Opinion
A00A1826.
DECIDED: DECEMBER 22, 2000
DECIDED DECEMBER 22, 2000.
Negligence. Clayton State Court. Before Judge Braswell.
Eric K. Maxwell, for appellant.
Sharon W. Ware Associates, William M. Amos, Smith, Welch Brittain, E. Gilmore Maxwell, Richard W. Kelley, for appellee.
Elizabeth Bassett sued Lawrence Harrington alleging that she sustained personal injuries caused by Harrington's negligent operation of the automobile in which she was riding as a passenger. About seven weeks after the suit was filed, Barrett and Harrington married. The trial court subsequently granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of Harrington asserting that the interspousal tort immunity doctrine barred the suit. Barrett appeals claiming that the doctrine does not apply where the marriage between the parties occurred after the suit was filed.
Under the common-law doctrine of interspousal tort immunity (codified at OCGA § 19-3-8), actions between spouses for personal torts committed by one spouse against the other are barred, except where the traditional policy reasons for applying the doctrine are absent. Shoemake v. Shoemake, 200 Ga. App. 182, 183 ( 407 S.E.2d 134) (1991). In Robeson v. International Indemnity Co., 248 Ga. 306 ( 282 S.E.2d 896) (1981), the Supreme Court upheld the common-law doctrine of interspousal tort immunity pointing out the traditional policy reasons behind barring such suits, including the belief that truly adversarial suits between spouses would disrupt marital harmony, and the fear that nonadversarial suits between spouses would be fraudulent, collusive, or frivolous. Accordingly, Robeson reaffirmed the rule that, during marriage, an action for tortious injury to the person cannot be maintained by one spouse against the other. Id. at 307. The fact that Bassett and Harrington married after the suit was filed does not change this rule.
The trial court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of Harrington on the basis that the suit was barred by the doctrine of interspousal tort immunity.
Judgment affirmed. Ruffin and Ellington, JJ., concur.