Robert v. Ford Motor Co.
| Decision Date | 31 January 1980 |
| Citation | 424 N.Y.S.2d 747,73 A.D.2d 1025 |
| Parties | Bonnie ROBERT, as Executrix of the Estates of Lorraine T. Day, et al., Deceased, Respondent, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Appellant, and Bailey Ford, Inc., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, New York City (John S. Allee, New York City, of counsel), for appellant; of counsel to Fischer & Hughes, Malone.
Vincent F. Kirsch, Massena, and Carey, LaRocque, Piasecki & Clark, Malone, co-counsel, for respondent.
Stuart M. Speiser, New York City, for The Association of Trial Lawyers of America, amicus curiae.
Before MAHONEY, P. J., and GREENBLOTT, SWEENEY, STALEY and MIKOLL, JJ.
Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court at Special Term, entered May 2, 1979 in St. Lawrence County, which granted respondent's motion to amend the complaint to assert a wrongful death cause of action claiming punitive damages.
Respondent is the executrix of the estates of her parents, Donald and Lorraine Day, who burned to death when their 1975 Ford Pinto was struck by another auto. Respondent sued for their wrongful death and conscious pain and suffering in September of 1977. In June of 1978, she moved to amend the complaint by adding a wrongful death cause of action against appellant Ford Motor Company and the other defendants for punitive damages, and to increase the Ad damnum clause to $125,000,000. The respondent alleged that appellant was guilty of "maliciousness, wantonness, willfulness and depraved indifference" in manufacturing its car model "Pinto" with knowledge that the fuel tank system would rupture in rear impact collisions, causing massive spillage of gasoline, and fire to consume the car, which justified the allowance of punitive damages. Special Term granted the motion, holding that the wrongful death statute must be interpreted as allowing punitive damages in order to pass constitutional muster. The court opined that a holding to the contrary would be violative of the equal protection clauses of the Federal and State Constitutions as it would afford preferential treatment to those tort-feasors whose victims died as opposed to those whose victims survived.
The New York wrongful death statute, contained in section 5-4.3 of the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law, provides as follows:
Amount of recovery. The damages awarded to the plaintiff may be such sum as the jury or, where issues of fact are tried without a jury, the court or referee deems to be fair and just compensation for the pecuniary injuries resulting from the decedent's death to the persons for whose benefit the action is brought. In every such action, in addition to any other lawful element of recoverable damages, the reasonable expenses of medical aid, nursing and attention incident to the injury causing death and the reasonable funeral expenses of the decedent paid by the distributees, or for the payment of which any distributee is responsible, shall also be proper elements of damage. Interest upon the principal sum recovered by the plaintiff from the date of the decedent's death shall be added to and be a part of the total sum awarded.
Special Term's decision that the wrongful death statute does not abrogate a right to seek punitive damages strains the plain meaning of the statute. The remedy provided by the statute, the recovery of compensatory damages, is exclusive and may not be expanded by the courts. The statute expresses the Legislature's considered judgment on the issue. The many cases cited as examples of the extensions of the statute, we note, all refer to amplification of pecuniary losses which were found to be encompassed in the statute's framework. This is not so with punitive damages.
In a dispositive ruling on the matter, the Court of Appeals in Ratka v. St. Francis Hosp., 44 N.Y.2d 604, 610, 612, 407 N.Y.S.2d 458, 460, 462, 378 N.E.2d 1027, 1030, 1032, said as follows:
On the merits, plaintiff urges the court to establish a common-law cause of action for wrongful death, notwithstanding that our Legislature has expressly authorized such claims for over a century in statutes culminating in the present EPTL 5-4.1.
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