Lewis v. Maddy
| Decision Date | 25 October 1919 |
| Docket Number | No. 32876.,32876. |
| Citation | 187 Iowa 603,174 N.W. 346 |
| Parties | LEWIS v. MADDY. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Marion County; George V. Lynch, Judge.
Action by the plaintiff to recover damages for the loss of consortium of her husband by reason of personal injuries sustained through the negligence of the defendant and which resulted in the death of the husband. There was a demurrer to the petition which was sustained. The plaintiff elected to stand upon her petition and submit to judgment of dismissal. She appeals. Affirmed.L. D. Teter, of Knoxville, for appellant.
Vander Ploeg & Johnson, of Knoxville, and Burrell & Devitt, of Oskaloosa, for appellee.
The plaintiff's husband, while in the employ of the defendant, fell from a scaffold, sustaining injuries from which he died one hour later. The action is for damages for the loss of consortium for such space of one hour following the injury.
[1] It is the law of this state, as appellant concedes, that damages for wrongful death accrue to the administrator of the decedent. Neither husband nor wife may sue in an individual capacity for the damages resulting from such wrongful death. Major v. R. R. Co., 115 Iowa, 309, 88 N. W. 815. Under many of our previous cases, however, it has been held that the husband may recover individually for loss of consortium and services of the wife and for expenses incurred in her treatment during the period intervening between the time of the injury and the time of death. Whether this right of action has been superseded to the husband by section 3477a of the Code Supplemental Supplement, we shall have no occasion to determine herein. The contention of the appellant is that this right subsists to the husband, and that it ought to subsist to the wife for the same reason; the right of consortium of the wife being equal to that of the husband. Concededly the wife would have no right to recover for loss of the services of her husband. The contention of the plaintiff, then, is reduced to this: That she is entitled to recover for the loss of consortium during the space of one hour intervening between the injury and the death.
[2] Without passing upon the legal question thus presented, it is enough to say that the damages for such a brief space of time would be necessarily nominal. We so held in Lane v. Steiniger, 174 Iowa, 319, 156 N. W. 375, and in Jacobson v. Fullerton, 181 Iowa, 1195, 165 N. W. 358. We could not, therefore, reverse for the...
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