Landis v. Hearthmark, LLC

• Citation: 232 W.Va. 64,750 S.E.2d 280
• Decision Date: 18 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. 13–0159.,13–0159.
• Parties: Kimberly LANDIS and Alva Nelson, as parents and guardians of A.N., a minor, Plaintiffs Below, Petitioners v. HEARTHMARK, LLC d/b/a Jarden Home Brands, Wal–Mart Stores, Inc., C.K.S. Packaging, Inc., Packaging Service Company, Inc., and Stull Technologies, Inc., Defendants Below, Respondents.
• Court: Supreme Court of West Virginia

232 W.Va. 64
750 S.E.2d 280

Kimberly LANDIS and Alva Nelson, as parents and guardians of A.N., a minor, Plaintiffs Below, Petitioners
v.
HEARTHMARK, LLC d/b/a Jarden Home Brands, Wal–Mart Stores, Inc., C.K.S. Packaging, Inc., Packaging Service Company, Inc., and Stull Technologies, Inc., Defendants Below, Respondents.

No. 13–0159.

Supreme Court of Appeals of
West Virginia.

Submitted Sept. 11, 2013.
Decided Oct. 17, 2013.
Concurring in part and Dissenting in part, Opinion of Justice Davis
Nov. 18, 2013.

[750 S.E.2d 282]

Syllabus by the Court

1. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, the parental immunity doctrine precludes a defendant from asserting a contribution claim against the parents of the child.

2. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, an allegedly negligent parent may be included as a third-party defendant for the allocation of fault even though the parental immunity doctrine bars a defendant from asserting a contribution claim against the parents of the child.

3. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, the parental immunity doctrine does not preclude a defendant from asserting the defense of abnormal product use by the child's parents to establish the negligence or fault of the parents.

4. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, the parental immunity doctrine does not preclude a defendant from asserting, as a defense, that the conduct of a parent was an intervening cause of the child's injuries.

Dino S. Colombo, Esq., Travis T. Mohler, Esq., Colombo Law, Morgantown, WV, for Petitioners.

Thomas Mannion, Esq., Andrew D. Byrd, Esq., Mannion & Gray Co., LPA, Charleston, WV, for Respondent, Packaging Service Co., Inc.

Stephen R. Brooks, Esq., Lindsey M. Saad, Esq., Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso, PLLC, Morgantown, WV, for Respondent, Stull Technologies, Inc.

P. Joseph Craycraft, Esq., Edward A. Smallwood, Esq., Swartz Campbell LLC,

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Wheeling, WV, for Respondent, C.K.S. Packaging, Inc.

Larry W. Blalock, Esq., Jennifer Cain, Esq., Jackson Kelly PLLC, Wheeling, WV, Robert W. Hayes, PHV, Cozen O'Connor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Respondents, Hearthmark, LLC and Wal–Mart Stores, Inc.

Justice KETCHUM:

The United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia presents this Court with four certified questions regarding our law on the parental immunity doctrine. Upon consideration, we have determined that reformulating the questions will allow this Court to fully address the legal issues presented.¹ We answer the reformulated certified questions ² as follows:

1. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, does the parental immunity doctrine preclude a defendant from asserting a contribution claim against the parents of the child? Answer: Yes.

2. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, may an allegedly negligent parent be included as a third-party defendant for the allocation of fault even though the parental immunity doctrine bars a defendant from asserting a contribution claim against the parents of the child? Answer: Yes.

3. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, does the parental immunity doctrine preclude a defendant from asserting the defense of abnormal product use by the child's parents to establish the negligence or fault of the parents? Answer: No.

4. In a product liability action brought for injury to a child, does the parental immunity doctrine preclude a defendant from asserting, as a defense, that the conduct of a parent was an intervening cause of the child's injuries? Answer: No.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Kimberly Landis and Alva Nelson (“parents”) filed a product liability action on behalf of their minor child, A.N.,³ for injuries he suffered following an incident in the family's residence.⁴ It is alleged that on February 28, 2010, then seven-year-old A.N. was severely burned while attempting to start a fire in his family's fireplace. A fire had been burning throughout the day in the fireplace. That evening, while A.N.'s mother, father and brother were upstairs, A.N. asked his mother for permission to roast a marshmallow in the fireplace. A.N.'s mother gave him permission and he went downstairs by himself to the fireplace. Believing that the fire had died out, A.N. stacked kindling wood in the fireplace and applied Diamond Fire Starter Gel (“fire starter gel”) to the wood. This fire starter gel is an ethanol-based substance used to start fires in wood pellet stoves. A.N.'s parents left the fire starter gel bottle on a stand next to the fireplace that was within A.N.'s reach. The bottle's directions for use state that it should be stored away from heat and flame and directs users to “keep out of reach of children.” As A.N. was spraying the gel into the fireplace, it allegedly touched a hot ember causing a flame to “flashback” through the bottle cap igniting the vapors within the bottle. This caused an explosion resulting in A.N. suffering severe burns over sixty-five percent of his body.

