Smith v. Toney

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided March 13, 2007

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 2007-03-13

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 2015

5 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[Wjhere the direct impact test is not met, a bystander may nevertheless establish ‘direct involvement’ by proving that the plaintiff actually witnessed or came on the scene soon after the death or severe injury of a loved one with a relationship to the plaintiff analogous to a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling caused by the defendant’s negligent or otherwise tortuous [sic] conduct.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Ray Clifton v. Ruby McCammack, Ray Clifton v. Ruby McCammack

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2007-03-13

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

SULLIVAN, Justice,

¶1concurring in result.

¶2I agree that Eli Welch, the plaintiff Amy Smith’s fiancé, was not in a “relationship to the plaintiff analogous to a spouse” and therefore is not entitled to recover under our Groves v. Taylor precedent. As a couple engaged to be married, their relationship had not been legally established by license or ceremony nor was it one of long duration marked by the financial interdependence, intimacy, and other characteristics of the spousal relationship. The majority opinion makes clear that Welch and Smith were not involved in a cohabiting but unmarried relationship. As such, its comments with respect to relationships other than the fiancé-fiancée relationship at issue here are unnecessary to the decision in this case and therefore not prece-dential.

¶3RUCKER, J., concurs.