Hollett v. Wilmington Trust Co.
| Decision Date | 04 May 1934 |
| Citation | 172 A. 763,36 Del. 170 |
| Court | Delaware Superior Court |
| Parties | GEORGE W. HOLLETT v. WILMINGTON TRUST COMPANY and JAMES H. HUGHES, JR., Executors of Eli Nichols, Deceased |
Superior Court for New Castle County, No. 228, September Term, 1933.
Demurrer to declaration.
The demurrer is sustained.
William H. Bennethum (of Marvel, Morford, Ward and Logan) for plaintiff.
Clarence A. Southerland (of Ward and Gray) for defendants.
OPINION
The plaintiff's declaration alleges that the defendants' testator, Eli Nichols, alienated and destroyed the affection of the plaintiff's wife, whereby the plaintiff lost her comfort, fellowship, society, aid and assistance.
To the declaration the defendants have demurred specially contending that the cause of action abated with the death of Eli Nichols, and does not survive under Revised Code 1915, § 4154, which is as follows:
"In all personal actions, except actions for assault and battery, defamation, malicious prosecution, or any injury to the person, or upon penal statutes, the cause of action shall survive to and against the executors, or administrators, of the person to, or against whom, the cause of action accrued. * * *"
The precise question for determination, therefore, is whether the alienation of the affection of a wife is an injury to the person of the husband which, under the excepting clause of the statute, abates upon the death of the wrongdoer; or, is such a violation of the right of a husband to the consortium of his wife, an injury to a property right from which a cause of action arises which survives under the general language of the statute.
The statute, substantially in its present form, was enacted in 1829, and it should be construed with reference to the principles of the common law in force at the time of its passage. 59 C. J. 1039; State v. Donovan, 28 Del. 40, 5 Boyce 40, 90 A. 220. Words used in a statute which have a definite and settled meaning at common law are presumed to be employed in the same sense, and will be so construed, unless a contrary intent clearly appears. 59 C. J. 1039; Petts v. Ison, 11 Ga. 151, 56 Am. Dec. 419; Garrison v. Burden, 40 Ala. 513; Russell v. Sunbury, 37 Ohio St. 372, 41 Am. Rep. 523.
That, at the common law of this period, the classification of actions was well defined and understood, sufficiently appears in 1 Chitty Pl. (Ed. 1825) 59. The distinction between actions for injuries to the person, and to personal and real property is carefully drawn.
The ancient maxim of the common law, actio personalis moritur cum persona, once applicable alike to contractual and delictual duties and obligations, at the time, had been with respect to the survival of contractual rights and duties, narrowed greatly by natural forces, judicial reasoning and decision, at work in the common law, but in the field of tort, the first relaxation of the maxim was accomplished by the statute 4 Edw. 111, c. 7, giving executors a remedy where there was an asportation of, or damage done, to chattels of the testator; but it is to be noted that the statute did not give the executor a right of action for injuries to the person or character of the testator, nor a right of action against executors. The estates of decedents were not made liable for trespass until later, and this was by the application of the doctrine that actions based on property do not die with the person, subject, however, to the limitation that the tort complained of, in order to give a right of action as against the representative of the wrongdoer, must operate to the increase of his estate. 3 Street, Foundations, 70; Hambly v. Trott, Cowp. 371; Phillips v. Homfray, 24 Ch. D. 439. So, Chitty, supra, declared the law to be:
"In the case of injuries to the person, whether by assault, battery, false imprisonment, slander or otherwise, if either the party who received or committed the injury die, no action can be supported either by or against the executors or other personal representatives; for the statute 4 Edw. 111, c. 7, has made no alteration in the common law in this respect."
And, page 82:
"At common law upon the death of the wrongdoer, the remedy for wrongs ex delicto, and unconnected with contract, in general determines, and as the statute 4 Edw. 111, c. 7, does not give any remedy against personal representatives, we shall find that few actions in form ex delicto, and in which the plea would be not guilty, can be supported against the executor or administrator of the party who committed the injury."
