Stamboulis v. Stamboulis

• Citation: 519 N.E.2d 1299,401 Mass. 762
• Parties: , 56 USLW 2551 Fevronia STAMBOULIS, et al. 1 v. Marianna STAMBOULIS.
• Decision Date: 07 March 1988
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Page 1299

519 N.E.2d 1299

401 Mass. 762, 56 USLW 2551

Fevronia STAMBOULIS, et al. ¹ v. Marianna STAMBOULIS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,

Worcester.

Argued Oct. 6, 1987.

Decided March 7, 1988.

Roger J. Brunelle, Worcester, for plaintiffs.

Kenneth F. Rosenberg, Worcester, for defendant.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, LIACOS, ABRAMS, NOLAN, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

On April 12, 1984, the defendant, who operated the College Square Pizza on Southbridge Street in Worcester, took her three year old daughter with her to the pizza facility. The defendant was making pizzas, and Fevronia was putting dough in pizza pans. When the defendant went to answer the telephone, Fevronia undertook to put dough through an electric dough rolling machine on a kitchen counter. One of her hands was caught in the machine and injured.

In this action, Fevronia by her father seeks to recover against her mother for negligently causing Fevronia's injury. Her father seeks on his own behalf to recover for medical expenses and also for negligent infliction of emotional distress. A Superior Court judge allowed the mother's motion for summary judgment on Fevronia's claim against her mother and on the father's claim for medical expenses. Judgment was entered under Mass.R.Civ.P. 54(b), 365 Mass. 820 (1965), as to the counts on which summary judgment was granted in favor of the mother, and Fevronia and her father appeal. ² We allowed the plaintiffs' application for direct appellate review.

The judge's ruling followed our decisions concerning parent-child immunity. See Luster v. Luster, 299 Mass. 480, 13 N.E.2d 438 (1938); Oliveria v. Oliveria, 305 Mass. 297, 25 N.E.2d 766 (1940), which recognized the principle and Sorensen v. Sorensen, 369 Mass. 350, 339 N.E.2d 907 (1975), which abrogated the rule in a limited respect. The judge's decision concerned only the question of the immunity of the defendant mother from liability for negligently causing injury to her minor child. The judge did not consider the circumstances of the accident and whether, absent parental immunity, there was a breach of duty. ³

In the Sorensen case, the court abrogated the principle of parent-child immunity for motor vehicle torts only. ⁴ We recognized that, just because the wrongdoer was a parent of the injured minor, the defendant was not insulated from liability. Our rejection of parental status as a conclusive factor in deciding a liability question is consistent with a pattern of tort decisions from this court in the past twenty years. We have rejected the status of a party to the tort as a controlling element in determining liability for negligence. See Colby v. Carney Hosp., 356 Mass. 527, 528, 254 N.E.2d 407 (1969) (defendant's status as a charity not to be a bar to liability in future cases); Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693, 707, 297 N.E.2d 43 (1973) (landowner's duty of care not affected by status of person lawfully on the premises); Lewis v. Lewis, 370 Mass. 619, 630, 351 N.E.2d 526 (1976) (interspousal immunity abolished as to motor vehicle accidents); Whitney v. Worcester, 373 Mass. 208, 210, 366 N.E.2d 1210 (1977) (common law governmental immunity to be abrogated); Brown v. Brown, 381 Mass. 231, 231, 409 N.E.2d 717 (1980) (interspousal immunity abolished as to nonmotor vehicle torts). Contra Schofield v. Merrill, 386 Mass. 244, 435 N.E.2d 339 (1982) (adult trespasser, not known to be in peril, absolutely barred from asserting negligence claim against landowner, but see id. at 254-259 [Liacos, J., dissenting, with whom Wilkins and Abrams, JJ., joined] ).

There is nothing special about negligently caused motor vehicle injuries that sets them apart from all other negligently caused injuries. A distinction based on motor vehicle versus nonmotor vehicle accidents in deciding the limits of parental immunity has no rational justification. Indeed, no logical line based on immunity can be drawn, and none should be. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 895G (1979). ⁵ See Brown v. Brown, 381 Mass. 231, 232, 409 N.E.2d 717 (1980), where we said that "the reasons for abrogation [of the immunity for negligence] are not limited to [motor vehicle] cases." The point is that status should not be determinative in either situation.

Once immunity is eliminated, the focus should be on the duty of care that should be applied in deciding a minor child's negligence claim against a parent. The fact of parenthood is relevant to the standard of care which a court should apply. Courts which have abrogated (or never have adopted) parental immunity have taken different views of the appropriate standard of care in various situations. ⁶ The issue is not before us. We do not decide it and could not on the record before us.

