Davis v. Railway

7 L.R.A. 283, 13 S.W. 801, 53 Ark. 117, 1890 Ark. LEXIS 81
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedApril 5, 1890
StatusPublished
Cited by66 cases

This text of 7 L.R.A. 283 (Davis v. Railway) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Railway, 7 L.R.A. 283, 13 S.W. 801, 53 Ark. 117, 1890 Ark. LEXIS 81 (Ark. 1890).

Opinion

Cockrill, C. J.

These appeals involve three suits brought against the railway on account of an injury to a minor resulting in his death. Two are by the personal representative of the minor — one of them for the benefit of his estate, the other for the benefit of the next of kin. The third is an action by the father of the minor to recover for the loss of his son’s services during his minority.

The question presented at the threshold of the cases is, who can maintain action against a railroad for an actionable injury resulting in the death of a minor ?

The answer involves a consideration of the common law and the statutes on the subject.

The cause of action which accrued to the injured party by the common law, survives to his administrator after his death by virtue of a provision of the revised statutes of 1838; which is carried into Mansfield’s Digest as sec. 5223.

i. Sec. 3 o Act of Feb. 3 1875, repealed. The third section of the act of February 3, 1875, prescribed that when a wife was killed by a railway train, the husband should sue; when a minor was killed, the father, mother or guardian, should sue; in all other cases the suit was to be by the legal representative. Acts 1874 — 75, p. 133. The act applied only to injuries by the trains of railways.

In 1883 another act upon the subject was passed embodying, in this particular, the provisions of the English statute of 9 and 10 Victoria, known as Lord Campbell’s Act. Mansf. Dig., secs. 5225 — 6. It contains no express repeal of either of the other provisions, and it is argued that, as the act of 1875 is a special act relating only to railways, none of its provisions are abrogated by the subsequent general act, but, unless it supersedes the act of 1875 in so far as it affects this enquiry, the law is left in an anomalous condition. It would stand thus: If an actionable injury resulting in death should occur by an agency other than the trains of a railway, the widow and next of kin would enjoy the benefit of damages recovered therefor under the last act; but, if the injury was inflicted by the trains of a railway, the recovery would be solely for the benefit of the estate, because the last act would not apply in such cases. Townsend v. Railway, 41 Ark., 382. Again, a mother dependent upon her adult son for support, could recover nothing for a culpable injury to him by the trains of a railway resulting in death, but could recover if the injury was inflicted by a natural person, a street railway or other corporation, or perhaps by a steam railway by other means than through its trains. We cannot attribute an intention to the legislature to work out such a result. As if to dispel all doubt as to the intent to extend the benefits of the last act to the widow and next of kin of the deceased in all classes of cases, the act declares that it shall apply in every case where “the person who, or the company or corporation which,” is liable for the injury, is sued. The reasonable construction of the act is that it applies to all cases in which a recovery may be had, regardless of the agency by which the injury was inflicted. Such has been the accepted construction of the act by bench and bar without an express ruling on the point. See Fordyce v. McCants, 51 Ark., 509; Railway v. Townsend, 41 Ark., supra.

tionsTie* for wrongs íesulting The question then is, what is the effect of this statute . . (Mansf. Dig., secs, 5225-0) upon the general (ib., sec. 5223) regulating the revival of actionable wrongs to the administrator or executor of the injured person? We are not without authority upon the question. The English rule, which is commonly followed by the courts of the Stales whose statutes embody the provisions of Lord Campbell’s act, is that the right of action, given by the latter statute to the personal representative of one whose death has been caused by the default of another, is created by the statute, and is not a continuation of the right of action which the deceased had in his life-time, although the new right, it has been ruled, arises only by preserving the cause of action which was in the deceased. If the deceased never had a cause of action, none accrues to his representative or next of kin. The right which accrued to the deceased revives to his administrator by virtue of the former statute (Mansf. Dig., sec. 5223) ! the newly created right results from, and accrues on, the death of the injured party. Both actions are prosecuted in the name of the personal representative, where there is one, and may proceed pari passu, without a recovery in the one having the effect of barring a recovery in the other, because the suits are prosecuted in different rights and the damages arc given upon different principles to compensate different injuries. One is for the loss sustained by the estate and for the suffering from the personal injury in the life-time of the decedent, the recovery in which goes to the benefit of the decedent’s creditors, if there are any; the other takes no account of the wrongs done to the decedent, but is for the pecuniary loss to the next of kin, occasioned by the death alone. The death is the end of the period of recovery in one case and the beginning in the other. In one case the administrator sues as legal representative of the estate, for what belonged to the deceased; in the other he acts as trustee for those upon whom the act confers the right of recovery for the pecuniary loss inflicted upon them. Blake v. Railway, 18 Q. B., 93; Pym v. Railway, 2 B. & S., 759; Barnett v. Lucas, Irish Rep., 6 C. L., 247; Needham v. Railway, 38 Vt., 294; Littlewood v. The Mayor etc., 89 N. Y., 24; Railway v. Phillips, 64 Miss., 693; Hulbert v. Topeka, 34 Fed. Rep., 510; Fordyce v. McCants, 51 Ark., supra.

The statutes under which the two actions are brought do not therefore cover the same ground; there is no repugnancy between them, and the latter does not impair the right con ferred by the former. Needham v. Railway, 38 Vt., supra; Commonwealth v. Railway, 107 Mass., 236.

We are aware that the cases are not harmonious to this effect. The conflicting arrays are marshaled in an elaborate article on the subject in 28 Am. Law Reg. (N. S.), pp. 385 and 513. But the position assumed above is, as we conceive, sustained by principle and the weight of authority.

.3- Parent’s chiid’s°se™ices— ages?ure °f The same reasons which prevent the right given by the statute to the next of kin from being exclusive of that which accrued to the decedent and survived to his administrator, preserve the right of the father to maintain his common law action against the railway for the deprivation of his minor child’s services.

The statute confers no right of recovery upon the father for the loss of services prior to the minor child’s death, nor was it intended to deprive him of any right. Its object was to enable him., through the personal representative, to recover the value of the services of which he is deprived, just as he recovers for any other pecuniary loss which he sustains by the death.

But where the injury resulted in death, the father’s right of recovery by the common law was limited to the interim between the disabling injury to the child and its death. His right of recovery was restricted to the value of the minor’s services and the cost of medical attendance and nursing to the time of death. The right fell with the life of the minor.

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7 L.R.A. 283, 13 S.W. 801, 53 Ark. 117, 1890 Ark. LEXIS 81, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-railway-ark-1890.