McGlothan v. Pennsylvania R. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 June 1947
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 5265.
• Citation: 72 F. Supp. 176
• Parties: McGLOTHAN v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

72 F. Supp. 176

McGLOTHAN v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.

Civ. No. 5265.

District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

June 3, 1947.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

B. N. Richter, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.

Philip Price, of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

McGRANERY, District Judge.

This action arises under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51, and is brought by Robert McGlothan as administrator of the estate of Edna Hawkins, for the benefit of deceased's husband, Benjamin Hawkins. Edna Hawkins, an employee of defendant Pennsylvania Railroad Company, was fatally injured on December 27, 1944, when she was crushed by an engine moving over defendant's tracks, underneath the 44th Street Bridge in Philadelphia. At the trial, William I. Stauffer, Senior Field Examiner for the United States Veterans Administration in Philadelphia, testified as plaintiff's witness that Benjamin Hawkins had a 30% disability for malaria, and was in poor health and unable to do heavy labor. Benjamin Hawkins had married the deceased in 1936, and entered the Army in 1942. The jury awarded plaintiff a verdict of $10,000 and judgment was entered for this amount. Defendant has moved both for a new trial and also to set aside the verdict and judgment in accordance with its motion for a directed verdict. Defendant's objections fall into three categories. It claims that plaintiff has failed to establish its right to maintain the action as administrator, that the court erred in its charge concerning the availability of a safe footway for the deceased, and that the court erred in excluding evidence designed to attack the marital status of Benjamin Hawkins. The last group of objections is the most complex and, therefore, deserves detailed examination.

In this group, defendant claims that the court should not have excluded exhibits offered by defendant to show deceased's separation from her husband, and that the court erred in instructing the jury to disregard Benjamin Hawkins' statements in his induction report stating that he was separated, and in refusing defendant's proferred charge that: "17. In calculating the amount which the deceased might reasonably have been expected to contribute to her surviving husband you may take into consideration the past history of the family relationship and the evidence of any contributions or failure to contribute to her husband prior to his death."

Benjamin Hawkins' testimony was to the general effect that he and his wife were happily married at the time he went into service. Defendant sought to introduce documentary evidence to show that, quite to the contrary, Hawkins and his wife were separated at that time, that she did not use the name of Hawkins, that she named a sister rather than Hawkins as beneficiary of her death benefits, and that there was nothing in the relationship of Hawkins to his wife which showed any reasonable expectation on his part that she would have contributed anything to his support.

The Federal Employers' Liability Act provides that a carrier shall be liable in damages for injury or death resulting in whole or in part from its negligence. Recovery under the Act is for pecuniary loss and "there must * * * appear some reasonable expectation of pecuniary assistance or support" of which the beneficiary has been deprived. See Michigan Central R. Co. v. Vreeland, 227 U.S. 59, 70, 33 S.Ct. 192, 196, 57 L.Ed. 417, Ann.Cas. 1914C, 176. Under Pennsylvania law a husband, of course, has the duty of supporting his wife and this duty is lost only when she is guilty of conduct which would be valid ground for a divorce. Commonwealth v. Henderson, 143 Pa.Super. 347, 17 A.2d 692. But by Pennsylvania statute, 62 P.S. § 1973, either spouse, if he is financially able, has the duty of supporting the other, if indigent, and should the local authority assume the burden of that support, the defaulting spouse will be liable for the financial assistance. Killmaier v. Hermann, 99 Pa.Super. 135; Dept. of Public Assistance v. Heinbaugh, 45 D. & C. 38. It would seem logical that this duty of a financially capable wife or husband can also be terminated only by conduct justifying a divorce. Cf. Dept. of Public Assistance v. Palmer, 45 D. & C. 590. Defendant's counsel has no evidence to offer indicating that Benjamin Hawkins' separation from his wife after his induction was other than involuntary, and the latter alone clearly would not relieve her of the duty of supporting him, if he could not support himself. See Hutcheson v. Hutcheson, 54 D. & C. 630, 113 Legal Intelligencer 443, (Fayette Co., Pa., 1945). Defendant's counsel admits that he cannot prove separation prior to induction sufficient to destroy that duty, but apparently claims, however, that the likelihood of continuance of the legal obligation, or of conformance to it while it continued, is nonetheless pertinent, and evidence relevant to these issues should be admitted.

As to the latter point, it should be made clear that there is no question here of the admissibility of evidence of failure to live up to a duty of support in the past or of the weight to be accorded such evidence. Cf. annotations in 18 A.L.R. 1409 and 90 A.L.R. 920. It may be noted in passing, however, that if a duty to support exists, it does so because of the considered policy of courts or legislature. To deny the pecuniary benefit of enforcement of that duty in the future because it has not been enforced in the past overrides this policy. Its justification is in an assumption that the beneficiary of a right to support would never take effective legal steps to enforce it, and that, therefore, a carrier should not bear an illusory loss in a suit under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. But this assumption is highly speculative, at best, and its effect is to allow a negligent carrier to reduce its liability to a deceased's family by taking advantage of the deceased's past anti-social conduct of nonsupport.

However, regardless of the propriety of admitting such evidence, there is no issue of past nonsupport here. Benjamin Hawkins' need for assistance from his wife did not arise until after her death, when he was discharged with a permanent disability. Since her duty under the Pennsylvania statute was dependent on his need, failure to help him before her death was irrelevant. It could not, as in the sort of case mentioned above, indicate a probable disregard of duty in the future because of a disregard of duty in the past. Therefore, that part of the proffered charge which called for the jury to consider any evidence of failure to contribute was properly denied.

As to the rest of defendant's contentions on this point; i. e., that the statements in the induction report and the documents of deceased were proper evidence, its argument must be that this evidence is relevant as indicating that (1) when called upon to live up to her duty of support in the future, deceased would fail to do so, (2) the duty, itself, would soon have been terminated; e. g., by Benjamin Hawkins' desertion.

As to the first possibility, the court cannot agree to the propriety of admitting this kind of evidence. As a matter of policy, wherever possible, the beneficiary of a right to support should not be harmed by presuming anti-social conduct on the part of the supporting spouse. The force of precedent may compel a court to admit evidence of past failure to contribute as leading to proper inferences about future payments. But in this case the rejected documents of deceased, at most, indicate a lack of interest on her part in her husband. Whether that feeling would continue if she were faced with her husband's need is another...