Norman v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

529 N.E.2d 139, 403 Mass. 303

• Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
• Decided: October 11, 1988
• Status: Published

Opinions

O’Connor, J.

The principal question in this case is whether a parent may recover for the loss of a child’s consortium due to injuries negligently inflicted on the child by a third party. The complaint alleges that Mathew Norman sustained severe injuries when he was struck by a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) vehicle, negligently operated by its employee, the defendant, Steven DeDominici. Mathew’s asserted damages include his medical expenses. Meg Manderson Norman, Mathew’s mother, and Paul M. Norman, his father, seek damages for the loss of Mathew’s consortium and they, too, seek damages for his medical expenses. The defendants moved to dismiss the parents’ claims, and that motion was denied. Pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 64, 365 Mass. 831 (1974), the judge reported his ruling to the Appeals Court, and we granted direct appellate review. We now reverse the order denying the defendants’ motion. We remand the case for the entry of an order dismissing the parents’ claims and for further proceedings with respect to Mathew’s claim.

In reviewing a ruling on a motion to dismiss, we accept as true the allegations of the complaint. Manning v. Zuckerman, 388 Mass. 8, 9 (1983). We must determine whether the plaintiffs would be entitled to recover on any set of facts provable under the complaint. Flattery v. Gregory, 397 Mass. 143, 146 (1986). Bahceli v. Bahceli, lO Mass. App. Ct. 446,451 (1980). In that connection, we observe that the complaint is silent with respect to whether Mathew was an adult or a minor, and was emancipated or unemancipated when the accident occurred. Neither fact is essential to our resolution of the consortium issue.

In Diaz v. Eli Lilly & Co., 364 Mass. 153, 165 (1973), we recognized a right of recovery for loss of spousal consortium. We rejected the proposition that recognition of that right would logically require recognition of a similar right inhering in countless other relationships. Id. Our promise was to “proceed from case to case with discerning caution.” Id. Subsequently, when we decided to allow dependent minor children to recover for the loss of a parent’s consortium, we reiterated “our determination to ‘proceed from case to case with discerning caution’ in this field.” Ferriter v. Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, 381 Mass. 507, 516 (1980). Our repeated commitment to use discerning caution was prompted by an awareness that, as a matter of sound public policy, the law cannot and should not attempt to right all wrongs. “ [A]s a matter of policy, it must be recognized that tort liability cannot be extended without limit.” Feliciano v. Rosemar Silver Co., 401 Mass. 141, 142 (1987). See Cohen v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 389 Mass. 327, 341 (1983). The court must carefully limit the situations in which a defendant may be liable to persons indirectly affected by injuries negligently inflicted on third persons. Otherwise, society’s exposure to the threat of financial ruin will be intolerable. “The problem for the law is to limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree.” Payton v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 551 (1982), quoting Tobin v. Grossman, 24 N.Y.2d 609, 619 (1969).

In Diaz and Ferriter we recognized that the relationship between a negligently injured person and a person seeking recovery for loss of consortium may be such that recourse for the consortium loss must be available despite the strong public interest in not expanding tort liability beyond tolerable limits. Accepting that proposition, but also accepting the proposition that the possibility of recovery cannot wisely be extended to every relationship in which a loss of consortium has been sustained, we must draw a principled, defensible line between those relationships to which a right of recovery should attach and those relationships with respect to which no such right should be recognized. “Every effort must be made to avoid arbitrary lines which ‘unnecessarily produce incongruous and indefensible results.’” Dziokonski v. Babineau, 375 Mass. 555, 568 (1978), quoting Mone v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 368 Mass. 354, 365 (1975) (Braucher, J., dissenting).

By the very nature of marriage, spouses depend on one another’s society, companionship, love and support (consortium) to a degree of intensity not normally present in other relationships. An injury to a spouse that impairs his or her ability to fulfil the other spouse’s needs in that regard ordinarily is uniquely serious, identifiable and predictable. Our recognition of a right of recovery for the loss of spousal consortium in Diaz reflects that fact. Subsequently, in Ferriter, supra at 510, in concluding that a dependent minor child should be entitled to recovery for the loss of a parent’s consortium, we characterized a minor child’s interest in his parent’s society as “closely analogous” to the interest of a wife in her husband’s society recognized in Diaz. We expressed our skepticism “of any suggestion that the child’s interest... is less intense than the wife’s.” In the ordinary course of things, the dependence of spouses on one another for love and support is found to the same degree in no other relationship except, perhaps, in the relationship of a minor child to his or her parents. The key to our holding in Ferriter was our recognition that ordinarily minor children are critically dependent on their parents for the spiritual and physical necessities of life. Thus, we concluded that the Ferriter children had “a viable claim for loss of parental society if they [could] show that they are minors dependent on [their injured father].” Id. at 516. We added: “This dependence must be rooted not only in economic requirements, but also in filial needs for closeness, guidance, and nurture.” Id.

