Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Huang

• Decision Date: 15 December 1994
• Docket Number: 1994,89,Nos. 83,s. 83
• Citation: 652 A.2d 568
• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware
• Parties: SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., a New York Corporation, and Otis Elevator Co., a New Jersey Corporation, jointly and severally, Defendants Below, Appellants, v. Hsu-Nan HUANG, Guardian ad Litem for Stephanie Huang, a minor, Plaintiff Below, Appellee. . Submitted:

Page 568

652 A.2d 568

SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO., a New York Corporation, and Otis Elevator Co., a New Jersey Corporation, jointly and severally, Defendants Below, Appellants, v. Hsu-Nan HUANG, Guardian ad Litem for Stephanie Huang, a minor, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Nos. 83, 1994, 89, 1994.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: Dec. 15, 1994.

Decided: Jan. 26, 1995.

Upon appeal from the Superior Court. REVERSED and REMANDED.

Stephen F. Dryden of Heckler & Cattie, Wilmington, for appellant Sears, Roebuck & Co.

James W. Semple of Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, Wilmington, for appellant Otis Elevator Co.

Bernard A. Van Ogtrop (argued), and R. Karl Hill of Cooch & Taylor, Wilmington, for appellee.

Before VEASEY, C.J., WALSH, HOLLAND, HARTNETT and BERGER, JJ. (constituting the Court en Banc)

HOLLAND, Justice:

This is an interlocutory appeal from the Superior Court. The plaintiff-appellee, Hsu-Nan Huang, guardian ad litem for Stephanie Huang ("Huang"), a minor, seeks damages from the defendants-appellants, Sears, Roebuck & Co. ("Sears") and Otis Elevator Co. ("Otis"). Huang's suit is based on the alleged negligence of Sears and Otis, with regard to an incident in which Huang's hand became caught in an escalator.

This appeal arises from the Superior Court's ruling, which granted Huang's motion in limine, to preclude reference at trial to the alleged negligent conduct of Huang's mother. The Superior Court certified that ruling to this Court for two reasons: first, it concluded that this Court's recent decision in Beattie v. Beattie, Del.Supr., 630 A.2d 1096 (1993), placed the continued viability of Delaware's limited parental immunity doctrine in question; and second, it recognized that its pre-trial ruling may be deemed to conflict with this Court's decision in McKeon v. Goldstein, Del.Supr., 53 Del. 24, 164 A.2d 260 (1960). This Court accepted the interlocutory appeal. Supr.Ct. R. 42.

The defendants, Sears and Otis, have raised two arguments. First, according to the defendants, the parental immunity doctrine should now be abrogated entirely for reasons similar to those that recently persuaded this Court to abrogate completely the interspousal immunity doctrine. See Beattie v. Beattie, 630 A.2d 1096. Second, the defendants argue alternatively that the Superior Court erred, as a matter of law, in ruling that Delaware's limited parental immunity doctrine precludes the presentation of evidence or argument regarding its allegation of negligent supervision by Huang's mother as a supervening cause of Huang's injury. See McKeon v. Goldstein, 164 A.2d 260.

This Court has decided to retain the current Delaware law which recognizes a limited parental immunity doctrine. Schneider v. Coe, Del.Supr., 405 A.2d 682 (1979) ("Schneider I "). This Court has also decided to adhere to its prior holding in McKeon that evidence of a parent's negligent supervision may be presented to establish that such negligence was a supervening cause of a minor child's personal injury. McKeon v. Goldstein, 164 A.2d at 262-63. Because we find the Superior Court's ruling is inconsistent with McKeon, the interlocutory judgment of the Superior Court must be reversed.

Substantive Facts

On October 5, 1991, Huang, then four years old, along with her younger brother, accompanied their mother, Cheung-Hua Mei (hereinafter "Mother"), while she shopped in the Sears retail outlet at Price's Corner. After hearing an announcement on the store's public address system, the Mother and her children took the ascending escalator from the first floor to the second floor to see a presentation on jewelry. The presentation took place on the second floor within a few feet of the escalator.

The jewelry presentation was given before more than twenty people by Valerie Carroll ¹ ("Carroll") on behalf of her employer, Classic Contemporary Designs. During the presentation, Huang's brother was in a stroller. Huang stood next to her Mother. The Huang family was somewhere in the middle of the crowd.

The Mother stood watching the jewelry presentation approximately six feet from the escalator. At times, Huang either held her Mother's hand or held the stroller next to her Mother. Carroll stated that as she:

got into the beginning of the demonstration, about 5 minutes into it, the little girl went towards the escalator. The very first time she did that I stopped and asked the mother to get the child; that was the only time I asked her.