The authority for these conclusions is Hambly v. Trott, supra. This great case, decided by Lord Mansfield in 1776, held that the action of trover did not survive against the representative of the deceased converter of chattels. This case is of such moment that it has been said, and it is doubtless true, that in a common law jurisdiction the law with respect to survivability of actions for torts is to be determined by a reference to the doctrine stated by Lord Mansfield, the statute of Edw. 111 and the statutory enactments of the state. Note to Boor v. Lowery (103 Ind. 468, 3 N.E. 151), 53 Am. Rep. 530. See, also, R. C. L. Abatement and Revival.
Criminal conversation, seduction and alienation of affections are terms used to denote wrongs done to marital rights; and the form of action is ex delicto and the plea is not guilty.
At first, with regard to criminal conversation, the form of action was trespass vi et armis, as the wife was a chattel of the husband, a part of his person, and could not consent to the wrong to the husband. 3 Blackstone 140; Reeves, Domestic Relations (2d Ed.) 64; Dixon v. Amerman, 181 Mass. 430, 63 N.E. 1057. And this form of action was employed as late as 1805, Macfazden v. Olivant, 6 East. 387, where it was suggested that properly the action should be in case. As early as 1745, it was held that a husband could maintain an action for the wrongful alienation of his wife's affections, Winsmore v. Greenback, Willes Rep. 517, and since that time the right of action has been recognized both in England and in the United States. 13 R. C. L. 1458.
Whether an action survives depends generally upon the nature of the action, and not upon its form. State ex rel. Brumley v. J. & M. Paper Co., 26 Del. 118, 3 Boyce 118, 80 A. 350.
Considering, therefore, the nature of the action under consideration, its form and appropriate plea, it must be that it is one of the "many other cases of like kind" which does not survive against a personal representative, as ruled by Lord Mansfield in Hambly v. Trott; and it would be a bold barrister indeed who would have dared to argue before that judge that a right of action arising out of an injury done to the marriage relation was not an injury to the person, or was so founded on property, or property right, that it survived the death of the wrongdoer. Such was the state of the common law with respect to a right of action for an injury of this character, at the time of the enactment of the survival statute. Injuries to the person and character now represent the final intrenchment of a doctrine once applicable to all personal obligation whether of contract or tort. 3 Street, 71.
It is not to be doubted that the Legislature may accomplish the survivability of actions to recover damages for all manner of injury to the person, and in 1866, by Chapter 31, Vol. 13, Del. Laws, now Revised Code 1915, § 4155, the Legislature did provide for the survivency of actions to recover damages for injuries to the person by negligence or default, that is, for injuries of a physical character; but where the rules of the common law prevail those rules still determine the survivency of actions for torts except as modified or changed by statute. Hegerich v. Keddie, 99 N.Y. 258, 1 N.E. 787, 52 Am. Rep. 25.
The question of the survivability of an action of this character depends upon the statutes of the jurisdiction in which the question arises. Thus in Powers v. Sumbler, 83 Kan. 1, 110 P. 97, it was held that an action for the alienation of affections did not abate under a general survival statute excepting from its operation certain actions specifically named among which the action for alienation of affections was not included. Likewise, in C v. D, 10 Ont. L. R. 641, the action for criminal conversation was held not to abate under a statute enabling personal representatives to maintain actions for all torts.
But there seems to be no dissent from the doctrine that a cause of action for alienation of affections, or for criminal conversation, does not survive under a survival statute excepting from its operation injuries to the person. 1 C. J. 204; 21 Ency. Pl. & Pr. 349; White v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 140 Md. 593, 118 A. 77, 24 A. L. R. 482; Garrison v. Burden, 40 Ala. 513; Clarke v. McClelland, 9 Pa. 128; Gross' Adm'r v. Ledford, 190 Ky. 526, 228 S.W. 24, 14 A. L. R. 689, where under a statute providing that no right of action for personal injury shall cease or die except actions for criminal conversation, it was held that the action for alienation of affections was of the same nature and genus as one for criminal conversation, and accordingly did not survive.
In Taylor v. Bliss, 26 R.I. 16, 57 A. 939, it was held that a delinquent defendant in a judgment recovered against him for the malicious alienation of affections of the plaintiff's wife, was not liable to imprisonment for debt under a statute excepting from its provisions debts recovered for malicious injury to the person.
Other decisions are not, perhaps, inapposite. In Justice v Clinard, 142 Tenn. 208, 217 S.W. 663, the survival statute excepted actions for wrongs affecting the...
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