Handeland v. Brown

The commentators appear right that most of the legal theories assigned by the courts for denying recovery are not logical. But are the decisions just?

The apparent unanimity of decision denying recovery in this country in spite of the commentators led me to examine a number of cases. The more I did so, the fairer the results appeared in actual practice and the more anomalous any other result seemed. The same was true of the consortium cases. See as illustrative Ross v. Cuthbert, 239 Or. 429, 435, 397 P.2d 529, 531 (“It may be that the operation of the rule of contributory negligence which…