Fury Bailey - Personal Injury - Wrongful Death Attorneys

A VINDICATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS WHEN A SPEEDING DRIVER KILLS A SON IN A SEATTLE CROSSWALK

By William S. Bailey

On April 5, 2002, the Honorable J. Kathleen Learned of the King County Superior Court held that the 1998 amendments to RCW 4.24.010 broadening the definition of “support,” applies to parents whose adult children have been wrongfully killed. This is the first time that this statute had been interpreted following the 1998 amendments.

Yianni Philippides was a handsome, t ale nted and charismatic young man. He was highly intelligent, an honor student in high school who earned college credits prior to graduation. He was also an artist, writer and poet. A journal excerpt published after he died poignantly shows the depth of his wisdom at a young age:

Life is ours, not for the taking, because one cannot take life, but to live. This is all we seek, to live a life of simplicity and happiness. If one can fulfill these tenets, then their achievement of life has become complete.

On June 22, 2000 , shortly before 5:00 p.m. , Yianni was completing a day of working as a bicycle messenger. He was crossing Alaskan Way westbound in a marked crosswalk, going slowly on his bicycle. He was run down by Robert Bernard, an out of town s ale sman who was on his way to dinner at Fishermen's Terminal. Despite the lack of any obstruction to his vision, Bernard did not apply the brakes until he heard the sound of Yianni's body on the front of his rented Isuzu Trooper. Yianni was unconscious, in critical condition, as his body lay on the pavement. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center by paramedics, but it was determined that all his brain function had been obliterated in the collision. He was taken off life support and died on June 29, 2000 , just 22 years old.

The Seattle Police Department wanted to charge Robert Bernard with a felony, but the King County Prosecutor's Office refused. Consequently, Mr. Bernard forfeited bail in the amount of $200.00 in Seattle Municipal Court.

George and Kathryn Philippides, Yianni's parents, provided a loving and supportive environment to all three of their children. As with all caring parents, they were devastated by this loss and continue to suffer greatly, documented by objective psychological test results.

Mr. and Mrs. Philippides were named as plaintiffs in the wrongful death case filed in King County Superior Court. William S. Bailey brought an affirmative motion before Judge Learned, asking the Court to rule that they were entitled to maintain this action for the loss of their adult son's consortium. The defense filed a countermotion to dismiss. Former Washington State Senator and Washington State Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge was brought in as associate counsel for purposes of arguing this motion. It was extensively briefed. Besides the technical interpretation of the 1998 amendments, plaintiffs' counsel also argued that the denial of parental consortium under these circumstances amounted to perpetuating the centuries old English notion that children were valuable only as property, not as human beings loved by their parents.

At the oral argument, Judge Learned gave no indication of how she intended to rule. The defense emphasized that this was a matter for the legislature, not the court. “It is not what the law ought to be, but what it is.”

As the argument evolved, the Court took an ever closer look at the language and grammatical construction of the statute. Judge Learned observed with regard to the 1998 amendments, “They didn't amend the statute itself to create a distinction between adult and minor children. The word ‘support' is used similarly in both parts of the statute.”

The defense conceded that no cases had been decided after the 1998 amendments interpreting the changed definition of “support”. In a stinging. effective rebuttal, Phil Talmadge used the defendant's blowup of the language of the statute against them, persuasively arguing that the legislature had changed the concept of support in 1998 and created only one cause of action that applied equally to minor and adult children.

In her oral decision, Judge Learned found it significant that “support” was used twice in one sentence in the statute, referring to both minor and adult children. Prior to 1998, both plaintiff and defense agreed that the term was limited to only financial support. However, following the legislative change in 1998, even though the legislature may have been trying to fix a different constitutional problem, the meaning of support was changed to include emotional and psychological components. The Court concluded that if the legislature had intended a different definition of support between minor and adult children, it would have been easy to qualify the cause of action for adult children as “financial only.” However, they did not do so and the statute had to be read consistently, using the same definition wherever the word “support” was used.

For the Philippides family, who had seen their beloved son taken away from the m b y a wrongdoer who had suffered virtually no consequences, the Court's ruling provided great comfort. As Kathryn Philippides said afterwards, “The relationship between parents and children is no different, no matter what the age of the child. Your child is your happiness. Your child is your hope for the future. Your child is always your child.” There is no indication at this point whether or not the defendants will appeal.

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