Louisville St Co v. Clarke

• Decision Date: 05 March 1894
• Docket Number: No. 191,191
• Citation: 14 S.Ct. 579,38 L.Ed. 422,152 U.S. 230
• Parties: LOUISVILLE, E. & ST. L. R. CO. v. CLARKE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

152 U.S. 230

14 S.Ct. 579

38 L.Ed. 422

LOUISVILLE, E. & ST. L. R. CO.

v CLARKE.

No. 191.

March 5, 1894.

John E. Iglehart and Alex. Pope Humphrey, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 231-234 intentionally omitted] W. H. H. Miller, F. Winter, and John B. Elam, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This action was brought April 28, 1888, by the executor of Augustine Clarke, whose death, the plaintiff alleged, was caused by the wrongful act and omission of the defendant, the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railroad Company a carrier of passengers for hire. The gist of the action is the negligence of the company, its agents and servants, in consequence of which the decedent, on the 25th day of November, 1886, while traveling on the defendant's cars, in the state of Indiana, received injuries in his person from which death ensued. The plaintiff's testator died February 23, 1888.

The action was founded on section 284 of the Revised Statutes of Indiana, providing:

'When the death of one is caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, the personal representative of the former may maintain an action therefor against the latter, if the former might have maintained an action, had he lived, against the latter for the injury, for the same act or omission. The action must be commenced within two years. The damages cannot exceed ten thousand dollars, and must inure to the exclusive benefit of the widow and children, if any, or next of kin, to be distributed in the same manner as personal property of the deceased.'

It appeared from the complaint that plaintiff's testator lived more than a year and a day after being injured; and the question was presented upon a demurrer interposed by the defendant whether, within the meaning of the statute, it could properly be said that death was caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, if it did not accur until after the expiration of a year and a day from such act or omission. The argument in support of this limitation upon the right of action given by the statute is based upon certain rules at common law in prosecutions for murder, appeals of death, and inquisitions against deodands. Before examining this question, it will be well to ascertain the object of the statute, as declared by the supreme court of Indiana.

In Lofton v. Vogle, 17 Ind. 105, 107, which was an action under this statute, it was contended that the plaintiff could not maintain his suit without showing that he had criminally prosecuted the defendant to conviction; that such prosecution was a condition precedent to a civil action. It was held that this rule did not prevail in the United States, as we do not in this country depend upon the injured party, or his representative, to institute criminal prosecutions.

In Railroad Co. v. Swayne, 26 Ind. 484-486, the court, observing that it was a maxim of the common law, too familiar and long established to require the citation of authority to support it, that a cause of action for an injury to the person dies with the party injured, and does not survive to his personal representative, said: 'The statute does not profess to revive the cause of action for the injury to the deceased in favor of his personal representative, nor is such the legal effect, but it creates a new cause of action unknown to the common law. The action given by the statute is for causing the death, by a wrongful act or omission, in a case where the deceased might have maintained an action, had he lived, for an injury by the same act or omission. The right of compensation for the bodily injury of the deceased, which dies with him, remains extinct. The right of action created by the statute is founded on a new grievance, namely, causing the death, and is for the injury sustained thereby, by the widow and children or next of kin of the deceased, for the damages must inure to their exclusive benefit.'

'The provision that the personal representative may maintain an action, if the deceased could have maintained one, if the injury and caused death,' the court said, in Railroad Co. v. Vining, 27 Ind. 513, 'has been heretofore ruled to be applicable to the cause of action, and not to the person bringing it. In other words, an action may be maintained when the deceased, had he lived, would not have been prevented from recovering by reason of his want of care.'

In Mayhew v. Burns, 103 Ind. 328, 2 N. E. 793, the court said that the statute 'gives to the widow or next of kin, through the personal representative, a right to recover any injury which they may have sustained by reason of the death of an adult, or one emancipated from parental service, and in whose life they may have had a pecuniary interest.'

In Hanna v. Railroad Co., 32 Ind. 113 the court, discussing the question whether the two years' limitation prescribed by the statute ran from the death of the person injured or from the qualification of his administrator, said: 'The statute was intended mainly to be operative against carriers of passengers, and in a very large measure against corporations, whose duties are exclusively performed by hired servants, who are being constantly changed, and in whose knowledge the facts in such cases would generally rest, or who are to be depended upon for such information as would lead to a discovery of the facts and witnesses to establish them. The reasons for requiring a suit to be brought within some short period after the occurrence were therefore very forcible, and must have been perceived. While a proper regard for the security of human life required that a right of action should be given which did not exist by previous law, the consideration already noted required that the remedy should be promptly sought, else a door would be open wide for injustice and wrong.' It was therefore held that the time limited for suit began to run from the death.

In Burns v. Railroad Co., 113 Ind. 169, 15 N. E. 230, the court, construing the statute, said that 'the recovery is not a penalty inflicted by way of punishment for the wrong, but is merely conpensatory of the damages sustained by the heirs or next of kin, who had, or are supposed to have had, a pecuniary interest in the life of the intestate.'

And in Hecht v. Railway Co., 132 Ind. 507, 514, 32 N. E. 302: 'The wording of Lord Campbell's act and the statute of this state differ somewhat, but are in effect the same. The purpose of each was to give to the personal representative of the deceased a right of action if the deceased, at the instant of his death, would have had a right of action for the same act or omission had he survived.' It was consequently held that a personal representative could not maintain an action under the statute, if the party injured, in his lifetime, sued and recovered full compensation for the injuries inflicted, and had thereby, if he had lived, precluded himself from maintaining any further action on account of such injuries. The same construction was placed upon Lord Campbell's act in Read v Railway Co., L. R. 3 Q. B. 555, and in Littlewood v. Mayor, 89 N. Y. 24, upon a statute of New York, not differing materially from the Indiana statute.

It thus appears to be the settled construction of this statute that the right of a personal representative to bring an action for the exclusive benefit of the widow and children, or next of kin, of one whose death was caused by the wrongful act or omission of another, depends upon the existence or nonexistence of a right in the decedent, immediately before his death, to have maintained an action on account of such act or omission. Consequently, the words of the Indiana statute, 'the action must be commenced within two years,' main two years from the death of the person injured, not from the time he received the injuries from which death resulted.

In the light of this construction it would seem to be an unreasonable interpretation of the statute to hold that the personal representative has no right of action, in any case, where a year and a day passes after the injury before death occurs. The statute, in express words, gives the personal representative two years within which to sue. He cannot sue until the cause of action accrues, and the cause of action given by the statute for the exclusive benefit of the widow and children or next of kin cannot accrue until the person injured dies. Until the death of the person injured, the 'new grievance' upon which the action is founded does not exist. To say, therefore, that, where the person injured dies one year and two days after being injured, no action can be maintained by the personal representative, is to go in the face of the statute, which makes no distinction between cases where death occurs within less than a year and a day from the injury and where it does not occur until after the expiration of one year and a day. Although the evidence may show, beyond all dispute, that the death was caused by the wrongful act or omission of the defendant, and although the action by the personal representative was brought within two years after the death, yet, according to the argument of learned counsel, the action cannot be maintained if the deceased happened to survive his injuries for a year and a day. We can- not assent to this view. Was the death, in fact, caused by the wrongful act or omission of the defendant? That is the vital inquiry in each case. The statute imposes no other condition upon the right to sue. The court has no authority to impose an additional or different one. If death was so caused, then the personal representative may sue at any time within two years from such death.

Ought we to allow this obvious construction of the statute to be defeated by any rule recognized at common law as controlling upon an inquiry as to the cause of death in cases of murder, appeals of death,...