Schroder v. Va. F. Crawford.
| Decision Date | 31 January 1880 |
| Citation | 1880 WL 9954,34 Am.Rep. 236,94 Ill. 357 |
| Parties | HERMANN SCHRODERv.VIRGINIA F. CRAWFORD. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the Appellate Court for the Third District; the Hon. CHAUNCEY L. HIGBEE, presiding Justice, and the Hon. LYMAN LACEY and Hon. OLIVER L. DAVIS, Justices.
Messrs. OSBORN & LILLARD, and Mr. J. H. ROWELL, for the appellant.
Messrs. KARR & KARR, and Mr. NEWTON B. REED, for the appellee.
On the night of May 6, 1876, James T. Crawford was killed by a train of cars on the track of the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company, between the city of Bloomington and the town of Normal, in this State.
Virginia F. Crawford, his widow, brought this action under the Dram Shop act, to recover damages for injury to her means of support from such death, the declaration alleging it to have been caused in consequence of the intoxication of decedent, and the action being against certain keepers of dram shops in Bloomington as having furnished the liquor which caused the intoxication, and the owners of the buildings in which the liquors were sold, the statute giving the action severally or jointly against such persons.
The suit during its pendency having been dismissed as to all the defendants except Schroder, the owner of one of the buildings, and Dwyer, the keeper of one other of the dram shops, a verdict and judgment were rendered against Schroder and Dwyer for $2500, and Schroder took an appeal to the Appellate Court for the Third District, where the judgment was affirmed, and from that judgment of the Appellate Court Schroder appealed to this court.
On this appeal from the Appellate Court, where only questions of law are re-examined, there are but two of the assignments of error, as we regard, to be considered,--one, that the damages are too remote, the other, respecting instructions.
The facts appearing are that Sullivan kept a drinking saloon in the building owned by Schroder; that decedent on the day of his death was at Sullivan's saloon in the forenoon from about nine to twelve o'clock; that he procured intoxicating liquor and was intoxicated there, and was there again at two or three o'clock in the afternoon; that from about twelve to three or four o'clock in the afternoon, with the above exception, he was at Dwyer's saloon, where he obtained intoxicating liquor and was intoxicated when there; that he was seen at another saloon as late as five o'clock, and was still intoxicated; that at ten o'clock at night he was seen intoxicated, and it was raining; that no more was seen of him, and nothing was known of the circumstances of his death, more than that about five o'clock the next morning his dead body was found upon the railroad track crushed and mangled, evidently having been run over by a passing train of cars. To reach his home from Bloomington, two railroad tracks had to be crossed.
It is contended on the part of appellant that the proximate cause of decedent's death was the train of cars; that if his intoxication at the time contributed to his death, it was a remote cause, in respect of which there is no liability, and Shugart v. Egan, 83 Ill. 56, is cited as sustaining this view. It was there held, where an intoxicated person had been assaulted and killed by a third party, that the seller of the intoxicating liquor was not liable in damages to the widow for the death. It was there said to be the common experience of mankind that the condition of one intoxicated invited protection against violence rather than attack, and that it was not a...
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Dillon v. Nathan
...a common law action; it is not based upon and does not depend upon negligence at all; it is entirely statutory in character: Schroder v. Crawford, 1880, 94 Ill. 357; Douglas v. Athens Market Corp., 1943, 320 Ill.App. 40, 49 N.E.2d 834, First Dist.; Thompson v. Wogan, 1941, 309 Ill.App. 413,......
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Casey v. Burns
...Court held the abnormal criminal act of this third person was not an intervening cause breaking the chain of causation. In Schroder v. Crawford, 1880, 94 Ill. 357, an action under the Dram Shop Act, the Court said it is not the intention of the statute that the liquor alone, of itself, excl......
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Duckworth v. Stalnaker
...who sold him the intoxicating liquors was held liable to his widow in an action "for injury to her means of support." Schroder v. Crawford, 94 Ill. 357, 34 Am. Rep. 236. The statute of Illinois is similar to the statute of New and to our own statute, and the court of Illinois, in the opinio......
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Economy Auto Ins. Co. v. Brown, Gen. No. 10227.
...she was deprived of this support in consequence of his intoxication and therefore she had a proper cause of action. In Schroder v. Crawford, 94 Ill. 357, 34 Am.Rep. 236;Poole v. Lansden, 183 Ill.App. 609, and Meyer v. Butterbrodt, 146 Ill. 131, 34 N.E. 152, the courts recognized the require......