Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Fleming

69 So. 125, 194 Ala. 51
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMay 20, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 69 So. 125 (Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Fleming) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Fleming, 69 So. 125, 194 Ala. 51 (Ala. 1915).

Opinion

SAYRE, J. —

Action by appellee, as administrator, to recover damages for the death of his intestate, Houston Fleming, under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act of April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65, and the amendatory act of April 5, 1910, c. 143, 36 Stat. 291 (U. S. Comp. St. 2913, §§ 8657-8665). Plaintiff’s intestate came to his death in July, 1912. The case went to the jury on counts 1, 2, as amended, and A. In each' of these counts plaintiff sued for the use of the father and mother of his intestate, who was an unmarried [56]*56man. In counts 1 and 2 the damage alleged to have resulted in consequence of the negligence of defendant’s agents or employees is comprehended in the simple averment that the death of plaintiff’s intestate was thereby caused. In count A the allegation in this respect is that, by reason of the negligence complained of, the locomotive engine upon which plaintiff’s intestate was at work was overturned “pinning plaintiff’s intestate thereunder, and for several hours thereafter plaintiff’s said intestate lay mangled and mashed under said engine, from which he suffered great and excruciating mental and physical pain.”

(1, 2) For convenience of statement putting aside count amended 2, as not materially different from count 1, it appears that counts 1 and A state different liabilities under the act of 1908, supra. One seeks to recover the pecuniary loss suffered by the surviving father and mother of deceased by reason of his death; the other seeks to recover the damages suffered by the deceased. These are declared by the Supreme Court of the United States in Michigan Central v. Vreeland, 227 U. S. 59, 33 Sup. Ct. 192, 57 L. Ed. 117, 33 Ann. Cas. 1914C, 176, to be two distinct and independent liabilities, and unquestionably they are so. Under the act of 1908 it was settled that the cause of action stated in count A did not survive to personal representatives. — 33 Ann. Cas. ubi supra. But section 9 of the amendatory act of 1910 (U. S. Comp. St. 1913, § 8665) provided: “That any right of action given by this act to a person suffering injury shall survive to his * * * personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee, and, if none, then of such employee’s parents, and. if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such [57]*57employee, but in such cases there shall be only one recovery for the same injury.”

By virtue of this section plaintiff claimed, in count A, the right to recover damages on account of the mental and physical pain suffered by his intestate. A recovery on that account was allowed in the trial court, and much of appellant’s argument is addressed to the proposition that this was error necessitating a reversal. This argument, is based upon 22 assignments of error which relate to rulings on evidence and charges given and refused, whereby the trial court held that under count A plaintiff might recover for the pain and anguish suffered by intestate; and clearly, if that count was properly before the jury, there was no error in these, rulings. The real question involved in this connection was whether the two counts could be joined; but defendant made no issue as to that in the court below either by objection to the joinder or by motion to require an election, and the question cannot be raised now for the first time on appeal. Appellant has cited to this point, among other cases, some in which the death of the employee was instantaneous. It may be that in such case the only maintainable suit is on the cause of action given for the benefit of dependents, as alleged in count 1, since, if death is coinstantaneous with injury, there is no appreciable time in which the deceased has a right of action, and there is nothing to survive. Here it is not disputed that deceased survived his injury and suffered for four or five hours.

(3) It was proper for plaintiff to make proof of facts as a basis for the admeasurement of the pecuniary loss alleged to have been suffered by the father and mother of deceased, and claimed in count 1 of the complaint, and, as data for that purpose, evidence of [58]*58the age, probable duration of life, habits of industry, means, earnings, health, skill, intelligence, and character of the deceased, his reasonable future expectations, and other like facts, were admissible. — James v. Richmond & Danville, 92 Ala. 231, 236, 9 South. 335; Norfolk & Western v. Holbrook, 235 U. S. 625, 35 Sup. Ct. 143, 59 L. Ed.-.

(4, 5) At this point we consider two assignments based -upon the court’s oral charge. After stating the jury’s right to look to facts of the sort above stated in determining the amount of compensation, if any, to be awarded to plaintiff for the use of the father and mother as dependents, the court said to the jury: “In connection with the above, it may be-proper to state that a proper measure of damages in this case, under counts 1 and 2, as amended, is the present worth of the amount which it is reasonably probable the deceased would have contributed to the support of his parents during the whole expectancy of life in proportion to the amount he was contributing, if any, at the time of his death, not exceeding his expectancy of life.”

But for the substitution of the word “whole” for “latter’s,” this statement of the law follows literally the text of section 168 of Tiffany’s Death by Wrongful’Act. The insertion of “whole” is of no logical consequence. Otherwise amended to bring- about complete concord with Tiffany’s text, the charge has the approval of McCullough v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 160 Iowa 524, 142 N. W. 67, 47 L. R. A. (N. S.) 23, and Richmond v. Railway Co., 87 Mich. 374, 49 N. W. 621, and is a correct statement of the measure of damages claim-, ed in counts 1 and 2. But appellant reads the charge as meaning to say that plaintiff was entitled to recover an amount equal to intestate’s probable contribti[59]*59tion to the support of his parents during the whole time of his expectancy. We do not think it probable the instruction was misunderstood by the jury. There is nothing in the result to so indicate. No separate response to the different causes of action alleged was required, and, to the amount proper for compensation of the parents as dependents under counts 1 and 2, the jury may have added in their general verdict damages for the suffering of plaintiff’s intestate under count A. It cannot, on reasonable construction, be said the charge was positively erroneous. At worst, it was merely incomplete or obscure, and gave occasion for the exercise of the right to special instructions under the statute.

Immediately after the above-quoted instruction the court added: “And, in determining this, you may take into consideration the increasing wants of the parents by reason of advancing age and the increasing ability of the son to supply those wants, should you find such to be the case.”

To this also there was an exception. It is argued that there ivas no evidence to warrant the charge. We think the evidence, which hardly needs to be stated, afforded reasonable inference of. the postulates of the charge.

(6, 7)

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Bluebook (online)
69 So. 125, 194 Ala. 51, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/louisville-nashville-r-r-v-fleming-ala-1915.