Westphal v. Austin

39 Ill. App. 230, 1890 Ill. App. LEXIS 448
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMay 21, 1891
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 39 Ill. App. 230 (Westphal v. Austin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Westphal v. Austin, 39 Ill. App. 230, 1890 Ill. App. LEXIS 448 (Ill. Ct. App. 1891).

Opinion

Upton, J.

This is a suit under the Dram-shop Act, brought by appellee, a minor, by his next friend, against the appellant. The declaration contains two counts. The first count alleges that appellee was the son of one Martin V. Austin. That prior to January, 1880, the father had carried on and successfully conducted business at Morrison, in Whiteside county, and had furnished and until that time had provided for the appellee a comfortable support. That between the date last aforesaid and December, 1885, the time of his death, appellant sold Martin "V". Austin intoxicating Iquors at his saloon in Morrison, and thereby caused him to become a habitual drunkard and to squander his property, become impoverished and physically ruined, and unable to provide for the support of the appellee by means thereof, etc. The second count is in substance the same as the first, with the additional allegation that in consequence of appellant’s wrongful sale of intoxicants to the father of appellee, he became diseased and disordered and from the effects thereof died, etc. In brief, appellee’s claim for damages rests upon the allegation, first, that the appellant caused the father of appellee to become a habitual drunkard, thereby injuring appellee’s means of support; and second, that by the same means appellant caused the father’s death, and thereby injured his means of support.

A plea of the general issues was interposed, and joinder thereon. The case was heard in the trial court before a jury and a verdict returned for appellee in the sum of $300, upon which judgment was rendered, after overruling a motion for a new trial, and the case was brought to this court on appeal.

It is here objected on the part of appellant—first, that the trial court erred in giving certain instructions on behalf of appellee; second, that the trial court erred also in the exclusion of evidence offered by the appellant; and third, that the trial court committed further error in refusing a new trial on appellant’s motion therefor, for the alleged cause that the evidence does not support the verdict.

First. As to the instructions complained of we need only say, that the instructions are not abstracted, and we are not required to look into the record to ascertain what they are. The rules of this court require that a complete abstract be made of that portion of the record, at least, upon which error is assigned, so that the court therefrom may see to what the objection is taken. Such was the holding of the Supreme Court under its rule of practice which was adopted by this court upon its organization, and since followed, and from which we do not at present feel at liberty to depart. Shackelford v. Bailey, 35 Ill. 388; Johnson v. Bantock, 38 Ill. 114; Israel v. Town of Whitehall, 2 Ill. App. 509; Hanchett v. Riverdale Drainage Co., 15 Ill. App. 65; Village of Chatsworth v. Ward, 10 Ill. App. 77.

Second. Upon careful examination we think the trial court committed no error in the exclusion of the evidence complained of as rejected.

Third. The important question in the case, as we regard it, remains to be considered, viz.: does the evidence support the verdict? It seems established by the evidence that at the time of his father’s death, appellee was nearly eighteen years of age; that prior to the year 1880 the father had been engaged in farming. In that year he abandoned that pursuit, removed to the village of Morrison, and there engaged in the business of buying and selling stock. For some years before he discarded agricultural pursuits, the father had been accustomed to drink intoxicating liquors to excess; but for how long a time prior thereto does not appear. It does appear that prior to 1880 the father had drank intoxicating liquors at the appellant’s saloon on several occasions. Some time in the early part of the year 1882, appellee, having had some trouble with a servant of appellant in reference to his drinking, and of his being upon the public streets in an intoxicated condition, appellant, in the language of - the witness, placed Martin V, Austin upon the black list at 1ns saloon, and from thence until his death in December, 1885, Austin neither obtained nor drank intoxicating liquors at appellant’s saloon, with one exception of a single glass in December, 1882, as shown by the evidence, and as to that there is a sharp conflict in the evidence. It further appears that the father of appellee was well adapted to the business in which he was engaged, and that his habits of drinking were not observed to have had any marked or deleterious effect upon his capacity for business or in the amount of the business done prior to 1882. Some of the witnesses called for appellee, among whom were those who had been engaged as copartners with appellee’s father until about one year prior to his death, testified in substance, that prior to 1882 his business habits were good. It appears that there was no change in the general health or appearance physically of the father of appellee from 1881 until just before his death, although for the last year in his life he was not engaged in business. Hannah M. Austin, the mother of appellee, testified that her husband, Martin Y. Austin, died December 3, 1885, having been sick but six weeks preceding his death. That prior to the last year of her husband’s life, the character of the support of his family was good, and that she and her husband kept house together from April 6, 1863, until his death. The physician who attended the father of appellee in his last sickness, testified that the father was afflicted with the dropsy, caused by a trouble of the liver; the disease of which he died was called scirrliosis of the liver. He lived about four weeks after the doctor commenced to treat him. The doctor had known the father since 1882, and had seen him intoxicated, and he thought his death was caused by his general habits and the excessive use of alcoholic spirits. Upon cross-examination the doctor stated further that the disease of which the father died manifests itself when there is no drunkenness or drinking habit at all, in children of tender years, and in women. This dropsical condition is produced by the retarded action of the heart; any thing which retards the action of the heart would induce a dropsical condition; this dropsical effusion may be found in the system when there is no alcoholic poison or stimulant whatever present. The doctor further stated: “I do not swear that the cause of this man’s death was the excessive use of liquors or alcoholic stimulants.” In brief -this was substantially the extent of the testimony offered by appellee upon the points-now under consideration, and it was not strengthened by any evidence offered by the appellant upon these points.

In Flynn v. Fogarty, 106 Ill. 263, which was an action of the wife to recover for the death of her husband, under the statute now in question, it was there held that to entitle the plaintiff to recover it must be shown by the evidence, first, that the defendant sold or gave the intoxicating liquors which produced the effects complained of, to the person alleged to have become intoxicated thereby; second, that such liquor caused the intoxication complained of in whole or in part; third, that such intoxication caused his death; and fourth, that by reason thereof thd plaintiff has been injured in his means of support.

It does not appear from the evidence of the appellee, with no contravening testimony, that the liquor sold to the father of appellee three years preceding his death, or at any other time, was in fact or legal presumption the proximate cause of the father’s death.

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62 Ill. App. 636 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1896)

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Bluebook (online)
39 Ill. App. 230, 1890 Ill. App. LEXIS 448, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/westphal-v-austin-illappct-1891.