HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - The Connecticut Supreme Court won't extend certain claims in lawsuits any further than they already go, ruling recently in a closely watched case against a parent who put her infant daughter in a car seat next to a stove.
Mary Lapointe placed the Graco car seat, child and all, next to an electric range stove and left the room on June 23, 2020. She claims the faulty design of the stove and/or car seat caused the fire, which caused severe burns to her child's entire body.
Her ensuing federal court lawsuit in Connecticut blamed Newell Brands, which made the car seat, plus Target as its seller and Haier US Appliance Solutions as the manufacturer of the stove.
According to Lapointe, the car seat was defective and unsafe and Newell did not "conduct proper safety testing." Plus, she said, the stove's knobs did not have safety mechanisms to keep accidental touching from turning on the burners.
She lost claims under state consumer protection laws in federal court, as they could not coexist with her products liability claims.
Federal judge Michael Shea asked the Connecticut Supreme Court for guidance on another topic: whether a mother could sue for loss of consortium from a child.
The case drew amicus briefs from both the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and the Connecticut Defense Lawyers Association. On Feb. 11, the state Supreme Court ruled for the defendants.
Loss of consortium has been recognized in the state for spouses who lost household services, financial support, affection and companionship because of their partner's injuries. In 2015, the court extended it to children who lose those things from an injured parent.
But it doesn't work in reverse, the court said as it rejected Lapointe's filial loss of consortium claim. The relationship needs to have a mutual dependence and reliance.
"(T)his concept of dependence is important both because it provides a clear dividing line between those relationships for which we do and do not recognize a cause of action for loss of consortium," Justice Joan Alexander wrote for the court.
Lapointe focused on the seriousness of an injury to the parent-child bond, but the court rejected the idea that it is akin to the claims approved in a case called Campos in 2015.
"Parents are not dependent on their child - certainly not an infant child - for their financial support, household assistance or emotional solace," Alexander wrote.
The Texas Supreme Court had already reached the same decision in a case in that state, and its reasoning persuaded the Connecticut court.
"Without question, the child’s relational interest with the parent is characterized by dependence," the Texas Supreme Court wrote. "In contrast, the parent’s relational interest with the child is not. In a real sense, the child is becoming, and the parent has become."
The plaintiffs argued 16 of the 26 states that have been asked the question have found a parent can sue for the loss of consortium of their child, but Alexander said only six courts did so on their own. The other 11 had the cause of action enacted by their legislatures (sometimes after courts ruled the other way) or recognized it as necessary in a wrongful death or related statute.
Courts of 13 states and the District of Columbia have declined to adopt loss of filial consortium.
"Certainly, the fact that so many states allow recovery, on whatever basis, indicates that loss of filial consortium claims are neither well outside the national mainstream nor prohibitively costly to litigate," Alexander wrote.
"Although it is true that a handful of state courts recognized the cause of action in the 1980s and 1990s, that trend, such as it was, has largely run its course. In the past one-quarter century, only one more state court has embraced the plaintiffs' position."
During that same time, Alexander wrote, at least 10 other states have rejected the claim.