Myers v. Holborn
| Decision Date | 20 November 1895 |
| Parties | MYERS v. HOLBORN. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to circuit court, Hudson county; Lippincott, Judge.
Action by Frank Holborn against Samuel I. Myers. Plaintiff had judgment, and defendant brings error. Reversed.
Collins & Corbin, for plaintiff in error.
William H. Speer, Jr., for defendant in error.
This writ of error brings up for review a judgment of the Hudson circuit court rendered in favor of Holborn, the plaintiff below, and against Myers, the defendant below. The principal facts which were proved at the trial of the cause are as follows: The defendant, a practicing physician of the city of Bayonne, promised the plaintiff, who resided in that city, to attend his wife professionally during her confinement. A short time before that event took place he left the city for a three-days vacation; having first visited the wife of the plaintiff, and made an examination of her condition, from which he concluded, as he informed her, that his services would not be needed for a few days. Before his return, however, she was confined. The plaintiff, when his wife's travail came on, telephoned to the house of the defendant for him to come at once; and in response to this message one Dr. P. arrived, stating that Dr. Myers was out of town, and that he represented him, and proceeded to take charge of the case, and to deliver the plaintiff's wife of her child, without any objection being made. It was not suggested that his treatment of the wife was unskillful, but evidence was offered to show that after the birth of the child he improperly severed the umbilical cord so close to its body that it was impossible afterwards to tie it, and that the child consequently died, in a short time, of umbilical hemorrhage. The shock caused by her child's death under these circumstances, it was testified, so affected the mother as to seriously injure her health, and render her an invalid for many months, thereby depriving the plaintiff of her services and companionship, and making it necessary for him to incur expenses which he would not otherwise have been called upon to meet; and this suit was brought to recover compensation for such loss of services and companionship, and for such expenses, on the theory that Dr. P. was the agent and representative in this matter of the defendant, and that, therefore, he was legally liable for these results of Dr. P.'s unskillfulness. The trial judge adopted this theory, advanced on behalf...
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Alfone v. Sarno
...in this State have held that no action lies for the death of another except as provided by statute. See, e. g., Myers v. Holborn, 58 N.J.L. 193, 33 A. 389 (E. & A.1895). 3 The model for this State's original wrongful death statute, L. 1848, p. 151, was an 1846 act of the British Parliament ......
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Negron v. Llarena
...at 323, 13 A. 233. Seven years later, the Court of Errors and Appeals adopted the Grosso reasoning and conclusion in Myers v. Holborn, 58 N.J.L. 193, 33 A. 389 (1895). In Myers, the plaintiff sued because a doctor negligently delivered his wife's baby causing it to die. Id. at 194, 33 A. 38......
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Giardina v. Bennett
...Eden v. Lexington & Frankfort R. Co., 53 Ky. 204, 206 (1853). New Jersey fully adopted this common-law rule. See, e.g., Myers v. Holborn, 58 N.J.L. 193 (E. & A.1895); Grosso v. Delaware, Lackawanna & West R. Co., 50 N.J.L. 317, 323 (Sup.Ct.1888). 1 The Legislature, reacting to the common-la......
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Kern v. Kogan
...the absence of a statutory provision, therefore, an action cannot be maintained for the wrongful death of another. Myers v. Holborn, 58 N.J.L. 193, 33 A. 389 (E. & A.1895). The right to recover for a wrongful death, being a creature not of the common law, but of the statute (Death Act, supr......