Facts
- Laura Broadbent took her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Christopher, to the family swimming pool on the first day of swimming that year.
- Christopher could not swim and wore inflatable arm “floaties,” which Laura understood did not eliminate drowning risk and still required supervision.
- While standing near the pool with Christopher, Laura answered a ringing telephone and left him alone at the pool’s edge.
- Before she answered, she saw Christopher remove the floaties.
- Laura spoke on the phone for about 5–10 minutes from a location where she could not see the pool area and could not see Christopher.
- Laura ran to the pool and found Christopher floating in the deep end; he was resuscitated at the hospital after a near-drowning.
- Christopher suffered severe, permanent brain damage from lack of oxygen, resulting in loss of motor skills and absence of voluntary movement.
- Christopher, through his conservator/father, sued Laura for negligent supervision; the homeowner’s liability insurer defended.
Issues
- Whether parental immunity bars a minor child’s negligence action against a parent for injuries allegedly caused by negligent supervision.
- Whether Arizona should retain, modify, or abolish parental immunity, and what standard should govern parental conduct in negligence suits by children.
Decision
- The Arizona Supreme Court vacated the judgment for the defendant and remanded.
- The court abolished parental immunity in Arizona, holding it “no longer valid.”
- The court held parental conduct toward a child is to be evaluated under ordinary negligence principles using a reasonable-parent standard.
- The court did not decide negligence as a matter of law; it left to the factfinder whether the mother acted as a reasonable and prudent parent in similar circumstances.
- A concurrence agreed with the result but suggested that in core child-rearing decisions, liability should require “substantially unreasonable” conduct.
Legal Principles
- A parent is not immune from tort liability to a child merely because of the parent-child relationship.
- Negligence claims by children against parents are governed by the standard of whether the parent acted as a reasonable and prudent parent would in a similar situation.
- Policy concerns traditionally used to justify categorical immunity (family harmony, fraud/collusion, protection of family assets) do not justify a blanket bar where ordinary litigation safeguards and insurance often address those concerns.
- When parental immunity is removed, the trier of fact determines whether the challenged supervision or conduct fell below the reasonable-parent standard under the circumstances.
Conclusion
Arizona eliminated parental immunity and replaced it with a reasonable-parent negligence standard, allowing a child’s claim for injuries from alleged negligent supervision to proceed to factfinding rather than being categorically barred.