Mattyasovszky v. West Towns Bus Co.
| Decision Date | 02 June 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 46967,46967 |
| Parties | Matyas MATTYASOVSZKY, Adm'r, Appellant, v. WEST TOWNS BUS COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Page 509
v.
WEST TOWNS BUS COMPANY, Appellee.
[61 Ill.2d 32]
Page 510
O'Reilly & Quetsch, Wheaton (Roger K. O'Reilly, Wheaton, of counsel), for appellant.Hinshaw, Culbertson, Moelmann, Hoban, & Fuller, Chicago (D. Kendall Griffith, Chicago, of counsel), for appellee.
Jerome Mirza, Bloomington, for amicus curiae.
SCHAEFER, Justice:
Matyas Mattyasovszky, Jr., a 12-year-old boy, left a bus operated by the defendant, West Towns Bus Company, by the rear door at the wrong stop. When he attempted to reenter, his foot was apparently momentarily caught in the door, and he fell under the wheels and was killed as the bus moved forward. In this action, brought by his father as administrator of his estate, a jury found the defendant guilty of willful and wanton conduct and awarded the plaintiff $75,000 pecuniary damages and $50,000 punitive damages. Judgment was entered on the verdict and the defendant appealed. The appellate court affirmed the award of pecuniary damages, but reversed the judgment which awarded punitive damages. (21 Ill.App.3d 46, 313 N.E.2d 496.) We [61 Ill.2d 33] granted leave to appeal.
Many interesting and important questions that arose in the trial and appellate courts have not been brought forward for review, and as the case comes to this court the issues are severely limited. Only two questions are presented: (1) are punitive damages recoverable under the 'Survival Act' (Ill.Rev.Stat.1971, ch. 3, par. 339), and (2) is there a common law action for wrongful death which includes the element of punitive damages.
The Survival Act, upon which the plaintiff relies primarily for a reversal of the judgment of the appellate court, reads as follows:
'In addition to the actions which survive by the common law, the following also survive: actions of replevin, actions to recover damages for an injury to the person (except slander and libel), actions to recover damages for an injury to real or personal property of for the detention or conversion of personal property * * *.'
This statute has never been thought to authorize the award of punitive damages. The plaintiff's contention that it should now be construed to do so rests largely upon the recent decision of this court in Murphy v. Martin Oil Co. (1974), 56 Ill.2d 423, 308 N.E.2d 583, which authorized recovery for a decedent's pain and suffering during the interval between injury and death, as well as for pecuniary loss. But nothing in that opinion was intended to or did authorize the recovery of punitive damages. On the other hand, the opinion both intrinsically and through its reliance upon McDaniel v. Bullard (1966), 34 Ill.2d 487, 216 N.E.2d 140, emphasized the compensatory nature of damages authorized under the Survival Act. We find nothing in the Murphy case which suggests a change in the law of this State which for more than a hundred years has limited recovery under the Survival Act to compensatory damages.
Apart from our Murphy and McDaniel cases the plaintiff relies upon the decisions of the courts of other States construing the language of their survival statutes. [61 Ill.2d 34] From them he argues that punitive damages should be allowed in the present case. We do not find those decisions persuasive. The actions which survive under our statute are 'actions to recover damages for an injury to the person,'...
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... ... Mattyasovszky v. West Towns Bus Co., 61 Ill.2d 31, 330 N.E.2d 509, 512 (1975); Oakview New Lenox School Dist. v. Ford Motor Co., 61 Ill.App.3d 194, 19 Ill.Dec ... ...
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