a complaint alleging, inter alia, that husband was negligent in failing to keep a proper lookout, in failing to keep his automobile under proper control, and in failing to yield the right-of-way. 2 In his answer, husband asserted the defense of interspousal immunity. Based on that defense, he filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court allowed the motion and entered final judgment in husband's favor. The Court of Appeals affirmed, citing Moser v. Hampton, supra. Heino v. Harper, 81 Or.App. 106, 723 P.2d 1082 (1986) (per curiam). We reverse.
We approach this case by first briefly discussing the common-law origins of the Smith rule; then we examine its application in the Oregon decisions, after which we extract, examine and analyze each of the public policy considerations that have been expounded for and against the common-law rule. Finally, we state our own analysis that we believe results in a different rule of responsibility for interspousal negligence in Oregon.
This court first was called upon to declare whether the rule of interspousal immunity for negligent torts existed in Oregon in Smith v. Smith, supra. In approaching the problem, [306 Or. 352] the court said little about the English common-law antecedents of the doctrine, stating only:
Id. at 288. While this statement was accurate as far as it went, it failed fully to acknowledge how utterly different were the times and circumstances that saw the creation of the rule from those that prevailed when the Smith court chose to recognize the rule in Oregon.
Id. at 1032-33 (footnotes omitted).
Id. As the foregoing suggests, it is difficult to state with absolute certainty whether the real impediment to interspousal tort actions at common law was substantive, procedural, or both. It nevertheless is clear that, whatever label is affixed to it, the rule arose out of views of the rights and duties of the parties to a marriage as that institution existed several hundred years ago in a society that viewed the relationship far differently than it is viewed today. To take but one example, a legal system that generally did not even recognize divorce would have no reason to consider the implications of dissolution of marriage without fault.
We think that it is equally clear that to refer to this state of the law, as did the court in Smith v. Smith, supra, as [306 Or. 354] the "common-law rule of non-liability" is an inaccurate oversimplification. The rule did not deny the responsibility of one spouse to make reparation for harm done to the other; it merely regarded the incidents of the
relationship of marriage as the answer to the wrong. Where the husband was the wrongdoer, his duty to support the wife already existed; where the wrongdoer was the wife, any action against her had to include her husband as a defendant, and so the claim merged. It remained for the enactment of various Married Women's Property Acts in the nineteenth century to provide the impetus for doing away with the bars to most kinds of litigation between spouses. See generally Smith v. Smith, supra, 205 Or. at 290-95, 287 P.2d 572. Those acts and the other related legislation that proliferated in the last half of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries were a reflection of the vastly changed social circumstances since the old rule came into existence. However, and in spite of those changes, which led finally even to the right to vote for women, the old rule of interspousal immunity for negligent torts was found still to be alive when, in 1955, this court first faced the issue. We turn now to a specific discussion of the Oregon experienceAs noted, the question of the existence of interspousal immunity as a part of the common law of Oregon came relatively late to this court. When it came, in 1955, it came in tandem with a case involving an intentional tort committed by one spouse against another. The two cases gave this court an opportunity to announce both the existence of the rule of interspousal immunity for tort and the limitations on the scope of that...
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... ... Chaffin, 239 Or. 374, 397 P.2d 771, 774 (1964) ( en banc ) , overruled by Heino v. Harper, 306 Or. 347, 759 P.2d 253 (1988) (abolishing interspousal immunity); accord Cannon v. Cannon, 287 N.Y. 425, 40 N.E.2d 236, 237-38 ... ...
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A power of judicial ideas: a tribute to Justice Hans Linde.
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