Daniels v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 22 May 1903
• Parties: DANIELS v. NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

183 Mass. 393

67 N.E. 424

DANIELS

v.NEW YORK, N. H. & H. R. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

May 22, 1903.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Norfolk County.

Two actions-one by Mancy E. Daniels, and the other by his executrix, Mary E. Daniels-against the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. There were rulings adverse to defendant, and it brings exceptions. Sustained in part.

Gaston, Snow & Saltonstall and Malcolm Donald, for plaintiff.

Choate & Hall, for defendant.

KNOWLTON, C. J.

These actions are brought, one by Mancy E. Daniels, and the other by his executrix; the first to recover damages suffered in his lifetime, and the second to recover for his death resulting from a collision with an engine and train at a crossing of a highway on the defendant's railroad. The negligence of the defendant which is chiefly relied on it the failure to give the cautionary signals required by the statute to be given at crossings of highways. The defendant, on its bill of exceptions, has argued only two questions: First, whether there was evidence which would warrant a finding that the signals were not given; and, secondly, whether the death of Daniels, which resulted from his strangling himself while he was probably insane, was caused by the defendant's negligence, within the meaning of the statute.

As to the first question, although there was testimony from numerous witnesses that the whistle was blown for the crossing at the time the collision occurred, there was also testimony from others, who were in positions where they might have heard the signals if they had been given, that they heard nothing until the danger signals were given, just before the accident; and there was also testimony of the declarations of the deceased that he heard nothing until the train was right upon him, and that he was absolutely sure that there was no whistle until the danger signal was sounded. Although it did not appear that these last witnesses were giving much attention, we think they were so situated that their failure to hear or notice a signal was competent for the consideration of the jury. This was especially true of the deceased, who was approaching the crossing, and very near it. There was also evidence that the whistling post at which, according to some of the witnesses, the whistle was first blown, was less than 80 rods from the crossing. If the signal was first given there, it was a failure to comply with the statute. Pub. St. 1882, c. 112, § 163; St. 1890, p. 142, c. 173; Duggan v. New England Railroad Company, 172 Mass. 337, 52 N. E. 519. We are of opinion that this question was rightly submitted to the jury. Menard v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 150 Mass. 386, 23 N. E. 214;Johanson v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 153 Mass. 57, 26 N. E. 426.

The important question in the second case relates to the manner of Daniels' death, and to the law applicable to a death caused as his was. He received a blow on the head and other injuries at the time of the accident, which occurred on August 12, 1899, and he died on the 3d day of the next October. The evidence tended to show that his mind was clear for several weeks after the accident, but after that he showed symptoms of insomnia and restlessness, and began to suffer from severe attacks of headache, was melancholy, and at times delirious. The autopsy after his death showed circumscribed meningitis, which produced mental aberration. On October 3d he was left alone on his bed in a room from which the door opened into the dining room. This door was left open, and after a time it was found closed, and locked from the bedroom on the inside. His wife entered the room through a window, and he was discovered lying on his bed, with a napkin, which had been left on a tray used for bringing his food, twisted tightly around his neck, and held tightly in his hands, so as to produce strangulation. He was not then dead, but died soon afterwards. Experts testified that he was probably insane when he took his life. The question is whether his life was lost by the collision, within the meaning of the statute. The jury were well warranted in finding that his mental condition was caused by the collision. If his mental condition had remained normal, probably he would not have died in this way. We are thus brought to the consideration of the question-which is often very difficult to decide-whether an essential condition precedent is the active, efficient, proximate cause of a subsequent event, or is only a producer of conditions which open the door to another cause which directly and actively produces the result. Was death in this case a remote consequence of the collision, or was it an effect actively produced by it? A similar question has often been considered under policies of life insurance which except from the terms of the contract cases of death by suicide or by the hand of the assured. The decisions upon this question are conflicting. All agree that death self-caused in an uncontrollable frenzy, without knowledge or appreciation of the physical nature of the act, would not be death by suicide, or by one's own hand, within the meaning of such a provision in a policy. Some judges make a distinction between death by one's own hand and death by suicide, but most judges consider the language in either form as meaning death by one's own act. Some courts hold that if death is the result of volition by one who has a conscious purpose to end his life, and has intelligence to adapt means to ends, it is his own act, within the meaning of such a contract, even though he is so far insane as not to be morally responsible for his conduct. That is the doctrine of this court, as stated in Dean v. American Insurance Company, 4 Allen, 96, and in Cooper v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 102 Mass. 227, 3 Am. Rep. 451, following Boradaile v. Hunter, 5 M. & G. 639, and Clift v. Schwabe, 3 M., G. & S. 437. The...