Spires v. Simpson, No. E2015-00697-SC-R11-CV

• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee
• Writing for the Court: Holly Kirby, J.
• Citation: 539 S.W.3d 134
• Decision Date: 27 December 2017
• Docket Number: No. E2015-00697-SC-R11-CV
• Parties: Kenneth M. SPIRES et al. v. Haley Reece SIMPSON et al.

539 S.W.3d 134

Kenneth M. SPIRES et al.
v.
Haley Reece SIMPSON et al.

No. E2015-00697-SC-R11-CV

Supreme Court of Tennessee, AT KNOXVILLE.

May 9, 2017 Session
FILED December 27, 2017

John W. Cleveland, Sr., Sweetwater, Tennessee, for the appellant, Major Dana Trent Hensley, Jr.

Timothy A. Roberto and Ralph Brown, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellee, Kenneth M. Spires.

Unpublished Text Follows End of Unpublished Text

Holly Kirby, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Jeffrey S. Bivins, C.J., and Cornelia A. Clark, Sharon G. Lee, and Roger A. Page, JJ., joined.

Holly Kirby, J.

539 S.W.3d 136

We granted permission to appeal in this case to clarify when two Tennessee statutes would apply to preclude a parent who owes child support arrearages from recovering proceeds from a wrongful death lawsuit. In this case, the plaintiff and the decedent were married and had one child; the plaintiff abandoned the decedent and their son soon after the child was born. The plaintiff and the decedent never divorced. The decedent spouse died unexpectedly, and soon afterward the plaintiff surviving spouse filed this wrongful death action. At the time, the plaintiff surviving spouse owed child support arrearages for four other children unrelated to the decedent. The trial court dismissed the plaintiff surviving spouse from the wrongful death lawsuit based on a provision in Tennessee's wrongful death statutes, Tennessee Code Annotated section 20-5-107(b) (2009 & Supp. 2017), and a similar provision in Tennessee's intestate succession statutes, Tennessee Code Annotated section 31-2-105(b) (2015 & Supp. 2017). It held that these two statutes disqualified the plaintiff from filing the wrongful death action or recovering the proceeds from it because he never provided financial support for his child with the decedent spouse and because he had child support arrearages for his four children unrelated to the decedent spouse. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. It held that the two statutes did not bar the plaintiff from commencing the lawsuit for the wrongful death of his spouse, but it also held that they precluded him from recovering proceeds from the wrongful death lawsuit until his outstanding child support arrearages were satisfied. Consequently, the Court of Appeals ordered that the plaintiff's recovery from the wrongful death action be paid toward satisfaction of his child support arrearages for his four children who were unrelated to the decedent spouse. On appeal, we hold that the prohibitions in Tennessee Code Annotated sections 20-5-107(b) and 31-2-105(b) apply only when (1) the "parent" who seeks to recover in the wrongful death lawsuit is a parent of the decedent child, and (2) that parent's child support arrearage is owed for the support of that decedent child. Therefore, neither statute is applicable under the facts of this case. Accordingly, the decisions of the lower courts are reversed and vacated insofar as they applied those two statutes to this case. We affirm the Court of Appeals' holding that newly enacted wrongful death statutes regarding a surviving spouse's waiver based on abandonment of a decedent spouse may not be applied retroactively.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Charity Felicia Spires and Plaintiff/Appellee Kenneth M. Spires married and had one child born during the marriage, a son named Uriah (born in March 2009). In April 2009, a month after Uriah was born, Mr. Spires abandoned Mrs. Spires and the child. Though Mr. and Mrs. Spires did not divorce, Mr. Spires never returned to the marital home. He did not contribute to the financial support of either his wife or his son, Uriah.

539 S.W.3d 137

In October 2010, when Uriah was about eighteen months old, Mrs. Spires died in a tragic automobile accident involving seventeen-year-old Defendant Haley Reece Simpson. The next month, in November 2010, the Juvenile Court of Monroe County awarded custody of Uriah to his maternal grandmother, Constance Ogle. Ms. Ogle also qualified as administrator of the estate of Mrs. Spires.

On November 18, 2010, Mr. Spires filed this wrongful death lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, Tennessee, against Ms. Simpson and her parents, alleging that their negligence resulted in the death of Mrs. Spires (hereinafter "Decedent"). Mr. Spires filed the complaint in his individual capacity and also as the representative of the Decedent and Uriah. The Simpson defendants denied liability. Discovery ensued.