All we decide here is that no absolute curtain of immunity protects a parent who negligently causes injury to his or her minor child.

Judgment reversed.

HENNESSEY, Chief Justice (concurring).

I agree with the result reached by Justices Wilkins, Liacos, and Abrams. I also agree with their reasoning in all but one respect, as follows. The opinion lists and briefly describes several cases in which we have rejected the status of a party to the tort (e.g., a spouse, a charity, a government entity) as a controlling element in determining liability for negligence. Also listed is Schofield v. Merrill, 386 Mass. 244, 435 N.E.2d 339 (1982), in which a majority of this court concluded that an adult trespasser, not known to be in peril, was barred from recovering in a negligence claim against the landowner. The implication is that the result in Schofield is inconsistent (it is cited as "contra") with the "status" cases. Not so. I suppose that in a dictionary sense we are indicating a status when we speak of a trespasser. More significantly, we are referring to conduct. "Trespasser" is a label for a person who has unlawfully entered the land of another. I joined a majority of this court in Schofield in determining that such a wrongdoer, whether burglar or mere interloper, can prevail only upon a showing of wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct of the defendant landowner. I suggest that the Schofield result is sound policy, and also is consistent with the reasoning that the status of a party should not be a controlling element in determining liability for negligence.

NOLAN, Justice (dissenting, with whom LYNCH, J., joins).

I dissent. In the case of Sorensen v. Sorensen, 369 Mass. 350, 339 N.E.2d 907 (1975), we allowed an exemption to the parent-child immunity doctrine in automobile tort actions to the extent that the damages were paid from motor vehicle liability insurance. Although subsequent decisions have questioned the validity of the insurance coverage requirement of Sorensen, see Lewis v. Lewis, 370 Mass. 619, 630 n. 4, 351 N.E.2d 526 (1976); Pevoski v. Pevoski, 371 Mass. 358, 363, 358 N.E.2d 416 (1976) (Quirico, J., concurring); New Hampshire Ins. Co. v. Fahey, 385 Mass. 137, 138, 430 N.E.2d 1193 (1982), never has the court expanded the parent-child immunity exception beyond motor vehicle torts.

Our reticent approach to dismantling the immunity between child and parent is best explained in the concluding passages of the Sorensen opinion. "We limit our holding to the circumstances of the case before us: an automobile tort action brought by an unemancipated minor child against a parent. Allowance of such an action neither undermines 'parental authority and discipline' ... nor threatens substitution of judicial discretion for parental discretion in the care and rearing of minor children. Neither parental authority and discipline nor parental discretion in child care is called into question by an automobile accident case.... We are mindful that there may be parental exercises of discretion and authority which should be immune from scrutiny in a court of law. However, we are not here confronted with such cases and we need not speculate as to the scope of our holding. That scope will be determined by following the logic and policy of the present decision." Sorensen, supra 369 Mass. at 365-366, 339 N.E.2d 907 (footnote and citations omitted).

To allow the child in the instant case to maintain an action against her mother for failing properly to supervise her activities at the pizza shop is to ignore each of the reservations expressed by the Sorensen court. Unlike a motor vehicle tort action, allowance of the present action tends to undermine parental authority and discipline by substituting for parents' discretion in the care and rearing of minor children that of the court. Nor should we create a new immunity exception that would allow a child to maintain an action against a parent where the alleged negligent supervision occurred at the parent's place of business, a limited exception that even the plaintiffs describe as "not logically defensible." ¹

The decision today to strike the parent-child immunity doctrine in this case alleging negligent parental supervision flies in the face of a majority of the State courts. See, e.g., Thomas v. Inmon, 268 Ark. 221, 223, 594 S.W.2d 853 (1980) (immunity bars action for negligence against persons standing in loco parentis); Horton v Reaves,86 Colo. 149, 156, 526 P.2d 304 (1974) (simple negligence claim by infant against mother barred by parental immunity); Horton v. Unigard Ins., Co., 355 So.2d 154, 156 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1978) (tort action may not be maintained between father and son because of policy to encourage family unity and maintain family discipline); Coleman v. Coleman, 157 Ga.App. 533, 533-534, 278 S.E.2d 114 (1981) (unemancipated child cannot sue parent for injury arising from negligent act); Pedigo v. Rowley, 101 Idaho 201, 205, 610 P.2d 560 (1980) (parental immunity bars action for alleged negligent supervision); Vaughan v. Vaughan, 161 Ind.App. 497, 500, 316 N.E.2d 455 (1974) (action based on failure to supervise barred by parental immunity); Rigdon v. Rigdon, 465 S.W.2d 921, 923...