Robinson's Adm'r v. Robinson
| Decision Date | 07 May 1920 |
| Citation | 188 Ky. 49,220 S.W. 1074 |
| Parties | ROBINSON'S ADM'R v. ROBINSON. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Hickman County.
Action by Amanda Robinson's Administrator against Elias Robinson. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.
R. B Flatt, of Clinton, for appellant.
Joe W Bennett, of Clinton, and Robbins & Robbins, of Mayfield, for appellee.
Elias Robinson assaulted and killed his wife, Amanda Robinson. Her administrator filed this action against him to recover damages for her wrongful death. A demurrer was sustained to the petition as amended, and the petition dismissed, from which judgment the plaintiff appeals.
We had occasion to consider this same question in Lillie Conn Dishon's Administrator v. T. E. Dishon's Administrator, reported in 187 Ky. 497, 219 S.W. 794, and there decided that the wife's administrator could not sue the husband or his estate for her wrongful death, where she left no children surviving because in that event, under section 241 of the Constitution and section 6 of the statutes, which conferred the right, if it exists, the husband was the sole beneficiary of any recovery, and the wife's estate, as a consequence, had no interest therein. But in the case at bar the wife is survived by children, who under section 6 of the Statutes, enacted pursuant to section 241 of the Constitution, are entitled to one-half of any recovery; hence this is not a moot case, as was the Dishon Case, and if, as a matter of fact, the right of the administrator of one spouse to sue the survivor is conferred this action can be maintained by the administrator for the benefit of his decedent's children to the extent they are entitled to any possible recovery.
Section 241 of the Constitution and so much of section 6 of the Statutes as is pertinent are respectively as follows:
Section 6 of the Statutes: "Whenever the death of a person shall result from an injury inflicted by negligence or wrongful act, then, in every such case, damages may be recovered for such death from the person or persons, company or companies corporation or corporations, their agents or servants, causing the same, and when the act is willful or the negligence is gross, punitive damages may be recovered, and the action to recover such damages shall be prosecuted by the personal representative of the deceased. The...
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Apitz v. Dames
...and the case was moot. The court held that no one could profit by the action except the attorneys. In Robinson's Administrator v. Robinson, 188 Ky. 49, 220 S.W. 1074, the same court, in an opinion by the same justice who had written the Dishon case, considered litigation in which the husban......
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...18 Boston U.L.Rev. 196 (1935); Albrecht v. Potthoff, 1934, 192 Minn. 557, 257 N.W. 377, 96 A.L.R. 471, citing Robinson's Adm'r v. Robinson, 188 Ky. 49, 220 S.W. 1074, which holds that under section 241 of the Kentucky Constitution a wife's administrator may sue the husband for the wife's wr......
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