Renihan v. Wright

• Decision Date: 30 October 1890
• Docket Number: 13,586
• Citation: 25 N.E. 822,125 Ind. 536
• Parties: Renihan et al. v. Wright et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

25 N.E. 822

125 Ind. 536

Renihan et al. v. Wright et al

No. 13,586

Supreme Court of Indiana

October 30, 1890

From the Marion Superior Court.

Judgment affirmed.

B. F Davis, for appellants.

C. E Clark, for appellees.

OPINION

Coffey, J.

In this case the complaint alleges that appellees, being husband and wife, on the 10th day of December, 1884, employed the appellants, who were undertakers and funeral directors, in the city of Indianapolis, to take charge of and safely keep, in a secure vault, the body of the deceased daughter of the appellees until such time as they might be prepared and ready to inter the same; that appellants, in pursuance of such employment, took charge and possession of said remains and placed the same in a vault, and that the appellees compensated the appellants to safely keep the said remains therein until such time as they might be prepared and ready to inter the same; that the said appellants did not safely and securely keep said remains, but carelessly and negligently took or allowed the same to be taken and buried, or otherwise disposed of, and wrongfully refused, and still refuse, to inform the appellees where said remains have been removed to, further than to say: "Your child is in Ohio;" that by reason thereof appellees have suffered great distress of mind, and are damaged in the sum of five hundred dollars, etc.

The court overruled a demurrer to this complaint, whereupon the appellants filed an answer in three paragraphs.

The court sustained a demurrer to the second paragraph of said answer, and a trial of the cause by a jury, upon issues formed, resulted in a verdict for the appellees, upon which the court, over a motion for a new trial, rendered judgment.

The assignment of error calls in question the correctness of the ruling of the court in overruling a demurrer to the complaint, in sustaining a demurrer to the second paragraph of the answer, and in overruling the motion of the appellants for a new trial.

The appellants claim that the complaint is not sufficient:

First. Because it does not show a cause of action in favor of both of the appellees.

Second. Because the right to control a corpse and superintend the burial thereof is in the executor or administrator and not in the next of kin, and for this reason the complaint does not state a cause of action in favor of either of the appellees.

It is settled that where a complaint does not state a cause of action in favor of all the plaintiffs it is not sufficient to withstand a demurrer. Nave v. Hadley, 74 Ind. 155; Yater v. State, ex rel., 58 Ind. 299; Neal v. State, ex rel., 49 Ind. 51. But if any cause of action exists in favor of the appellees in this case, we think it is joint.

It is alleged, substantially, in their complaint, that both the appellees entered into the contract of bailment therein set out, with the appellants, and that they jointly compensated the appellants for such bailment. It follows, we think, that they are entitled to maintain a joint action for a breach of such contract. The appellants are in error in assuming that the complaint sounds wholly in tort, and that there is no community of interest existing in the appellees.

While it may be true that the matters charged partake largely of the nature of a tort, yet they are so intimately connected with the contract of bailment alleged in the complaint as to be incapable of separation from it; and in this consists the unity of interest which gives the joint right to prosecute the action.

The second objection urged against this complaint presents a much more difficult question. The decided cases bearing upon the question are somewhat confused, and are not free from conflict. This confusion and conflict arise, no doubt, in the attempt on the part of some of the courts, in this country, to follow the decisions of the courts in England, while other courts have asserted that the rule of decision in that country can have no application in the American courts. It is quite clear to us that but little light can be had upon the question now under consideration from the decisions found in the English reports, for the reason that the jurisprudence of that country is peculiarly compounded, embracing largely the ecclesiastical element not found in our jurisprudence. In that country the partition of judicial authority between the church and the state has materially narrowed the powers and actions of the common law courts. This condition is peculiar to England, and for that reason the English decisions upon questions kindred to the one before us should not exert any controlling influence over the courts of this country, where no such partition exists. It is asserted, and, perhaps, truthfully, that Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, first introduced burial in churchyards in England, in the year 750.

The exclusive power of the ecclesiastics, denominated "Ecclesiastical Cognizance," became both executive and judicial soon after the Norman Conquest. It was executive, in taking the dead body into actual possession and guarding its repose in consecrated ground; and it was judicial in deciding all controversies involving the possession or the use of holy places, as well as in adjudicating upon the question as to who should be allowed to lie in consecrated earth; and, in fact, who should be allowed to be interred at all. The clergy monopolized the judicial power over the subject of burial; while the secular courts, stripped of all authority over the dead, were confined to the protection of the monuments, or other external emblems of grief erected by the living.

The heir could maintain no action in the common law courts for the disturbance of the remains of his buried ancestors, the remedy for such wrong belonging to the parson, in whom was vested the freehold of the soil in which the burial was made. Third Institute, page 203.

The power exercised by the ecclesiastical tribunals of England is not spiritual, but temporal and judicial. It is a legal secular authority which they have gradually abstracted from the ancient civil courts to which it had originally belonged. It will thus be seen by this brief review of the law in England, upon the subject now in hand, that the decisions of the courts of that country upon the subject of the right of relations to control the bodies of the dead are not authorities in this country. As we have no division of power between the church and the state in this country, it follows that much of the power exercised by ecclesiastical tribunals in England is vested, of necessity, in the secular courts, here charged with the general administration of the law.

The necessity for the existence and exercise of such power must be apparent to all. Without it the right to take the exclusive control of a corpse and care for and bury it could not be enforced. The father could not legally protect the remains of his children, or the husband of his wife, in the absence of such power. While the law might punish the body-snatcher who desecrated the grave, it would be powerless to restore the body to the relatives. The courts in this State, in our opinion, possess the power to enforce the rights of the appellees in this case to the body of their deceased daughter, if the law gives them the right to its custody, and the right to give it decent burial; and they also possess the power to assess such damages as may accrue to them on account of being deprived of such right.

It will not do to say that the custody of a corpse belongs to the executor or administrator of the deceased, and that it must be interred by him, for under our law no letters of administration can be granted, except to relatives, for the period of twenty days after death. In the event of the inability of the relatives to give the bond required by law, no provision for the burial could legally be made during that period. Certainly, our law-makers did not understand that no one except an executor or administrator had the legal right to the custody and burial of a corpse. Then in whom is the right vested? In the case reported in 4 Bradf. (N. Y.) 503, this question is fully considered and passed upon by the Supreme Court of New York. In that case, as appears by the report, in widening Beekman street, in the City of New York, the commissioners, in estimating the assessments, awarded to a corporation known as the Brick Presbyterian Church, $ 28,000, as the value of a certain piece of land taken for that purpose.

The names of all the persons interested in the land not being known the money was paid to the chamberlain of the city of New York, to abide the order of the court. In the parcel of land so taken were embraced certain vaults for the burial of the dead, in which various individuals claimed rights of interment, and the use...