The Appeals Court’s decision in Morgan v. Lalumiere, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 262, 270 (1986), is consistent with Diaz and Ferriter. In Morgan, the court allowed a mentally and physically disabled adult child to recover for the loss of the consortium of his mother upon whom he was “physically, emotionally, and financially” dependent. The common thread in Diaz, Ferriter, and Morgan was the unique and intense dependency intrinsic to the relationship of the parties.

Although parents customarily enjoy the consortium of their children, in the ordinary course of events a parent does not depend on a child’s companionship, love, support, guidance, and nurture in the same way and to the same degree that a husband depends on his wife, a wife depends on her husband, or a minor or disabled adult child depends on his or her parent. Of course, it is true that such dependency may exist in a particular situation, but it is not intrinsic to the parent-child relationship as is a minor child’s dependency on his or her parents and as is each spouse’s dependency on the other spouse. Thus, a principled distinction can be made between the situations governed by the Diaz, Ferriter, and Morgan cases and the instant case. On the other hand, if a plaintiff parent is permitted to recover in the circumstances of this case, there will be no defensible reason in the future to deny recovery to other relatives or even to friends who can establish that a defendant’s conduct has adversely interfered with their relationship with the physically injured person.

Our opinions in Stowe v. Heywood, 7 Allen 118 (1863), and Cook v. Bartlett, 179 Mass. 576 (1901), both of which involved intentional torts, did not intimate that a parent should recover for the loss of a child’s consortium resulting from injuries negligently inflicted on the child. In Stowe, we observed that a father may recover loss of consortium damages not only for the seduction of his daughter, but also “in various other actions for injuries wilfully inflicted” (emphasis added). Id. at 122. We then said, “We therefore need not now inquire whether damages for such suffering can be recovered, when it is the effect of an injury caused by negligence and carelessness only, and not by design.” Id. at 122-123. As Justice Liacos recently stated for the court, relative to an action based on negligence, “it does not appear that damages for the parent’s mental suffering or for loss of the child’s society [have been] available when the gravamen of the parent’s claim was physical injury to the child.” Ferriter, supra at 512.

Not only do our decisions involving intentional torts fail in their language to support the proposition that a parent should recover for the loss of a child’s consortium as a result of negligently inflicted injuries, but also sound policy suggests the appropriateness of a distinction between loss of consortium due to intentional wrongdoing and a similar loss due to negligence. Whether recovery should be permitted requires a proper balancing of the desirability of compensating injured persons with the undesirability of imposing unfair burdens on defendants. Whether the tort is intentional or negligent is a factor relevant to the equation. Society is rightly less concerned about the burden placed on an intentional wrongdoer than about the burden placed on one who has been merely negligent. In Payton v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 547 (1982), we recognized this truth in another context when we said: “It should be noted . . . that the retributive function of imposing tort liability is served by allowing recovery for emotional distress, without proof of physical harm, where a defendant’s conduct was either intentional or reckless. Where a defendant was only negligent, his fault is not so great as to require him to compensate the plaintiff for a purely mental disturbance.”

If, as a result of the defendants’ negligence, Mathew Norman had died, his parents, as next of kin, would have been entitled to recover under the wrongful death statute, G. L. c. 229, § 2, for the loss of his consortium. Does consistency require that the parents be entitled to recover for the loss of Mathew’s consortium due, not to Mathew’s death, but to his injuries? Does consistency require that recovery for loss of consortium be available to anyone who would have been the injured person’s next of kin had the injured person died? We think not. In a wrongful death action, damages are not recoverable both for the injured person’s losses and the derivative losses of others. In a wrongful death action, although the next of kin may recover for loss of consortium, no one recovers for the losses sustained by the injured deceased party. Here, the plaintiffs seek to recover for both. We conclude that the plaintiff parents cannot recover for the loss of their injured child’s consortium.

In addition to their loss of consortium claim, Meg Manderson Norman and Paul M. Norman seek to recover their contribution to the payment of Mathew’s medical expenses. Although the complaint is silent with respect to Mathew’s age, it is undisputed that, at the time of the accident, Mathew was nineteen years old, and was therefore an adult. G. L. c. 4, § 7, Forty-eighth and Fiftieth (1986 ed.). Because Mathew seeks his medical expenses and, assuming the defendants’ liability, is entitled to them, the parents’ claim for the same expenses should be dismissed. This case is remanded to the Superior Court for the entry of an order dismissing the parents’ claims, and for further proceedings with respect to Mathew’s claims.

So ordered.