Our view: No consolation

The dispute will rage on over whether lawsuits are a good way to redress wrongful deaths, but some grief is beyond the capacity of money to relieve. Nobody ever claims that a hefty court judgment can compensate for the loss of a loved one.

So a pending legislative proposal to expand the ability to sue over the deaths of adult children and siblings is not about squaring the balance sheet. It’s about punishing negligence.

Granted, that’s a worthy goal, but the addition of one more reason to drive personal tragedy into the courts is not the way to achieve it. And House Bill 1873, now before the Washington House of Representatives, is a well-intended but misguided response to a problem that has no easy resolution.

Just a year ago, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced a compromise in the medical malpractice showdown that had produced a $14 million spending contest over two state ballot measures in 2005. Last February’s agreement, which no one contended was a full or final solution, was aimed at reducing malpractice in the first place. It was based on a tacit understanding that litigation is a last resort.

To return 12 short months later with a proposal to increase litigation is not progress.

Under present law, the capacity of parents and siblings to sue over the relative’s wrongful death ends when the person turns 18, the age of adulthood, unless the survivors depended on the deceased for financial support. HB 1873 would remove the age limit.

No, age won’t lessen family members’ emotional pain from such a loss. But that’s just as true for neighbors and friends, aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, colleagues at work, classmates at school, friends at church. If the spirit behind HB 1873 is true for certain kin, it’s also true for others in the constellation of relationships that surround everyone. The potential reach of such legislation has no limit.

If HB 1873 would restore one’s personal loss, of course, it would be justifiable.

But it won’t. It can’t.

If the Legislature wants to address the problem in a meaningful way, it should be talking about penalties that discourage reckless and irresponsible behavior. Criminal sanctions in egregious cases, for example, or stiff fines and license revocations in others. And the removal of any barriers that make those steps difficult.

Clogging the courts and aggravating the malpractice insurance costs of responsible medical practitioners will do more harm than good.