According to Carroll, Huang went to the escalator and had to be brought back by her Mother more than two or three times.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Carroll was handing out free pendants to those in attendance when she heard Huang scream. Carroll rushed over and stopped the escalator. She then called for a security guard who came and removed Huang's hand and arm from the nippoint between the escalator handguard and handrail.

The Mother does not remember her daughter walking away from her and toward the escalator several times during the fifteen minute jewelry presentation. The Mother recalls Huang standing next to her, holding the stroller, as she approached Carroll to accept a pendant. As she went around the display table to receive the gift, she heard Huang's scream. The Mother believes the time lapse was approximately thirty seconds between the time when she last remembered Huang holding onto the stroller and when she heard Huang's scream.

Procedural Facts

Huang sued Sears and Otis for damages relating to her injury from the escalator. Huang filed a complaint in the Superior Court on February 16, 1993, against Sears. On April 8, 1993, Huang was granted leave to amend the complaint to add Otis as a party defendant.

The amended complaint alleges negligence in the construction, maintenance, and operation of the Otis manufactured escalator system in place in the Sears retail location in Price's Corner. This negligence allegedly resulted in the injury to Huang. The complaint, as amended, states that the:

[m]inor plaintiff was at all times reasonably supervised by her mother who kept a proper lookout for minor plaintiff's safety.

Sears and Otis seek to assert the defense of supervening cause based on the Mother's negligent supervision of her child, Huang. On April 8, 1993, Sears filed its answer to Huang's amended complaint, alleging as part of its Fifth Affirmative Defense that if the plaintiff was damaged in any manner whatsoever, that said damage was a direct and proximate result of the intervening and superseding actions on the part of other persons and not of this defendant, and that such intervening and superseding action on the part of the other person or persons bars recovery herein on behalf of the plaintiff due to the doctrine of intervening, superseding causation.

Sears and Otis have not asserted third party claims for contribution. They seek to introduce evidence regarding the Mother's conduct in order to show that her negligence, not theirs, was the sole (supervening) proximate cause of Huang's injury. The Superior Court ruled that no reference or argument could be made at trial to the negligence of Huang's mother. This decision was based on the doctrine of parental immunity which bars children from suing their parents, and third parties from suing parents for contribution, in cases in which an unemancipated child is negligently injured.

History in Delaware

Parental Immunity Doctrine

The doctrine of parental immunity was first recognized in Delaware by the Superior Court in the case of Strahorn v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., Del.Super., 50 Del. 50, 123 A.2d 107 (1956). The facts of Strahorn are similar to the facts in the case sub judice. A little boy evaded his father's grasp, ran to an escalator, fell, and injured his fingers in the escalator apparatus. In Strahorn, the Superior Court noted, "the majority rule is that an unemancipated minor cannot sue a parent in tort in a case of ordinary negligence." Id. 123 A.2d at 108 (citations omitted). The Superior Court adopted the majority rule, relying in part on the public policy of "preserv[ing] the peace and harmony of the home." Id. Accordingly, the Superior Court held the action was barred by the doctrine of parental immunity, notwithstanding the fact that the action was for contribution from the minor child's parent, as opposed to a direct action against the parents for damages by the minor child. Id. 123 A.2d at 109-10.

This Court first addressed the doctrine of parental immunity in the case of Williams v. Williams, Del.Supr., 369 A.2d 669 (1976). In Williams, a father, as next friend of the child, brought a direct action against the minor child's mother for injuries the child sustained in an automobile accident. This Court held that "an absolute rule of parental immunity in tort has no rational basis under modern day conditions and circumstances" and allowed the minor's suit to stand. Id. at 673.

This Court did not completely abrogate the doctrine of parental immunity in Williams and was careful to point out that Strahorn had not been overruled. The holding in Williams was limited. It only permitted an unemancipated minor child to sue an insured parent for negligence arising from an automobile accident. In Williams, we stated, "[w]hether this Court will adopt the doctrine of parental immunity when ... issues of parental authority and discretion are presented must await another case." Id.

Three years later, in Schneider v. Coe, Del.Supr., 405 A.2d 682 (1979) ("Schneider I "), this Court decided the question that Williams left unresolved. ² In Schneider I, a minor child ventured into a neighbor's yard and was kicked by a pony. The issue presented was whether a "parent who negligently supervises his unemancipated child can be liable for the resulting injury to his child." Id. at 682. This Court ruled that evidence regarding the parent's negligence was inadmissible. Williams was distinguished because "[u]nlike driving an automobile, supervision of one's...