Over a year later, in March 2012, Ms. Ogle sought to intervene in the wrongful death lawsuit by filing a "Motion to Intervene, to Appoint Guardian, to Dismiss Plaintiff[,] and to Substitute New Plaintiff." In the motion, Ms. Ogle asserted that she should be appointed Uriah's guardian for purposes of the lawsuit and that she should be substituted as the representative plaintiff in Mr. Spires' stead. Ms. Ogle acknowledged Mr. Spires was the Decedent's surviving spouse. She argued, however, that he was disqualified from prosecuting the wrongful death lawsuit in his individual capacity and from recovering any proceeds in the lawsuit because he had failed to contribute any support for Uriah and because he owed child support arrearages to four other mothers for four other children. Ms. Ogle also alleged that Mr. Spires should be disqualified based on his abandonment of the Decedent.

In August 2012, while Ms. Ogle's motion to intervene in the wrongful death lawsuit was still pending, the Chancery Court of Blount County, Tennessee, entered an order of adoption, permitting the Decedent's brother, Captain (now Major) Dana Trent Hensley, Jr., M.D., to adopt Uriah. The adoption order terminated Mr. Spires' parental rights as to Uriah based on abandonment for failure to visit or support Uriah during the four-month period preceding the termination petition.¹ See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 36-1-102(1)(A), 113 (2017).

In November 2013, even though the trial court had not yet entered an order on Ms. Ogle's motion to intervene, Mr. Spires filed a motion asking the trial court to dismiss her from the wrongful death lawsuit for failure to prosecute. Mr. Spires' motion asserted that he had agreed with Ms. Ogle to allow her to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff to represent the Decedent and Uriah but that he would not agree to dismissal of his individual claim.² He said in the motion that Ms. Ogle had since refused to correspond with him about moving forward with the lawsuit on those terms. Mr. Spires asked the trial court to dismiss Ms. Ogle from the lawsuit and allow it to proceed with him as the sole plaintiff.

In March 2014, after Major Hensley had become Uriah's adoptive father, he and Ms. Ogle filed a joint response to Mr. Spires' motion in the wrongful death lawsuit.

539 S.W.3d 138

Concomitantly, they asked the trial court to permit both Major Hensley and Ms. Ogle to intervene in the lawsuit. They jointly asked the trial court to substitute Major Hensley to represent the interests of Uriah and to substitute Ms. Ogle, as administrator of the Decedent's estate, to represent the Decedent. As in Ms. Ogle's initial motion to intervene, Ms. Ogle and Major Hensley jointly argued that Mr. Spires was disqualified from prosecuting the wrongful death action or from recovering any proceeds from the lawsuit because he had abandoned the Decedent and had failed to support either the Decedent or Uriah prior to the Decedent's death.

In June 2014, the trial court conducted a hearing in the matter. At the hearing, counsel for the Simpson defendants announced that their insurance company, Tennessee Farmers Mutual Insurance Company ("Tennessee Farmers"), and all other parties had agreed to settle the matter for insurance policy limits of $100,000. Tennessee Farmers said it was prepared to tender the $100,000 to the trial court to be divided in any manner the court determined.³ The parties told the trial court they had agreed to accept the $100,000 settlement regardless of the outcome of the other issues pending before the court.

At the same hearing, Mr. Spires stipulated to an assertion in Ms. Ogle's initial motion to intervene—that he has four children (other than Uriah) by four other mothers unrelated to the Decedent. He further stipulated that he was under child support orders as to the other four children and owed child support arrearages in amounts totaling almost $72,000: $15,945; $27,590; $14,865; and $13,532.⁴ It was undisputed that there had never been a formal child support order requiring Mr. Spires to pay child support for Uriah, and in fact he had never paid any support for Uriah.

The intervenors argued at the hearing that Mr. Spires' failure to support Uriah or satisfy the child support arrearages for his other four children disqualified him from prosecuting the wrongful death action under Tennessee Code Annotated section 20-5-107(b) (2009 & Supp. 2017). They argued as well that, under Tennessee Code Annotated section 31-2-105(b), Mr. Spires was precluded from recovering any proceeds from the wrongful death lawsuit, regardless of the identity of the named plaintiff. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 31-2-105(b) (2015 & Supp. 2017). In addition, the intervenors contended that, pursuant to statutes enacted after the Decedent's death, Mr. Spires' abandonment of the...