Salin v. Kloempken

• Decision Date: 13 August 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-1135.,81-1135.
• Citation: 322 NW 2d 736
• Parties: Bruce SALIN, et al., etc., Appellants, v. Steven D. KLOEMPKEN, Respondent, Frank E. Harwich, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

322 N.W.2d 736 (1982)

Bruce SALIN, et al., etc., Appellants, v. Steven D. KLOEMPKEN, Respondent Frank E. Harwich, et al., Respondents.

No. 81-1135.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

August 13, 1982.

Schwebel, Goetz, Sieben & Hanson and Diane C. Hanson, Minneapolis, for appellants.

Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel and Michael D. Tewksbury, Minneapolis, for Kloempken.

Lasley, Gaughan, Stich & Angell and John F. Angell, Meagher, Geer, Markham, Anderson, Adamson, Flaskamp & Brennan and W. D. Flaskamp, Minneapolis, for Harwich, et al.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

AMDAHL, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from an order of the Hennepin County District Court, dated September 23, 1981, granting defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The plaintiffs are Bruce Salin, Christopher Salin, and Tracy Marie Salin, minor children of Marvin W. Salin. The action was brought to recover damages for loss of parental consortium resulting from injuries sustained by Marvin Salin while riding as a passenger in a vehicle driven by defendant Steven Kloempken. On December 15, 1978, the Kloempken vehicle was involved in a collision with another vehicle owned by defendant Wheels, Inc., leased by defendant Worthington Service Corporation, and operated by defendant Frank E. Harwich while in the scope of his employment with Worthington Service Corporation. Plaintiffs allege the accident was caused solely by the negligence of defendants.

Marvin Salin was severely injured in the accident and is now quadriplegic. Bruce and Christopher Salin were 7 and 2 years old respectively at the time of the accident. Tracy Marie was born 12 weeks after the accident. In addition to the children's loss of parental consortium claims, Marvin and Mary Ann Salin have commenced actions against the same defendants. Marvin Salin claims damages for his personal injuries and Mary Ann Salin claims damages for loss of spousal consortium. Both actions are pending in Hennepin County District Court and have not yet gone to trial.

Defendants brought joint motions to dismiss the children's claims pursuant to Minn. R.Civ.P. 12.02(5). On September 23, 1981, the motions were granted on the ground that no cause of action is recognized in Minnesota for a child's loss of parental consortium arising out of injuries caused by the negligence of a third person. Plaintiffs appeal from the district court order. We affirm.

The only issue presented on appeal is whether we should recognize a cause of action on behalf of children for loss of parental consortium resulting from injuries negligently inflicted on the parent by third parties. After a review of the arguments that have been generated on both sides of the question, we conclude that no such cause of action should be recognized.

The decision whether to limit liability for loss of consortium by denying a cause of action in the parent-child context, or to permit that action but deny claims based upon more remote relationships, is a question of policy. There can be no doubt that the children's claims have both logical and sympathetic appeal. Suter v. Leonard, 45 Cal.App.3d 744, 120 Cal.Rptr. 110 (Cal.Dist. Ct.App.1975). Benefits of the greatest value flow to a child from parental love, society, care, and services. Because a child's character, disposition, and abilities have a corresponding impact on society, it is important to the child and to society that the benefits derived from the parent-child relationship be protected. However, our decision must take into account considerations in addition to logical symmetry and sympathetic appeal. "Not every loss can be made compensable in money damages, and legal causation must terminate somewhere. In delineating the extent of a tortfeasor's responsibility for damages * * * the courts must locate the line between liability and non-liability at some point, a decision which is essentially political." Id. at 746, 120 Cal. Rptr. at 111-12.

At common law, all the rights of the family group were vested in the father. Under the doctrine of pater familias, injuries inflicted on members of the family were actionable only by the father. The father's action for wrongful injury to his spouse or child was derived from the master's cause of action for injury to his servant, and recovery was thus originally limited to the pecuniary value of his wife's or child's services. See W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 125 (4th ed. 1971). The father's action later became one for loss of "consortium," of which services constituted merely one element. Loss of love, care, society, companionship, and, in the case of a spouse, sexual relations, became compensable. Id. Yet, at common law, neither a wife nor a child could recover if deprived of a husband's or parent's society or services. Id. § 124, at 886; § 125, at 894.

