Court to Rule on Suit Over Lover’s Death : It Is Asked to Give Unwed Couples a Right Found in Marriage

An openly skeptical state Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to give unmarried persons a far-ranging new right to sue for damages after the death of a live-in lover--just as married people may sue for the loss of a spouse.

“In my day, people took a negative attitude about those who lived together who were not married,” said Michael J. Robins, attorney for a man whose fiancee was killed in a 1982 car crash in Pasadena.

“But acceptance by society has dramatically changed,” he said. “I’m asking the court to create a remedy for a wrong that occurs to more and more Californians as the mores of society change.”

However, a lawyer for the defendant in the dispute told the court that established public policy rightly restricted such a right to married persons and that permitting lawsuits for the loss of any “meaningful relationship” would engulf the courts in litigation.

“Once we open this Pandora’s box, there is no way a line can be drawn,” attorney Patrick A. Mesisca Jr. said. “A bright line has to be drawn with the marriage ceremony.”

The justices heard oral arguments in Los Angeles in a case that is expected to answer a key question that arose following the court’s 1976 “palimony” ruling in the Lee Marvin case that upheld a financial-support agreement between unmarried persons.

1983 Ruling on Right to Sue

In 1983, a state Court of Appeal in San Bernardino affirmed the right of an unmarried co-habitant to sue when there was a “stable and significant” relationship that possessed the characteristics of marriage. A year later, however, an appellate panel in Los Angeles reviewing the case now before the justices reached the opposite conclusion, limiting such suits to married persons.

In Tuesday’s hearing, some justices expressed reluctance to establish a new right without legislation, and Robins was closely questioned over whether the court risked opening the way for lawsuits by a wide range of unmarried persons seeking compensation for a loss in a close personal relationship.

Robins conceded that a ruling in his favor could be applied to homosexual lovers or others who could claim a “stable, significant” relationship.

“You have a very expansive concept of coverage in this case, don’t you?” Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas remarked.

Justice Edward A. Panelli questioned Robins’ reference to marriage as a “legal formality,” pointing out that state law had long established mutual rights and responsibilities for married people that do not extend to unmarried people.

“There is a commitment in marriage and in this other situation there isn’t,” Panelli said. “There’s a significant difference.”

Justice David N. Eagleson observed that California does not recognize common-law marriages and that is one indication that it is public policy to give marriage special status in the state.

Among the seven court members, only Justice Allen E. Broussard seemed willing to expand the right to sue, contending that the law now allows negligent drivers and others to “wreak havoc” without fear of liability so long as their victims are unmarried.

The outcome of the case is likely to have considerable impact, as more and more couples choose to live together without being married. According to the U.S. Census, the number of unmarried couple-households in the nation rose from 523,000 in 1970 to 1,988,000 in 1984--a jump of 280%.

The case arose when Richard C. Elden brought suit over the death of his fiancee, Linda Marie Ebeling, when the car she was driving was struck by another motorist. Elden, a passenger in the car, claimed that the other driver, Robert L. Sheldon, had been negligent. Elden sued for the loss of Ebeling’s love and companionship and the “severe emotional distress” he suffered as a witness to her death.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge allowed Elden to sue for physical injuries he suffered in the collision but barred recovery of damages for Ebeling’s death because the two had not been married. A state Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.

The state Supreme Court agreed to review the issue and first heard argument in February, 1986. But no decision was filed by last Jan. 5, when Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two other justices defeated in the fall election left office.

Another round of argument was ordered before a new court that includes Eagleson and Justices John A. Arguelles and Marcus M. Kaufman, all named to office by Gov. George Deukmejian, and is widely viewed as more conservative. A decision is expected later this year.

In another case argued Tuesday, the justices were asked to permit police to detain and question young people whose appearance reasonably leads to suspicion they are truants.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Brett G. London urged the court to overturn an appellate ruling that limited such detentions to situations in which officers have “actual knowledge” the youth is absent from school. The ruling, if upheld, would “derail” the primary mechanism for enforcing compulsory public education in California, he said.

But Donald J. Ayoob, a deputy public defender for the county, said that the privacy rights of young people are at stake and that police should be required to take other factors into account before stopping suspected truants--such as whether they are loitering or engaged in some other suspicious activity and whether they are with companions also appearing of school age.

Los Angeles Deputy Public Defender Susan L. Burrell said that with the initiation of year-around school sessions it will be increasingly difficult to determine which young people should be in the classroom and that police should wait for reports from school authorities before going after suspected truants.

The court’s eventual ruling could have wide effect. According to state education officials, there are about 1.5 million students enrolled in high school throughout California. Another 50,000 attend classes on a part-time but compulsory basis.