Shugart v. Egan
| Decision Date | 30 September 1876 |
| Citation | 1876 WL 10288,25 Am.Rep. 359,83 Ill. 56 |
| Parties | ADAM SHUGARTv.ANN EGAN. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Lee county; the Hon. WILLIAM W. HEATON, Judge, presiding.
Mr. JOHN V. EUSTACE, for the appellant.
Mr. B. H. TRUSDELL, for the appellee.
Since a rehearing was ordered in the present case, we have again considered the objections urged to the rulings of the court below, and have come to a different conclusion from that announced in the opinion first filed, upon the question of damages resulting from the death of the plaintiff's husband.
It is claimed that the plaintiff's husband, while in a state of intoxication caused by liquors obtained by him from the defendant Friel, insulted or menaced one McGraw, who thereupon stabbed him, inflicting a wound whereof he died shortly afterwards. The court below, in giving and refusing instructions, ruled that this entitled the plaintiff to recover of the defendants compensatory damages for the loss of her husband's life, as well as for other damages resulting, proximately, from the obtaining of liquors by him from Friel.
The statute authorizes a recovery by the plaintiff from the defendant for “all damages sustained” in consequence of the act of Friel in letting her husband have liquor, and “also for exemplary damages;” and the question to be determined is, whether damages resulting from the loss of his life, under the circumstances, are within the contemplation of the statute.
The words, “damages sustained,” should be construed with reference to their known legal signification, i. e., to mean such damages as, in legal contemplation, are to be regarded as the result of the wrongful act.
It by no means follows, merely because a person, while in a state of intoxication, receives an injury, that it can be said, in a legal sense, the act of letting the persons have the liquor inducing the intoxication, caused the injury.
It was said by Lord BACON, “It were infinite for the law to consider the cause of causes, and their impulsion one of another; therefore it contenteth itself with the immediate cause, and judgeth of acts by that, without looking to any further degree.” Bacon's Maxims, Reg. 1; Broom's Legal Maxims, 165.
The rule is of frequent recognition in the decisions of this court, although there has, sometimes, been difficulty in satisfactorily determining whether particular acts were to be regarded as the immediate or the remote cause. In Fent et al. v. The T., P. & W. R. R. Co. 59 Ill. 351, it was said, quoting from 2 Parsons on Conts. (1st Ed.) p. 456, “Every defendant shall be held liable for all those consequences which might have been foreseen and expected as the result of his conduct, but not for those which he could not have foreseen, and was, therefore, under no moral obligation to take into consideration.” This would seem to be equally as applicable to actions founded on torts as to those accruing upon contracts. Addison, in his work on Torts, under the head of “Special and...
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