State Supreme Court to Decide Cohabitant Issue

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether a person can sue for loss of consortium when his or her live-in partner is killed in an auto accident.

The court granted a hearing in a Los Angeles case brought by Richard C. Elder. The state Court of Appeal in Los Angeles reversed a Superior Court judge and ruled that Elder could not press a claim for loss of consortium and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

The Los Angeles ruling expressly disagreed with a 1983 decision by a district Court of Appeal in San Bernardino that a cohabitant can sue if he can prove “a stable and significant” relationship possessing the characteristics of a marriage.

That standard was called “simply unworkable” by the Los Angeles appellate court. It said marriage is the only dependable means for defining cohabitation for purposes of litigation. The court said marriage is an “essential element” in such cases.

Public policy as expressed in numerous laws and court decisions grants the marriage relationship “preferential status,” the court said.

Elder’s petition for hearing argued that “public policy is not shaped by principles of past legal precedent.”

The petition claimed that common law should be construed in a manner “that permits it to flex with the future--merging the creative process of common law with the current realities of life.”

Elder was seriously injured in an auto accident in which his cohabitant, Linda Marie Ebeling, was thrown from the car and killed.

Elder reached a damage settlement with the driver of the other car in regard to his own physical injuries.