The plaintiffs filed their complaint asserting product liability causes of action for strict

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liability, negligence, and breach of warranty against the following parties: (1) Stull Technologies, Inc., the manufacturer of the bottle cap; (2) CKS Packaging Inc., the manufacturer of the bottle; (3) Packaging Services Company, Inc., the producer of the fire starter gel; (4) Hearthmark, LLC, d/b/a Jarden Home Brands, the distributor of the fire starter gel; and (5) Wal–Mart Stores, Inc., the store where the fire starter gel was purchased (referred to collectively as “defendants”). The complaint seeks both compensatory and punitive damages for the child against these defendants. The parents do not assert any causes of action of their own, nor do they seek any damages in this case.

Each of the defendants denied the material allegations contained in the complaint and asserted contribution counterclaims and comparative negligence defenses against A.N.'s parents. The defendants also raised the defenses of product misuse and intervening causation due to A.N.'s parents' conduct. While initially brought as counterclaims, the District Court ordered that the defendants' claims against A.N.'s parents “shall be considered third-party complaints.”

The plaintiffs filed a motion to strike Defendant Stull's comparative negligence defense and argued generally that the parental immunity doctrine bars all of the defendants “from arguing that the negligence of A.N.'s parents caused or contributed to their child's injuries.” Based on this argument, the plaintiffs moved for judgment on the pleadings as to the defendants' third-party complaints against A.N.'s parents. The District Court denied the plaintiffs' motion without prejudice ⁵ and invited the parties to seek certification to this Court to decide whether the parental immunity doctrine precludes the defendants from asserting certain defenses and contribution claims against A.N.'s parents. After completing some discovery, the plaintiffs moved for certification and the District Court certified four questions to this Court regarding our law on the parental immunity doctrine.

II. Standard of Review

When this Court is called upon to resolve a certified question, we employ a plenary review. “A de novo standard is applied by this Court in addressing the legal issues presented by a certified question from a federal district or appellate court.” Syllabus Point 1, Light v. Allstate Ins. Co., 203 W.Va. 27, 506 S.E.2d 64 (1998). Accord Syllabus Point 1, Bower v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 206 W.Va. 133, 522 S.E.2d 424 (1999) (“This Court undertakes plenary review of legal issues presented by certified question from a federal district or appellate court.”). With this standard in mind, we proceed to examine the parties' arguments.

III. Analysis

Before addressing the reformulated certified questions, we begin our analysis with a brief discussion of the parental immunity doctrine.

A. Parental Immunity Background

The parental immunity doctrine prohibits a child from bringing a civil action against his or her parents. Lee v. Comer, 159 W.Va. 585, 587–88, 224 S.E.2d 721, 722 (1976). In its original form, the doctrine operated as an absolute bar to suit by a child for personal injuries caused by a parent. See, e.g., Roller v. Roller, 37 Wash. 242, 79 P. 788 (1905) (father raped daughter); McKelvey v. McKelvey, 111 Tenn. 388, 77 S.W. 664 (1903) (stepmother inflicted cruel and inhumane treatment on stepson); and Hewellette v. George, 68 Miss. 703, 9 So. 885 (1891) (mother falsely imprisoned child in an insane asylum). In Hewellette, the Mississippi Supreme Court determined that the parental immunity doctrine would “preserve the peace of society” and was based on “sound public policy, designed to subserve the repose of families and the best interests of society[.]” Id. 9 So. at 887.

Following Hewellette,McKelvey, and Roller, there was widespread adoption of the parental immunity doctrine by courts

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throughout the country. See Gail D. Hollister, Parent–Child Immunity: A Doctrine in Search of Justification, 50 Fordham L.Rev. 489, 494 (1981).⁶ While many courts initially embraced and adopted the parental immunity doctrine, “[i]n recent years, the application of this doctrine has begun to recede as rapidly as it had once spread. There has been a definite trend throughout our courts toward abrogation or limitation of such doctrine.” Lee, supra, 159 W.Va. at 588, 224 S.E.2d at 722. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, for example, abolished the parental immunity doctrine in Goller v. White, 20 Wis.2d 402, 122 N.W.2d 193 (1963), and concluded that it

ought to be abrogated except in these two situations: (1) where the alleged negligent act involves an exercise of parental authority over the child; and (2) where the alleged negligent act involves an exercise of ordinary parental discretion with respect to the...