Kennedy v. Standard Sugar Refinery
| Decision Date | 24 July 1878 |
| Citation | 125 Mass. 90 |
| Parties | Norah Kennedy, administratrix, v. Standard Sugar Refinery |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Suffolk. Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff's intestate, Daniel Kennedy, by the negligence of the defendant. Answer, a general denial.
At the trial in this court, before Soule, J., it appeared that Kennedy was hired by a stevedore in the employ of the defendant, to discharge coal, and, on the day before the accident, had been engaged in wheeling coal; that on the morning of the accident, while walking across a platform which had been constructed so that coal could be discharged from vessels alongside the defendant's premises into a large shed, and carrying one end of a plank to be used in discharging coal, the other end of which was carried by a man who preceded him, the flooring of a scuttle, which had been made in the platform for the purpose of filling the bins beneath, gave way, and Kennedy fell a distance of about twenty feet to the ground; that, in falling, he exclaimed that the plank had broken; that, with this exception and a single low moan, he made no sound that was heard before he was taken up unconscious; and that he died on the following day, having lived about thirty-six hours after the accident. It did not appear that any bones were broken, but the opinion of the attending physician, who made him several visits, was that death was caused by a concussion of the spinal column. The evidence was conflicting as to whether Kennedy regained consciousness before his death.
The defendant requested the judge to instruct the jury as follows: "If Kennedy was unconscious from the time of the accident to his death, the right of action did not survive, and the action cannot be maintained; but if the right of action survived, and he was unconscious from the time of the accident, only nominal damages can be recovered."
The judge refused so to rule, and, on the question of damages instructed the jury as follows:
The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for $ 1250; and the defendant alleged exceptions.
Exceptions sustained.
R. M Morse, Jr., for the defendant.
J. A. Maxwell, for the plaintiff.
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Gillespie v. United States Steel Corporation
...of law from it. Kearney v. Boston & Worcester Railroad, 9 Cush. 108; Hollenbeck v. Berkshire Railroad Co., 9 Cush. 478; Kennedy v. Standard Sugar Refinery, 125 Mass. 90; Moran v. Hollings, 125 Mass. 93. Had she suffered bodily wounds and bruises, from the result of which she lingered and ul......
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Rohlfing v. Moses Akiona, Limited
...been urged, and that is that the damages are too conjectural to be permitted to go to the jury. That was the ruling in Kennedy v. Standard Sugar Refinery, 125 Mass. 90, in which the plaintiff's intestate lived thirty-six hours after the accident, so that the cause of action survived even un......
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Beynon v. Montgomery Cablevision Ltd. Partnership
...just before the accident, when collision was imminent and he jumped" was compensable mental injury); Compare Kennedy v. Standard Sugar Ref., 125 Mass. 90, 92 (1878)(mental distress experienced during a twenty-foot fall before hitting the ground might be compensable). The court "The plaintif......
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Gage v. City of Westfield
...just before the accident, when collision was imminent and he jumped" was compensable mental distress). Compare Kennedy v. Standard Sugar Ref., 125 Mass. 90, 92 (1878) (mental distress experienced during a twenty-foot fall before hitting the ground might be compensable). The plaintiffs' cont......