Franklin v. Wills
| Decision Date | 17 December 1954 |
| Docket Number | 12139.,No. 12138,12138 |
| Citation | 217 F.2d 899 |
| Parties | Burton FRANKLIN, Administrator of the Estate of David L. Davis, deceased, v. Eva Hornsby WILLS. Burton FRANKLIN, Administrator of the Estate of David L. Davis, deceased, v. Peggy Wills DAVIS. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Charles A. Noone, Chattanooga, Tenn. (Noone, Tanner & Noone, Chattanooga, Tenn., on the brief), for appellant.
Joseph B. Roberts, Chattanooga, Tenn. (Fraziar, Roberts & Weill, Chattanooga, Tenn., on the brief), for appellees.
Before MARTIN, McALLISTER and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
These two appeals from judgments entered in the United States District Court on jury verdicts, awarding appellees damages for personal injuries, have been argued, heard and considered together. The actions were brought, respectively, by the wife and the mother-in-law of appellant's intestate, the husband and son-in-law, who was driving the automobile in which appellees were riding at the time of the occurrence which resulted in their injuries and in the death of appellant's intestate.
There is substantial evidence in the record upon which the jury could properly find that the negligence of appellant's intestate, combined with that of the driver of an approaching automobile with which his automobile collided, was the proximate cause of the accident. Therefore, unless some reversible error of law was committed by the trial judge, the judgments must be affirmed.
No exception was taken to the charge of the court; but, in the wife's case, an interesting question has been raised. The accident occurred in North Carolina; and the actions were brought in the forum of Tennessee. In Tennessee, it is established that the law of the place where a tort is committed determines the rights of the parties accruing therefrom. See Parsons v. American Trust & Banking Co., 168 Tenn. 49, 73 S.W.2d 698. But it is also the law of Tennessee that one spouse may not sue another in a tort action, notwithstanding the Married Woman's Emancipation Act, Code, § 8460. Tobin v. Gelrich, 162 Tenn. 96, 34 S.W.2d 1058; Lillienkamp v. Rippetoe, 133 Tenn. 57, 179 S.W. 628, L.R.A.1916B, 881. The law of North Carolina, however, permits a wife to bring a tort action against her husband.
In holding that, in the circumstances of the instant case, the wife was privileged to sue her deceased husband's estate in tort for the injuries which she had received in the injuries which she had received in the...
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...Court supported the ancient common-law rule, but there was a momentous dissent by Justices Harlan, Holmes and Hughes. In Franklin v. Wills, 6 Cir., 1954, 217 F.2d 899 recovery was allowed by the Federal Court in an action brought by the wife for damages on account of negligent operation of ......
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...injury sounding in tort, lex loci delicti. Kennard v. Illinois Central R.R. Co., 177 Tenn. 311, 148 S. W.2d 1017 (1941); Franklin v. Wills, 217 F.2d 899 (6th Cir. 1954); Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 378. Where there is a multi-state tort, the place of the wrong is "the state where the l......
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...recover those funds. A chose in action is property in Tennessee. Wills v. Franklin, 131 F.Supp. 668, 672 (E.D.Tenn. 1953), aff'd, 217 F.2d 899 (6th Cir.1954); See United States v. Bank of Celina, 721 F.2d 163, 167 (6th Cir.1983); Citizens and Southern National Bank, supra, at 1105 (Georgia ......
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...should have been allowed to the end that this court explore the policy problems underlying the immunity doctrine. 19 Franklin v. Wills, 217 F.2d 899 (6 Cir. 1954). 20 There the court found no adequate basis for relief on the ground of excusable neglect. A succinct history of the 1963 amendm......