Pennsylvania Co. v. Keane

• Decision Date: 31 October 1892
• Citation: 143 Ill. 172,32 N.E. 260
• Parties: PENNSYLVANIA CO. v. KEANE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

143 Ill. 172

32 N.E. 260

PENNSYLVANIA CO.

v.KEANE.¹

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 31, 1892.

Appeal from appellate court, first district.

Action on the case by Nellie Keane, administratrix of Maurice Keane, deceased, against the Pennsylvania Company, to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's intestate. Plaintiff obtained judgment, which was affirmed by the appellate court. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.

George Willard and F. H. Trude, for appellant.

Windes & Sullivan, for appellee.

BAKER, J.

This was an action on the case against the Pennsylvania Company, brought by Nellie Keane, the appellee, as administratrix of Maurice Keane, her late husband, for wrongfully and negligently causing his death. There was verdict and judgment in the circuit court of Cook county against the appellant corporation for damages, and the judgment was affirmed in the appellate court.

It is claimed to be error that the trial court permitted appellee, when examined as a witness, to state, over the objections of appellant, that the deceased was at the time of his death her sole support. The cases of City of Chicago v. O'Brennan, 65 Ill. 160;Railway Co. v. Powers, 74 Ill. 341; and City of Joliet v. Conway, 119 Ill. 489, 10 N. E. Rep. 223,-were all suits to recover damages for personal injuries, and the persons who received the injuries were the plaintiffs. It was held in each of said cases that the fact that there was a family dependent for support upon the plaintiff was wholly immaterial, had no relevancy to any point in issue, was likely to excite sympathy and magnify damages, and was error. Railroad Co. v. Baches, 55 Ill. 379, was an action like this, brought by the administratrix of the deceased. It was there held that the pecuniary circumstances of the widow and child of the intestate could not be considered in assessing the damages. But it was also there held that their loss of support was proper to be considered; and in that connection it was said: ‘The support the widow and minor would have been likely to receive had deceased not have been killed is a fair, and, no doubt, the controlling, element to be considered in fixing the pecuniary loss sustained. It is the loss of that support which more largely produces the pecuniary injury than any other; and hence it is eminently proper that it should be considered. The law imposes upon the husband the duty of supporting the wife, and hence, by his death, she sustains a pecuniary loss; and, that being so, it is a proper element to be considered by the jury in assessing damages.’ Railroad Co. v. Moranda, 93 Ill. 302, was also a suit by an administratrix. It was there held to be immaterial that, at the time of the death of her intestate, she and her children had no other means of support, or other pecuniary resources; and also held that the admission in evidence of such fact constituted reversible error. In Railroad Co. v. Johnson, 103 Ill. 512, it was held that it was technically erroneous to admit evidence of the poverty of the family of the deceased, but that it could not be said in that case that it did any harm. The still later case of Railroad Co. v. May, 108 Ill. 288, was a case very like this, and the above-mentioned cases of Railroad Co. v. Moranda, City of Chicago v. O'Brennan, and Railway Co. v. Powers, were cited in the briefs of the appellant. The appellee had been permitted to prove at the trial, against the objections of the appellant, that the deceased in his lifetime supported appellee and her children; and it was held not to be error. It was there said: ‘In cases of this character, where the action is founded solely upon the hypothesis that the plaintiff, by reason of the husband's death, has been injured in her means of support, such evidence is not only admissible, but highly proper,-indeed, almost indispensable; and there is nothing in the cases referred to sustaining a contrary view.’ We take it that the rule deducible from the cases is substantially this: That it is not competent to show what the pecuniary circumstances of the widow, family, or next of kin are or have been since the decease of the intestate, but that it is competent to show that the wife, children, or next of kin were dependent upon him for support before and at the time of his death. This view...