Also known as: interspousal immunity · interspousal immunity doctrines · spousal immunity · husband-wife immunity
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A common-law doctrine that barred one spouse from bringing a tort action against the other. The doctrine rested on the legal fiction of marital unity and was justified by the goals of preserving marital harmony and avoiding judicial interference in domestic affairs.
Husband and Wife are married when Wife's careless driving injures Husband. Husband files a negligence action against Wife seeking damages. The court dismisses the suit because the interspousal immunity doctrine bars tort claims between spouses.
Spouses are married when one spouse intentionally strikes the other during an argument. The injured spouse files a battery claim. The court dismisses the action because the interspousal immunity doctrine prevents one spouse from suing the other in tort.
Ike and Irene are married when Irene negligently injures Ike on their farm. Ike sues Irene for damages. The court dismisses the action because the interspousal immunity doctrine prevents one spouse from suing the other in tort.
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Ira and Irene divorce after Irene's conduct during the marriage allegedly caused Ira emotional harm. Ira then files a tort suit against Irene. The court allows the action because the marriage has ended and the immunity no longer applies.
Most jurisdictions have abolished the common-law doctrine that barred tort actions between husbands and wives. The doctrine rested on marital unity and was intended to promote harmony, but courts and legislatures have rejected it as outdated.
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The doctrine was justified by the desire to preserve marital harmony and to keep courts out of private family matters. It prevented one spouse from suing the other for negligence or intentional torts.
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Damages for loss of consortium are generally unavailable when the marriage terminates. Courts have refused to recognize claims such as wrongful divorce because of the difficulty of tracing causation to the dissolution.
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…for loss of consortium ( Rodriguez v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., supra, 12 Cal.3d at pp. 389-404); and abrogated the rule of interspousal immunity for negligent torts. ( Klein v. Klein (1962) 58 Cal.2d 692, 697-699 [26 Cal. Rptr. 102, 376 P.2d 70].) Every one of these landmark decisions required a difficult choice among competing…