## Facts

- A taxicab owned by Yellow Cab Co. of D.C., Inc. and driven by its agent collided with an automobile driven by Dreslin.
- Dreslin’s wife, a passenger, and other passengers were injured and sued Yellow Cab for damages.
- Dreslin joined as a plaintiff seeking damages for loss of consortium, medical expenses for his wife, and property damage to his car.
- Yellow Cab asserted contributory negligence by Dreslin and filed a cross-claim against him for damage to the taxicab and for contribution for any sums recovered by the other plaintiffs.
- A jury found the collision resulted from the concurrent negligence of both drivers and entered judgments for all plaintiffs except Dreslin.
- The trial court entered a declaratory judgment allowing Yellow Cab contribution against Dreslin for the other plaintiffs’ judgments but denying contribution for the judgment recovered by Mrs. Dreslin because Dreslin had no tort liability to his wife under District of Columbia law.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant found concurrently negligent may obtain contribution from a co-tortfeasor for the injured spouse’s judgment when interspousal tort immunity bars the spouse’s direct tort claim against that co-tortfeasor.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of contribution on Mrs. Dreslin’s judgment.
- Because District of Columbia law barred tort suits between spouses, Mrs. Dreslin had no tort cause of action against her husband.
- Contribution requires a common or joint liability to the injured party; that prerequisite was absent as to Mrs. Dreslin.
- Yellow Cab therefore could not shift any portion of Mrs. Dreslin’s judgment to Dreslin through contribution, despite the finding of concurrent negligence.

## Legal Principles

- Contribution between tortfeasors depends on common liability to the injured party, not merely on concurrent fault.
- If the injured plaintiff has no valid tort claim against the party from whom contribution is sought, there is no common obligation and no right of contribution.
- Under District of Columbia law at the time, interspousal tort immunity prevented either spouse from suing the other in tort, and statutes concerning married women did not remove that immunity.
- A personal immunity that defeats the injured party’s claim against one actor also defeats another actor’s claim for contribution tied to that injured party’s judgment.

## Conclusion

The court held that a tortfeasor cannot obtain contribution for a spouse’s judgment from the injured spouse’s husband when interspousal tort immunity eliminates the husband’s tort liability to the wife, because contribution requires common liability to the same plaintiff.


Yellow Cab Co. of D.C., Inc. v. Dreslin, 181 F.2d 626 (D.C. Cir. 1950)