Recently, however, the vast majority of jurisdictions have allowed the wife to recover damages for the lost consortium of her husband who had been negligently injured. See Love, Tortious Interference with the Parent-Child Relationship: Loss of an Injured Person's Society and Companionship, 51 Ind.L.J. 590, 596 n.20. In Minnesota, recognition of the wife's claim came in 1969 in Thill v. Modern Erecting Co., 284 Minn. 508, 170 N.W.2d 865 (1969), where we rejected "the medieval concept that the husband had a proprietary right to his wife's services, * * * but that the wife, as the property of her husband, had no reciprocal right to his." Id. at 512, 170 N.W.2d at 868. Quoting Dean Prosser, we noted that "The loss of `services' is an outworn fiction, and the wife's interest in the undisturbed relation with her consort is no less worthy of protection than that of the husband." Id. The concept of consortium was held to include the

reciprocal rights inherent in the marital relationship of husband and wife, including such undefined elements as comfort, companionship, and commitment to the needs of each other. Its "predominant element," however, * * * is "the loss of sexual relationship," presumably including frustration of man\'s primal drive of reproduction. The predominance of this element tends both to exclude claims asserted by children for injury to a parent and to avoid excessive appeal to sentimentality.

Id. at 510-11, 170 N.W.2d 867-68 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).

In this case, plaintiffs seek to extend the law of consortium to recognize a child's claim for the loss of society and companionship of a parent arising out of the physical injuries negligently inflicted on the parent. We decline to do so based on our prior cases and on countervailing policy considerations.

In Plain v. Plain, 307 Minn. 399, 240 N.W.2d 330 (1976), we held that a child could not recover damages from his or her mother for loss of maternal services when she negligently injures herself. We stated that "a child's interest in parental services is not protected against negligent interference even on the part of third parties," id. at 402, 240 N.W.2d at 332 (footnote omitted), and quoted a tentative draft of § 707A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which section currently provides:

Action by Child for Harm Caused by Tort Against Parent

One who by reason of his tortious conduct is liable to a parent for illness or other bodily harm is not liable to a minor child for resulting loss of parental support and care.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 707A (1977). Our holding in Plain was based in part on an earlier decision, Eschenbach v. Benjamin, 195 Minn. 378, 263 N.W. 154 (1935), in which we denied a cause of action on behalf of the plaintiff children against a third person who negligently caused permanent and disabling injuries to their father. In Eschenbach, this court expressed concern that to allow the child's cause of action would spurn "litigation almost without end, all based upon a single tort and only one individual physically involved in the accident itself." Id. at 380, 263 N.W. at 155-56. We need not detail the burdens presently being placed on the court system of this state in its attempt to respond to increasing caseloads and backlogged court calendars, a situation with which litigants and others who interact regularly with our justice system are all too familiar. Suffice it to say, the situation is sufficiently compelling today to make the concern we expressed in Eschenbach as relevant now as it was then.

As an exercise in delineating liability, the instant case is somewhat analogous to our rejection of a right to recover for the emotional and mental distress with resultant physical symptoms experienced by a "bystander" as a consequence of direct injuries to another. Stadler v. Cross, 295 N.W.2d 552 (Minn.1980). In Stadler, we discussed the considerations that are relevant to limiting the circle of liability:

A person\'s liability for the consequences of her or his actions cannot be unlimited. The limits imposed must be as workable, reasonable, logical, and just as possible. If the limits cannot be consistently and meaningfully applied by courts and juries, then the imposition of liability would become arbitrary and capricious. Consequently, the cause of just apportionment of the losses would suffer. As the California Supreme Court observed, "Justice * * * exists only when it can be effectively administered." Amaya v. Home Ice, Fuel & Supply Co., 59 Cal.2d 295, 310, 29 Cal.Rptr. 33, 42, 379 P.2d 513, 522 (1963).

Id. at 554. Other factors we feel are proper considerations in defining the scope of liability include the fear of a proliferation of claims, the potential for fraudulent claims, the foreseeability of the injury, and unduly burdensome liability. Id. at 555 n.3.

Of the courts that have decided the question presented in this case, the overwhelming majority have declined to authorize an action for loss of parental consortium.¹ Three jurisdictions have recognized the cause of action.² We believe, however, that...