## Facts

- Patricia Borer was struck and injured by a falling light-fixture cover while in an American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
- Patricia’s nine minor children sued American Airlines seeking damages for their own alleged losses stemming from her injuries.
- Each child alleged deprivation of their mother’s services, society, companionship, affection, guidance, instruction, and aid in development, and sought damages for “loss of parental consortium.”
- Patricia Borer was the physically injured person, but the appeal concerned only the children’s independent consortium-type claims.

## Issues

1. Whether California law recognizes a minor child’s independent negligence cause of action for loss of parental consortium when a parent is nonfatally injured by a third party.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment sustaining American Airlines’ demurrer without leave to amend.
- The court held that a child may not maintain a cause of action for loss of parental consortium arising from nonfatal injury to a parent.
- The court declined to extend spousal loss-of-consortium recovery to the parent-child relationship.
- The court rejected the children’s equal protection challenge to limiting consortium recovery to spouses.

## Legal Principles

- Creation of new relational tort causes of action may be limited on policy grounds, including difficulty of valuing intangible familial losses in money damages.
- Courts may deny recognition of new consortium-type claims where doing so would substantially expand liability by multiplying claims from a single injury event (e.g., multiple children).
- Courts may consider line-drawing problems in determining which relationships would qualify if a parent-child consortium claim were recognized.
- Where a proposed claim would overlap with damages recoverable by the directly injured person, courts may deny the claim to avoid double recovery and evidentiary complications.
- Expansion of tort liability involving broad social-policy judgments may be left to the legislature, which can impose categorical limits and procedural requirements.
- Differential treatment between spousal consortium and parent-child consortium does not necessarily violate equal protection because the relationships may be treated as legally distinct for purposes of tort remedies.

## Conclusion

The court refused to recognize a child’s independent claim for loss of parental consortium after a parent’s nonfatal injury, affirming dismissal on demurrer and limiting consortium recovery in California to the spousal relationship absent legislative action.


Borer v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 19 Cal. 3d 441 (Cal. 1977)