Corrigan v. General Electric Co.

548 N.E.2d 1238, 406 Mass. 478, 1990 Mass. LEXIS 48

• Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Decided: January 18, 1990
• Status: Published

Opinions

Lynch J.

This is an action to recover for loss of consortium due to a personal injury allegedly sustained by the plaintiffs husband on October 22, 1980, in the course of his employment by the defendant. Because the alleged injury occurred in 1980, this claim is unaffected by G. L. c. 152, § 24, as appearing in St. 1985, c. 527, § 35, which effectively abolished loss of consortium actions for spouses and children of employees covered by workers’ compensation. The single question on appeal is whether the doctrine of issue preclusion, also known as collateral estoppel, bars the plaintiff from litigating the question whether her husband was injured on October 22, 1980.

The plaintiff’s husband had earlier instituted a workers’ compensation claim in which he claimed such an injury. A member of the Industrial Accident Board, subsequently affirmed by the reviewing board, found that the husband had not sustained the claimed injury. Relying on that determination, the defendant sought and obtained summary judgment in the instant litigation on the ground that the workers’ compensation decision collaterally estopped the plaintiff from re-litigating the injury question. The plaintiff appealed, and we transferred the case to this court on our own initiative. This court affirms the judgment.

“A fundamental precept of common-law adjudication, embodied in the related doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata, is that ‘a right, question or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction . . . cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies ....’” Fidler v. E.M. Parker Co., 394 Mass. 534, 539 (1985), quoting Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153 (1979). This principle applies when the earlier determination has been made in a workers’ compensation proceeding before the Industrial Accident Board. Martin v. Ring, 401 Mass. 59, 63-64 (1987). Furthermore, mutuality of parties is not always required. Martin v. Ring, supra at 61. Home Owners Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Northwestern Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 354 Mass. 448, 454 (1968).

In Fidler v. E.M. Parker Co., supra, we held that a spouse, not a plaintiff to the prior adjudication, was precluded from relitigating settled issues in the loss of consortium claim where the claim and the spouse’s prior personal injury claim were “sufficiently related,” and no “other circumstances existed which warrant [ed] relitigation of the issues.” Id. at 541-542, 548.

Here the defendant seeks to invoke issue preclusion to bar a plaintiff from relitigating an issue decided against the plaintiff’s spouse in a prior case. The principal difference between this case and Fidler is that here the plaintiff could not have been a party to her husband’s prior workers’ compensation claim, while in Fidler the spouse could have, but did not, join in his wife’s tort claim. This court has ruled that a spouse’s loss of consortium claim is an independent cause of action, Ferriter v. Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, 381 Mass. 507, 543 (1980) (Wilkins, J., dissenting). The Legislature, however, has since nullified the Ferriter decision by preventing recovery for loss of consortium by spouses or children of employees subject to the provisions of the Workers’ Compensation Act, G. L. c. 152, § 24, as amended through St. 1985, c. 527, § 35.

Although, under the teaching of Ferriter, the plaintiff’s loss of consortium remains a separate cause of action, the relationship to her spouse’s claim is symbiotic. Central to both claims is the causation of her husband’s back injury. Diaz v. Eli Lilly & Co., 364 Mass. 153, 167-168 (1973). The workers’ compensation claim has established that this injury did not occur to the husband in the course of his employment. The plaintiff does not dispute that this issue was fully litigated in the workers’ compensation case. We conclude that the spouse ought not to be able to recover for claims resulting from injuries to her husband that prior workers’ compensation proceedings have established are not compensable. Under Fidler, the wife’s claim is “sufficiently related” and no “other circumstances exist which warrant relitigation of the issues.” Id. at 541-542, 548. “Although it is not as clear that collateral estoppel should apply to preclude a party not a plaintiff in the prior action from litigating an issue, the policy of repose is especially significant when the spouse of a nonprevailing litigant seeks to litigate a claim related to the spouse’s alleged injuries. The trend in the law is against allowing suits for loss of consortium where the injured spouse would be collaterally estopped from litigating the same or similar issues. See Roy v. Jasper Corp., 666 F.2d 714, 716 (1st Cir. 1981) (holding that, under New Hampshire law, a spouse is collaterally estopped by prior judgment from litigating loss of consortium claim). ‘When a person with a family relationship to one suffering personal injury has a claim for loss to himself resulting from the injury, the determination of issues in an action by the injured person to recover for his injuries is preclusive against the family member, unless the judgment was based on a defense that is unavailable against the family member in the second action.’ Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 48 (2) (1982).” Fidler, supra at 547.

It is true that the plaintiff is precluded from joining her husband’s workers’ compensation claim. On the other hand, the defendant could not have avoided the prior claim because participation in the workers’ compensation program is now compulsory for most employers. Ferriter v. Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, supra at 520. Fairness requires that, when a spouse with a sufficiently related claim has fully litigated an issue, an employer should not be forced to relitigate the same issue. To provide otherwise would defeat the basic purpose of issue preclusion “to conserve judicial resources, to prevent the unnecessary costs associated with multiple litigation, and to ensure the finality of judgments.” Martin v. Ring, 401 Mass. 59, 61 (1987).

Judgment affirmed.