Hinman v. Dir. Gen. of Railroads

• Decision Date: 07 December 1920
• Docket Number: No. 684.,684.
• Parties: HINMAN v. DIRECTOR GENERAL OF RAILROADS.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

112 A. 382

HINMAN

v. DIRECTOR GENERAL OF RAILROADS.

No. 684.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Coos.

Dec. 7, 1920.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Coos County; Kivel, Judge.

Action by John Hinman, administrator, against the Director General of Railroads, resulting in verdict for defendant, and both parties except. On transfer to the Supreme Court. Defendant's exception overruled, and plaintiff's exceptions sustained and new trial ordered.

Case for negligently causing the death of the plaintiff's intestate. Trial by jury. Verdict for the defendant. It was not alleged and there was no evidence tending to prove that the intestate left any relatives, and at the close of the evidence the defendant moved for a directed verdict on the ground it could not be found that the intestate left an heir at law surviving him. Transferred by Kivel, C. J., on the defendant's exception to the denial of this motion and on the plaintiff's exceptions to the following statements of the defendant's counsel:

"Whether he had any relatives on the face of the earth doesn't appear, if he should recover $20,000, which he asks for, where that money would go to, who would get it, except the administrator, is entirely a matter of conjecture." Exception.

"It is a little unusual to bring suit on a speculation of this kind. It may perhaps be a normal thing to you. We usually have a war widow, or children, or somebody claiming by reason of this man's death they have been deprived of assistance. That, perhaps, is the way you have heard cases tried." Exception.

"But in this case the attorneys say the administrator of some unknown man wishes you to ask the United States government, through the Director General of Bailroads, to pay into the hand of this unseen man, John H. Hinman, that didn't take interest enough in the case to tell you anything about it; absolutely no interest in it." Exception.

"He asks you to pay $20,000 of the funds of the United States government. What is he going to do with it? They start out and ask for that sum to be paid over to them in the dark, and how do they ask you and on what do they base their claim? In the first place they say that this nameless, unknown man." Exception.

"That this man they have proved didn't come from anywhere, going anywhere, or is anybody; they say he is worth $20,000 to John Hinman." Exception.

Drew, Shurtleff, Morris & Oakes and Irving A. Hinkley, all of Lancaster, for plaintiff.

George P. Bich, of Berlin, and H. P. Sweetser, of Portland, Me., for defendant.

YOUNG, J. The defendant bases his exception on the proposition that it is necessary for the plaintiff to allege and prove that the intestate left heirs at law surviving him; that, however, is not the rule in this jurisdiction, for, as P. S. c. 191, §§ 8-13, have been construed, the office of section 8 is to repeal to the extent named in the five following sectio...