Levlock v. Spanos
Citation | 131 A.2d 319,101 N.H. 22 |
Parties | Gertrude S. LEVLOCK, Adm'x, v. Aristides V. SPANOS, Adm'r. |
Decision Date | 30 April 1957 |
Court | Supreme Court of New Hampshire |
McLane, Carleton, Graf, Greene & Brown, Manchester, Shulins & Duncan, Newport, Stanley M. Brown, Manchester, for plaintiff.
Faulkner, Plaut & Hanna, N. Michael Plaut, Keene, for defendant.
It is a familiar principle that the law of the place of wrong governs the right of action for wrongful death. Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 391. Gray v. Gray, 87 N.H. 82, 174 A. 508, 94 A.L.R. 1404. Consequently the right of the plaintiff to maintain an action for wrongful death in this case is governed by the statutes and case law of Vermont. Zielinski v. Cornwell, 100 N.H. 34, 37, 118 A.2d 734. While the Vermont rule is well established that a wife has no cause of action against her husband for torts, Comstock v. Comstock, 106 Vt. 50, 169 A. 903, the question in this case is whether an action for wrongful death may be prosecuted under the Vermont wrongful death statute when the husband and wife are deceased.
The pertinent parts of the Vermont statute (1947) read as follows:
In Berry v. Rutland R. Co., 103 Vt. 388, 391, 154 A. 671, 672, it was held that the statute 'does not give a new right of action but a new right of recovery, not existing at common law, arising from the injury to the deceased which gave or would have given him a right of action if death had not ensued.' In Desautels' Adm'r v. Mercure's Estate, 104 Vt. 211, 214, 158 A. 682, 683, appears the following: '* * * the statute creates merely a new right of recovery which attaches to the right of action arising from the original wrong. By it, a new element of damages is ingrafted upon that right of action; it provides 'a new principle as to the assessment of damages.'' The Berry case, supra, was cited with approval in the more recent case of Abbott v. Abbott, 112 Vt. 449, 451, 28 A.2d 375.
The defendant contends that these cases indicate that the right of recovery for the benefit of next of kin is derivative in nature and subject to any infirmities that would have existed if death had not occurred. Since the wife would have had no cause of action for personal injuries in her lifetime, the defendant claims that the derivative right of recovery for the next of kin is subject to the same defensive infirmity where the suit is brought after death. Reliance is also placed on the dictum in Carty's Adm'r v. Village of Winooski, 78 Vt. 104, 109, 62 A. 45, 46, 2 L.R.A.,N.S., 95: 'As the intestate would have had no right of action if death had not ensued his personal representative can have none for the benefit of the next of kin.'
The plaintiff emphasizes that the Vermont wrongful death statute provides '* * * a new right of action, entirely independent and unrelated to any which the deceased may have had during his lifetime * * *.' Brown v. Perry, 104 Vt. 66, 69, 156 A. 910, 912, 77 A.L.R. 1294. This case was likewise cited with approval in Abbott v. Abbott, supra, as follows [112 Vt. 499, 28 A.2d 377]: ...
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