Can A Child Sue A Parent For Personal Injury?

You might think it would be outrageous for a child to sue their own parent – or a husband to sue his wife – for negligence in a Waldorf, Maryland car accident.

So did state law. For a long time you couldn’t do this. A child could not file suit against their parent after a car accident, and a wife could not sue her husband for any personal injury claim.

But, that has all changed. Maryland now has a statute allowing a child to sue a parent. The legislature had to pass a specific statute to change that.

Maryland also allows a wife to sue a husband (and vice versa) for negligence. The appeals courts took care of that over the years.

And believe it or not, this is a good thing. When I explain, you will probably agree.

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The Old Law on Parents & Children

Maryland law formerly prevented a child from suing a parent who caused a car accident while driving. This was known as the doctrine of parent-child immunity. The law generally prohibited a child from suing their parents.

Sounds like a good idea, right?

Maybe it was in the old world, but in the modern world this lead to a lot of injustice.

If an adult is a passenger with another adult and the driver does something negligent to cause an accident, the passenger can always make a personal injury claim against the driver. That seems fair. The negligent person should pay, and their car insurance will cover them.

But if the passenger was a child of the driver, then that child was prevented from making a claim. The child had no recourse for their injuries. And who got away scot free? Not the parent. It was the insurance companies who made out like bandits with this old legal doctrine.

Why it Was Bad

I have had several legal cases in my career where a child made a claim against their parent – and each time it was the negligent parent that hired me to make the claim! The parent wanted their child to get whatever they could get from the insurance policy covering the parent. They were the ones pushing the case, because they felt bad for injuring their child. They wanted their child to get some compensation.

They also just wanted their child to get the insurance money that was due. The parent paid for that policy. Why should it be denied when the parent’s own child was the injured party? That seemed unfair.

I had one case where a Dad made an illegal left turn with his daughter in the back seat, and she broke her leg in the car accident. Dad wanted his daughter to file a personal injury claim. He cooperated completely. His daughter got the settlement and she now has a college fund ready for her to turn 18.

I had another case where a Dad drove off the road and injured his young child in the car accident. He also wanted his daughter to file the personal injury claim. In fact, he wasn’t happy when I wouldn’t let him actively participate. I did it all through the wife. I think he felt badly and looked at this as making up for his negligence somewhat. He was a very nice guy. It was an accident.

The New Law on Parents & Children

The Maryland legislature took a long time to finally pass a law allowing a child to sue a parent. They were worried about the child suing for more than the available insurance coverage. That would mean that a child could sue and get the insurance money plus more money out of their parents. The legislature didn’t want to allow that.

So, they limited the amount a child can get in any personal injury claim against their parents to the limits of the available insurance coverage. This is why courts & judicial proceedings section 5-806 gets rid of the old doctrine of parent-child immunity only to the extent of available insurance coverage.

That way the child never gets money out of the parent’s bank account. They can only go after the insurance money. That seems fair, and that is why Maryland finally passed this law.

The Old Law for Spouses

The old legal doctrine for suing your spouse was even worse. This was called interspousal immunity, and it has been changed over the years by several cases in the appellate courts of Maryland.

The old law looked at a married man & woman as “one” legal entity. So a woman could never sue her husband. Technically, it worked both ways but we all know it was usually the man who was in charge, and the woman who got screwed because of this doctrine.

The New Law for Spouses

It took about 25 years, but in a series of cases Maryland did away with interspousal immunity. The courts held that it was an outdated legal doctrine and didn’t really apply in the modern world. The cases started in 1978 and the doctrine was finally thrown out completely by 2003.

By the way, that is not unusual. The courts are not going to change the law on personal injury very quickly. They work very slowly. The legislature is supposed to change laws quickly if they are needed. That is how democracy works. You have control over your legislature, but not much over your appellate court judges.

So now a wife has the same ability to sue her husband as she would have for any other person. That is only fair in our modern world.

Conclusion & Next Steps

So yes, a child can sue his parent, but only up to the limits of available insurance coverage, which means it is really just going after insurance.  That is what most car accident cases are anyway. And a wife can sue her husband for a negligence claim too.

This is a good law Maryland has, and I have already seen it benefit people involved in personal injury cases here in Waldorf, Maryland.

Want to know more? Discover what you need to know about car accident cases in Waldorf, Maryland. Click here to see our Free Legal Consumer Guide to Maryland car accident cases and get answers to your questions today. Know your options. Be informed. Protect yourself.

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Author: This content was written and approved by Tucker Clagett, an attorney at Southern Maryland Law – Andrews, Bongar, Gormley & Clagett.