Retherford v. Halliburton Co.

• Decision Date: 04 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. 48406,48406
• Citation: 572 P.2d 966,1977 OK 178
• Parties: Lakrisha RETHERFORD, Appellee, v. HALLIBURTON COMPANY, a foreign corporation and Wilbern Henry Hawes, Appellants.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 966

572 P.2d 966

Lakrisha RETHERFORD, Appellee, v. HALLIBURTON COMPANY, a foreign corporation and Wilbern Henry

Hawes, Appellants.

No. 48406.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Oct. 4, 1977.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 11, 1978.

Review of Certified Interlocutory Order of the District Court of Creek County (Both Bristow and Drumright Divisions); Charles S. Woodson, Judge.

Lakrisha Retherford (appellee) and her two minor children were involved in an automobile accident. Appellee, after suing and recovering damages for her personal injuries and damages to her automobile against appellants, commenced two new actions to recover damages for the loss of her children's services and their medical expenses. Halliburton Company and Wilbern Hawes (appellants interposed motions for summary judgment raising appellee's former recovery as a bar to the new actions for the reason that she had "split" her cause of action.

We hold that a single wrongful act or tort inflicted upon a single person endows that person with but a single action for the recovery of his damages however numerous may be the items or elements of damage resulting from the single wrongful act or tort. Appellee's personal injuries, property damage to her automobile, medical expenses expended on behalf of her children and loss of her two minor children's services constitute separate items or elements of her damage resulting from the same wrongful act or tort; thus, appellee's recovery in the former action for her personal injuries and property damage bars her present actions for recovery of damages for loss of services of her two minor children and their medical expenses. The trial court erred in overruling appellants' motions for summary judgment.

PETITION FOR CERTIORARI GRANTED; ORDER OF THE TRIAL COURT OVERRULING APPELLANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT REVERSED; AND TRIAL COURT DIRECTED TO DISMISS APPELLEE'S PENDING ACTIONS AGAINST APPELLANTS.

Jack B. Sellers, Sapulpa, for appellee; Joe A. Moore, Memphis, Tenn., of counsel.

Robert W. Blackstock, of Blackstock, McMillan & Vassar, Bristow, for appellants.

George B. Fraser, Norman, amicus curiae.

IRWIN, Justice.

Halliburton Company and Wilbern Henry Hawes (appellants) Petition for Review of a Certified Interlocutory Order wherein the trial court overruled appellants' motions for summary judgment. The facts are not in dispute.

Lakrisha Retherford (appellee) sustained personal injuries and property damage to her automobile as a result of a motor vehicle accident involving her car and a truck owned by appellant Halliburton and operated by appellant Hawes. Appellee commenced proceedings to recover for her personal injuries and property damage and recovered judgment for $118,237.50, plus interest. This judgment was paid in full and released.

Subsequently, appellee filed two new law suits which are the subject of this appeal. In each new suit, appellee sought to recover her damages for the medical bills and loss of services of each of her two minor children, one of the children was a passenger in the appellee's car and the other child was subsequently born with prenatal injuries allegedly caused by the accident. Appellants filed motions for summary judgment. Appellants urged appellee, as plaintiff below, had split her cause of action and that her prior suit was a bar to the instant proceedings. The trial court overruled the motions by order and certified its order an an appealable interlocutory order.

Where a single act or wrong causes personal injury and property damage to an individual, a substantial majority of jurisdictions hold that such act or wrong gives rise to only one cause of action and not to separate causes based, on the one hand, on the personal injury, and on the other, the property loss. 62 A.L.R.2d 977 "Injury-Person and Property-Splitting" 982. Oklahoma follows the majority rule. In Greater Oklahoma City Amusement, Inc. v. Moyer, Okl., 477 P.2d 73 (1970) we said the general rule against splitting causes of action is that a single wrong gives rise to one cause of action and for which only one suit may be maintained to recover all damage because of the commission of such wrong, however numerous the elements or items of damage resulting therefrom. In Lowder v. Oklahoma Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, Okl., 436 P.2d 654 (1967) we held:

"The negligent driving of a vehicle so as to cause damage to the person and property of another in a single collision is a single tort or wrong and is indivisible and gives rise to but one liability."

Appellants contend that only one "cause of action" arose by reason of the negligent operation of its vehicle, and all the damage done to appellee by reason of the wrong, i. e. her personal injury, property damage, medical expenses for children, etc., must be recovered in the same action or is not recoverable at all. Appellants characterize appellee's two new suits as merely a subsequent attempt to recover items or elements of her damage not sought in her prior action. Appellants note that it is appellee's monetary loss by reason of the medical expenses incurred in treatment of her children's injuries and appellee's inability to receive the services of her children by reason of their injuries for which she now seeks to recover. Appellants do not contend that appellee's children may not maintain their own actions for the damage done them by reason of appellant's wrongful conduct.

Appellee, on the other hand, contends the two new actions are premised on independent and separately identifiable causes of action. Thus, there is no splitting of a cause of action, rather the enforcement of an entirely different right violated by appellants' wrongful conduct.

There appears to be little doubt that the proper individual parent may recover medical expenses and for loss of services incurred by reason of an injury to a minor child. 10 O.S.1971, § 5, since amended, states;

"The father of a legitimate unmarried minor child is entitled to its custody, services and earning; but he cannot transfer such custody or services to any other person, except the mother, without her written consent, unless she has deserted him, or is living separate from him by agreement. If the father be dead, or be unable, or refuse to take the custody, or has abandoned his family, the mother is entitled thereto. * * * "

Appellee alleges that she was solely responsible for necessities, including medical expenses, for the minor children and was the sole person entitled to their services, earnings, contributions and time of the minors during their minority.

The pivotal issue before the Court becomes, quite simply, what is a " cause of action"? A cause of action is a legal concept which has no separate existence in the natural order of things. It is what the makers of legal policy, the Legislature and the courts, say it is. It exists to satisfy the needs of plaintiffs for a means of redress, of defendants for a conceptual context within which to defend an accusation, and of the courts for a framework within which to administer justice.

Courts, including this one, have at different times, with or without applying labels, used different definitions for a "cause of action". It has been defined by reference to the right or interest infringed upon. See ...