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[W] Renville v. Fredrickson8/31/2004
nd training of their parents. Pence , 248 Mont. at 526-27, 813 P.2d at 432-33. On that basis, we held that minor children who have been deprived of those rights have a separate cause of action for loss of consortium when a parent is tortiously injured and rendered a quadriplegic. Pence , 248 Mont. at 527, 813 P.2d at 433.
Finally, two years later in Keele v. St. Vincent Hosp. (1993), 258 Mont. 158, 852 P.2d 574, which I was proud to author for the Court, we expanded Pence under our authority and responsibility for the continued development of the common law. Keele , 258 Mont. at 161, 852 P.2d at 576. We saw no rational basis for limiting loss of parental consortium claims to children whose parents are rendered quadriplegic. Ultimately, we held that a minor child may establish a claim for loss of parental consortium by showing (1) a third party tortiously caused the parent to suffer a serious, permanent and disabling mental or physical injury compensable under Montana law; and (2) the parent's condition of permanent mental or physical impairment is so overwhelming and severe that it causes the parent-child relationship to be destroyed or nearly destroyed. Keele , 258 Mont. at 162, 852 P.2d at 577.
This Court, over time, has properly developed the law regarding loss of consortium claims between parents and children. That we have expanded the law in this area in the past, however, does not require that we forever approve every expansion of the law presented to us. Nor, in my view, does wisdom support such an approach.
Loss of consortium is based on the recognition of a legally-protected interest in a personal relationship. See United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal. (1947), 332 U.S. 301, 311-12, 67 S.Ct. 1604, 1610, 91 L.Ed. 2067, 2074. Parents bear a natural and legal burden of care for their minor children. Similarly, minor children are legally entitled to the support, aid, affection and guidance of their parents. The same simply is not true for parents and adult children. Not every loss can be made compensable. Inevitably, lines must be drawn establishing the legal limits of liability for a tortious act. As a result, allowing tort claims for loss of consortium by parents of an adult child has less legal and logical support than allowing such claims by parents of a minor child.
In fact, the majority of jurisdictions which have addressed this issue have not recognized a cause of action for loss of consortium for a parent of an adult child. Boucher v. Dixie Medical Center (Utah 1992), 850 P.2d 1179, 1183. See also Morris v. State (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999), 21 S.W.3d 196, 200; Cole v. Broomsticks, Inc. (Ohio App. 1 Dist. 1995), 669 N.E.2d 253, 256, appeal not allowed , 663 N.E.2d 1301; and Counts v. Hospitality Employees, Inc. (Iowa 1994), 518 N.W.2d 358, 361. Reasons for declining to judicially expand the law to recognize claims for parents' loss of consortium of an adult child include that the injury is too remote from the negligence or too out of proportion to the culpability of the negligent tortfeasor, and allowing recovery would place too unreasonable a burden on negligent tortfeasors and would enter a field that has no sensible or just stopping point. See Morris , 21 S.W.3d at 200 (citation omitted). I agree with those reasons.
I would decline to judicially extend the common law, as Renville requests, to create a new tort action for a parent's loss of consortium of an adult child. As is clear from the present case, a parent has an independent cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The Sacco test for the right to present such an action to a jury is high, as well it should be; in this case, Renville was unable to meet it. T
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