Marri v. Stamford St. R. Co.

Decision Date06 January 1911
Citation84 Conn. 9,78 A. 582
PartiesMARRI v. STAMFORD ST. R. CO.
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; George W. Wheeler, Judge.

Action by Emil Marri against the Stamford Street Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Judgment set aside and cause remanded, with directions.

This action was brought to recover damages claimed to have been sustained by the plaintiff as the result of a collision between a trolley car negligently operated by the defendant's servant in the streets of Stamford and a carriage drawn by horses, in which the plaintiff and his wife were being driven. Recovery was sought for personal injuries to the plaintiff, harm done to the horses and carriage owned by the plaintiff, and injuries to the plaintiff in his relative rights through the expenditure which he was required to make in the care and cure of his wife, who was personally injured at the same time, and through his loss of her services and companionship resulting from her injuries. The court found that the collision and resulting injuries were caused by the defendant's negligence, and without contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff or Mrs. Marri, and rendered judgment in the plaintiff's favor. Included in the amount for which recovery was thus had was a sum for money expended for doctors, medicine, care, and nursing, and the sum of $300 "for loss of consortium." The appeal assigns a number of errors, but all the assignments are waived except one which charges the court with error in its allowance of the $300 for loss of consortium. Mrs. Marri in her action for the consequences of the same accident, brought and heard at the same time, was allowed full compensation for all her injuries, including pain and suffering. Mr. and Mrs. Marri were married in 1888.

William B. Boardman and Frederick W. Huxford, for appellant.

Homer S. Cummings and John J. Cullinan, for appellee.

PRENTICE, J. (after stating the facts as above). The court included in its judgment in favor of the plaintiff husband a sum for his loss of consortium. The right of consortium has had modern definition which limits it to a right growing out of the marriage relation, which the husband and wife have, respectively, to the society, companionship, and affection of each other in their life together. By this definition it is clearly intended to distinguish the right to consortium from that to services. Feneff v. New York Central & H. R. R. Co., 203 Mass. 278, 89 N. E. 436, 24 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1024, 133 Am. St Rep. 291. Such was not the common-law use of the term. In its original application it was used to designate a right which the law recognized in a husband, growing out of the marital union, to have performance by the wife of all those duties and obligations in respect to him which she took upon herself when she entered into it. The meaning of the term as thus employed has remained its common-law meaning. As thus employed it includes the right to society, companionship, and conjugal affection, and the law has from early days recognized the right of a husband to have recovery in damages for the loss of these incidents of the marital relation when he was deprived of them by certain acts regarded as necessarily destructive of them. Wilton v. Webster, 7 Car. & P. 198, 201; Weedeen v. Timbrall. 5 T. R. 357, 360. Acts, on the other hand, whose natural consequence was the diminution or impairment of these incidents, and whose necessary consequence was not their loss, were not regarded as furnishing a right of action. Lellis v. Lambert, 24 Ont. App. 653, 654; Houghton v. Rice, 174 Mass. 366, 368, 54 N. E. 843, 47 L. R. A. 310, 75 Am. St. Rep. 351.

But the right of consortium was by no means fully expressed in the terms of society, companionship, and conjugal affection. The right to service was a prominent factor in it, and in respect to certain kinds of injuries, without doubt, the predominant factor. If we go back to the times when it took on its meaning the conditions were that the wife was socially and legally regarded as the husband's inferior, as having her existence merged into that of her husband, and as owing to him the duty, which he was entitled to command, of serving and administering to him in ail the relations of domestic life. Her emancipation of recent years was centuries in the future. She was looked upon as the servant of and ministrant to her liege lord, to whom and to whose interests she was, by virtue of her marriage vow, devoted. He was entitled to her services, and these she was expected to render in the care of his home, in the rearing of his children, and in attending upon his wants. The solace and comfort which she was expected to bestow were in part at least that which would naturally flow from her rendition of this service, and her society, companionship, and affection as a faithful and loving wife would naturally have their fruition in a faithful performance of it. The services which the law had in contemplation were not so much those which resulted in wages earned, or from the mere performance of labor, as those which found their expression at the domestic fireside, and in all manner of aid, assistance and helpfulness in all the relations of domestic life. "The word 'service' has come to us in this connection from the time when the action originated, and it implies whatever aid, assistance, comfort, and society the wife would be expected to render or bestow upon her husband under the circumstances and in the conditions in which they may be placed, whatever those may be." Cooley on Torts, 471.

