Booth v. Baltimore & O.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 09 November 1915 |
| Docket Number | 2604. |
| Citation | 87 S.E. 84,77 W.Va. 100 |
| Parties | BOOTH v. BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted October 26, 1915.
Syllabus by the Court.
The marriage of a woman, after injuries negligently inflicted by a carrier in the operation of its trains, does not affect her right to recover damages for the loss of time and capacity to earn money, due to such injuries. An instruction, in effect so informing the jury, is properly given.
A judgment, in a action for personal injuries inflicted by a carrier, will not be reversed for failure to prove the value of professional services of a physician treating plaintiff, to effect a cure, when the amount of the charges therefor is not shown in the case, nor, when shown if the court can see the amount thereof is obviously not unreasonable.
Error to Circuit Court, Harrison County.
Action by Mattie Booth against the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
John Bassel and Charles G. Coffman, both of Clarksburg, and W. W Brannon, of Weston, for plaintiff in error.
Sperry & Sperry, of Clarksburg, for defendant in error.
For the negligent infliction of injuries by the defendant railroad, plaintiff brought this action, and recovered a judgment upon a verdict for $1,500.
The evidence being contradictory and conflicting, the case properly was submitted to the jury, with whose finding we cannot interfere unless palpably wrong; and we do not so find it. The only questions argued by counsel relate to the giving of instructions alleged to be erroneous. In order to understand and test the propriety or correctness of the instructions, only a brief analysis of such evidence is necessary.
At the time of the injury, plaintiff was a feme sole. Soon thereafter she married. Hence arose the only important questions now necessary for our consideration. They relate to the correctness and application of instructions given, in view of the facts found by the jury. Plaintiff and her married sister, accompanied by four small children of the latter, purchased tickets for passage on defendant's train from Wallace to Clarksburg over the road locally known as the "Short Line," operated by defendant from Clarksburg to New Martinsville, Wallace being an intermediate station. The jury could, as it did, find that, as plaintiff was about to enter the coach, the train started from the station without warning, and dragged her the length of the coach before it could be stopped, thereby inflicting the injury for which she sued. She had theretofore occupied her time and labor for hire in performing household duties for her friends and neighbors in the community in which she resided. The injuries inflicted prevented the subsequent resumption of her usual activities up to the time of the trial. She was then living with her husband, having intermarried with him a few months after she was injured.
The criticism directed against this instruction, and others to the same general purport and effect, is its authorization of a recovery for loss of time and employment from the date of the injury, without regard to the subsequent marriage of plaintiff. The company complains of the failure to restrict recovery to the period intervening between the two dates, and, in support of its contention, cites Riley v. Railway Co., 27 W.Va. 151, and Warth v. County Court, 71 W.Va. 184, 76 S.E. 420. But they discuss and determine questions arising out of injuries and their resultant effects when occasioned and continued within and during the existence of the marital relation, and hence do not apply to the situation presented by the facts of this case.
The facts proved make necessary and inevitable the conclusion that the husband cannot maintain an action or therein recover of defendant compensation for any...
To continue reading
Request your trial