Hoodmacher v. Lehigh Valley R. Co.
| Decision Date | 24 May 1906 |
| Docket Number | 118 |
| Citation | 218 Pa. 21,66 A. 975 |
| Parties | Hoodmacher v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 12, 1906.
Reargued April 15, 1907.
Appeal, No. 118, Jan. T., 1906, by defendant, from judgment of C.P. Luzerne Co., May T., 1902, No. 762, on verdict for plaintiff in case of Mary E. Hoodmacher and Florence M Hoodmacher, widow and minor child of George B. Hoodmacher, v Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. Affirmed.
Trespass to recover damages for death of plaintiff's husband. Before HALSEY, J.
At the trial it appeared that the deceased, a flagman, was injured by an explosion of a locomotive belonging to the defendant at Bloomsbury, New Jersey, on May 15, 1901. The evidence tended to show that the company had failed properly to inspect and repair the locomotive at the company's round-house in Easton, Pennsylvania.
Verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $7,000. Defendant appealed.
Error assigned was in refusing binding instructions for defendant.
Judgment reversed.
The order heretofore made reversing the judgment of the court below, is now rescinded, and the judgment is affirmed.
J. B. Woodward, of Woodward, Darling & Woodward, and H. W. Palmer, for appellant. -- The case should not have gone to the jury because the accident happened in New Jersey, and the suit was brought in the name of the parties to whom the right of action is given in Pennsylvania: Usher v. West Jersey R.R. Co., 126 Pa. 206.
John T. Lenahan, with him Charles Orion Stroh, for appellees. -- This case is ruled by Derr v. Lehigh Valley R.R. Co., 158 Pa. 365.
The doctrine of liability contended for by us, under the Derr case, is in line with the following cases from other states: VanDoren v. Penna. R.R. Co., 93 Fed. Repr. 260; The Strabo, 90 Fed. Repr. 110; Lindstrom v. International Nav. Co., 117 Fed. Repr. 170; Heaven v. Pender, L.R. 11 Q.B. Div. 503; R.R. Co. v. Derby, 55 U.S. 468.
Before MITCHELL, C.J., FELL, MESTREZAT, POTTER and ELKIN, JJ.
This case is ruled by Usher v. West Jersey R.R. Co., 126 Pa. 206, in which it was held that an action for damages for injuries causing death, being entirely statutory, must be brought by the person to whom the right is given by the statutes of the state where the cause of action arose. In the syllabus of that case, the expression is that the action must be brought by the person to whom the right is given by the statutes of the For the facts in that case the expression is entirely accurate, for the injuries and the death both occurred in New Jersey. But the more general expression, "the state where the cause of action arose," is the better one. The learned judge below appears to have been misled by the assumption that an exception to this principle has been established in Derr v. Lehigh Valley R.R. Co., 158 Pa. 365. But no such question arose in that case, for the decedent, for whose death the action was brought, died in Pennsylvania, and, if an action lay at all, it was in this state and under our statute. In that case the injuries were received in New Jersey and the action was sought to be sustained by showing that the negligence, which was the proximate cause, began in this state and continued till the injuries were actually inflicted. A nonsuit was sustained for the failure of evidence on this point. "Unless a negligent act or omission in Pennsylvania," said McCOLLUM, J.,
In the present, as in the Derr case, the plaintiff based the right of recovery on the evidence of the initial negligence of the defendant in this state which continued and became part of the proximate cause of the death. In this case the jury so found. But this view overlooks the fact that in the present case that is...
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