State v. Cambria

• Decision Date: 27 March 1951
• Citation: 137 Conn. 604,80 A.2d 516
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. CAMBRIA. In re GRIFFIN'S ESTATE. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 516

80 A.2d 516

137 Conn. 604

STATE v. CAMBRIA.

In re GRIFFIN'S ESTATE.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 27, 1951.

Ernest H. Halstedt, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on the brief, was William L. Hadden, Atty. Gen., for the plaintiff.

William M. Citron and Don Cambria, Middletown, for the defendant.

Before BROWN, C. J., and JENNINGS, BALDWIN, INGLIS and O'SULLIVAN, JJ.

O'SULLIVAN, Judge.

The parties have stipulated as to the following facts: William Griffin of Essex was struck and killed by an automobile on September 14, 1947. The defendant is the administrator on his estate. An action for wrongful death was settled for $2100. The plaintiff presented a claim against the estate based upon a ten-year grant of old age benefits to the intestate during his lifetime. The claim was allowed, but payment was denied on the ground that it would require the defendant to use a part of the aforementioned $2100. The questions presented by the reservation ¹ seek a determination of the use to which moneys received for wrongful death may be applied.

Section 7063 of the General Statutes provides that 'All damages recovered for injuries resulting in death, after payment of the costs and expenses of suit, all expenses of last illness and all funeral bills and the expenses of administration, shall be distributed in accordance with the law concerning the distribution of intestate personal estate.' The plaintiff maintains that this requires the administrator to make available for the intestate's other creditors such amount of the moneys received for wrongful death as may remain in his hands after payment of the items of expense enumerated in the statute. It seems needless to add that the defendant takes a contrary position.

The problem is one of statutory construction. In seeking to ascertain the legislative intent, we may look to the history of the statute and the policy underlying it. Giammattei v. Egan, 135 Conn. 666, 668, 68 A.2d 129; Finoia v. Winchester Repeating Arms Co., 130 Conn. 381, 384, 34 A.2d 636. Indeed, these may furnish the most illuminating clue. Quinebaug Bank v. Tarbox, 20 Conn. 510, 518; Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Walsh, 134 Conn. 295, 306, 57 A.2d 128, 1 A.L.R.2d 453.

At least as far back as 1672, the colony of Connecticut permitted the recovery of one hundred pounds for the death of a person occasioned by a defective bridge or highway. Statutes, 1673, p. 7. The sum was payable 'to the Parents, Husband, Wife or Children or next of Kin to the party deceased.' Although the penalty was subsequently changed from pounds to dollars, this ancient act was not repealed until 1848. Public Acts, 1848, c. 49.

For the following three years there appears to have been no statute creating in anyone a right to recover for the wrongful death of another. In 1851, the General Assembly, reviving the idea of a penalty, provided that, if any person should lose his life in consequence of the failure of railroad employees to blow a whistle or sound a bell when a locomotive approached a grade-crossing, the company should forfeit $1000 'to the widow of such deceased person * * * and if there be no widow, to the children * * * and if there be neither widow or children, then to the nearest relatives * * *.' Public Acts, 1851, c. 43, § 2. The significance of this act and the previous one, as they throw light on the present inquiry, lies in the designation of the individuals in whom the exclusive right to the penalty was vested.

In 1853 another act was passed, providing that a railroad company should be liable in damages of not less than $1000 nor more than $5000 for negligently causing the death of one of its passengers or of a person upon a public highway. The right to sue was lodged, for the first time, in the executor or administrator, and recovery was to be 'for the benefit of the husband or widow and heirs of the deceased person, one moiety thereof to go to the husband or widow, and the other to the children of the deceased, but, if there shall be no children, the whole to the husband or widow, and if no husband or widow, to the heirs according to the law regulating the distribution of intestate personal estate.' Public Acts, 1853, c. 74, § 8. For an identical plan of distributing moneys recovered in an action for death caused by a railroad company's failure to fence in its right of way, see Public Acts, 1869, c. 48, § 2. The pertinence of these acts of 1853 and 1869 is that the legislature, in authorizing the administrator to sue, required him to segregate from other estate of the intestate the damages recovered for wrongful death and to apply them for the sole benefit of the named individuals. Thus each of these acts not only provided for a recovery but also incorporated within itself its own statute of distributions. Budd v. Meriden Electric R. Co., 69 Conn. 272, 284, 37 A. 683.

In the seventies, the legislature made a drastic change in policy. From 1851 to 1877, its limited target had been railroad companies. In the latter year, liability was extended to include all persons who were legally at fault. Public Acts 1877, c. 78. This act required that damages collected for wrongful death were 'to be distributed as is provided in section nine, chapter six, title nineteen, of the general statutes, revision of 1875.' The relevant part of that statute read that 'all damages for an injury resulting in death, recovered in an action brought by any executor or administrator, shall enure to the benefit of the husband or widow and heirs of the deceased person, after deducting the costs and expenses of suit, as follows: half to the husband, or widow, and half to the lineal descendants of the deceased, per stirpes; but if there be no descendants, the whole shall go to the husband or widow, and if no husband or widow, to the heirs, according to the law regulating the distribution of intestate personal estate.' General Statutes Rev. 1875, p. 422, § 9. It should be noted that by this enactment the General Assembly, for the first time, permitted any one other than members of the decedent's family or his or her heirs to participate in the distribution of damages. The recovery was subjected to certain claims, described as 'costs and expenses of suit.' No substantial modification was thereafter made in the statute until 1915, when the amount recovered was further subjected to the 'payment of * * * all doctors' and funeral bills and the expenses of administration.' Public Acts, 1915, c. 44. This act also changed the method previously set up for distributing the damages. It omitted the specific...