Americans have become popularly thought of as a very litigious society, in which suing someone else for our own misfortune appears to be a way of life. The law in Maryland and many other states has changed over the last couple of decades to broaden the pool of persons who may be sued to include our own family members. In addition to divorce or other family law matters, peace orders against relatives, and domestic violence petitions, the most recent change in Maryland law has also made it easier for parents and children to sue each other.
At the common law spouses could not sue each other civilly for negligence, nor could parents and children sue each other. The old laws under which wives were under significant legal disability have in this country at least been abolished, but until 1983 in Maryland there was still inter-spousal immunity. This meant that even if the husband was driving and caused an accident which injured his passenger who happened to be his wife, she could not sue him for her injuries even if he had insurance. The rationale was that such suits would disturb family harmony, as well as raise the possibility of collusive or fraudulent suits.
In the 1983 decision in Boblitz v. Boblitz, Maryland’s highest court abolished inter-spousal immunity in negligence cases. As a practical matter, this means for example that in an automobile accident case spouses can sue each other, or more typically recover from their spouse’s insurance company for their injuries. Insurers have responded to such changes in the law by including “household exclusion” clauses in automobile insurance policies, limiting the maximum amount of damages they must pay to an injured spouse to the minimum limits required by Maryland law (currently $20,000 for personal injury to one person).
Until 2001, in Maryland parents and children were still immune from suit by the other. The rationale, as with inter-spousal immunity, was again to promote family harmony and limit collusive claims, aided by the legal disabilities associated with being a minor. A person under eighteen who wishes to sue must do so through his “next friend,” a parent or guardian. The parent has the right to sue to recover medical expenses, since under the law the parent is obligated to pay them on behalf of the minor, and the child herself owns the claim for her own pain and suffering.
In 2001 the legislature began to chip away at parent-child immunity. It passed Section 5-806 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Code, providing that parent child immunity cannot restrict claims for wrongful death, personal injury or property damage arising from a motor vehicle accident, but limiting the waiver of immunity in such claims to the minimum liability insurance amount. The waiver applies only to claims arise from motor vehicle accidents.
The 2005 session of the legislature broadened the waiver by requiring that claims arising from motor vehicle accidents could not be restricted, either by the law or by an insurer, up to the amounts of insurance available to the person against whom the claim was made. Since many people have (and everyone who can afford it should) have limits of liability higher than the minimum amounts required under Maryland law, this expands the amounts that family members may recover from an insurer. The current law by its terms limits recovery to available insurance, although the trend seems headed toward allowing all family members to sue each other.