The law's conception of the claim which the husband had upon the wife, and of his right growing out of the marital relation which entered into the meaning of the word "consortium" to express that right as the subject of invasion by wrongdoing was thus one which embraced the right to service as a distinct factor, and there was no attempt to disassociate the right to society, companionship, and affection from it. All these rights were bound together in social and legal contemplation, and they were bound together in the law's expression of them. In some cases, as where the wrong was criminal conversation, the loss of conjugal society and affection might stand out and be emphasized as the pre-eminent and perhaps sole basis of recovery. In others, as in actions growing out of personal injuries, the loss of service would present itself as the predominant factor. The law has, however, never been solicitous to distinguish between these different elements of damage or to separate them, and there will be found few cases indeed, and we think no one of the earlier ones in which the husband's loss was regarded as one into which the element of service did not enter. The pleadings in the early cases, and the language of the opinions in them, clearly show that loss of services as well as society and affection were included in the legal meaning of the loss of "consortium." 1 Chitty on Pleading, 49; 3 Chitty on Pleading, 417; Guy v. Lusy, 2 Rol. R. 51; Russell v. Corne, Ld. Raym. 1031; Guy v. Livesy, 2 Cro. Jac. 501; Hyde v. Scyffor, Cro. Jac. 538. The older and more recent text-writers unite in stating that in an action per quod consortium amisit recovery might properly be had for the husband's loss, whether it partook of the one character or the other. 1 Bacon's Abridgment, 502; Reeves, Domestic Relations, 63; Tiffany on Persons & Domestic Relations, 77; 2 Kinkead on Torts, § 449.

It does not clearly appear whether the trial court in the present case used the term in defining the basis upon which recovery was allowed in the narrow sense of the definition first stated, or in the more correct and comprehensive sense. That is, however, a matter of small present importance. But it is important in an examination of the development of the law relating to the general subject under consideration to bear in mind that within the legal meaning of consortium are embraced as well those incidents of the marital relation which center about service, and thus possess a practical and material value to a husband, as those which are associated with what, for want of a better term, we say designate as its sentimental side, and are expressed in the terms of affection solace, comfort, companionship, and society wholly unrelated to service.

The common law has long recognized the right of a husband to recover damages for his loss of consortium in the comprehensive sense of that word, as for an injury to him in respect to his relative rights, when that loss was the consequence of certain wrongful acts done to or in relation to his wife. Blackstone in his Commentaries, vol. 3, p. 139, states the law as it had been established by the courts at the time when he wrote, as follows: "Injuries that may be offered to a person, considered as a husband, are principally three: Abduction, or taking away a man's wife; adultery, or criminal conversation with her; and beating or otherwise abusing her. * * * The third injury is that of beating a man's wife, or otherwise ill-using her; for which, if it be a common assault, battery, or imprisonment, the law gives the usual remedy to recover damages, by action of trespass vi et armis, which must be brought in the names of the husband and wife jointly; but if the beating or other maltreatment be very enormous, so that thereby the husband is deprived for any time of the company and assistance of his wife, the law gives him a separate remedy by an action of trespass, in the nature of an action on the case, for this ill usage, per quod consortium amisit, in which he shall recover a satisfaction in damages." Similar statements of the law are made by later writers. 1 Bacon's Abridgment, 502; 1 Chitty on Pleading, 49.

The first two of the grounds of action enumerated by Blackstone present the same general aspects in that the wrong is one which is done directly and primarily to the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
94 cases
  • Campos v. Coleman, SC19195
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • October 6, 2015
    ...v. St. Mary's Hospital, 176 Conn. 485, 494-96, 408 A.2d 260 (1979), we overruled our earlier decision in Marri v. Stamford Street Railroad Co., 84 Conn. 9, 23-24, 78 A. 582 (1911), in which we declined to recognize a claim for loss of spousal consortium. See footnote 16 of the majority opin......
  • Campos v. Coleman, SC 19195
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • October 6, 2015
    ...earlier precedent declining to recognize a claim for loss of spousal consortium; see id., 494-96 (overruling Marri v. Stamford Street Railroad Co., 84 Conn. 9, 78 A. 582 [1911], and recognizing cause of action for loss of spousal consortium); this is such a case. 17. In the unusual case in ......
  • Gurliacci v. Mayer, s. 13961
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • May 7, 1991
    ...v. St. Mary's Hospital, 176 Conn. 485, 493, 408 A.2d 260 (1979), this court abolished the rule set forth in Marri v. Stamford Street R. Co., 84 Conn. 9, 78 A. 582 (1911), that disallowed a married person whose spouse had been injured from bringing a claim for loss of consortium. The court i......
  • Diaz v. Eli Lilly & Co.
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
    • October 10, 1973
    ...... See cases cited, annotation, 36 A.L.R.3d at 924--926. . 35 See Marri v. Stamford St. R.R., 84 Conn. 9, 78 A. 582 (1911). . 36 At §§ 693, 695. . 37 The relevant sections have not yet been published in final form, ......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT