166 P. 57 | Or. | 1917
delivered the opinion of the court.
The legislation of modem times has greatly affected the status of married women by the recognition of their rights to a separate existence, thus empowering them to exercise dominion over their separate property, and to contract, and conferring upon them power to sue or be sued; but it has not in any wise abridged the common-law right of a husband to the companionship, love, and services of his wife which are comprehended in the term “consortium” and his accompanying right to sue therefor, in the event of its loss occasioned by some personal injury to her negligently inflicted by a third person: Note, 33 L. R. A. (N. S.) pp. 1042-1046; City of Chattanooga v. Carter, 132 Tenn. 609 (179 S. W. 127); Southern R. Co. v. Crowder, 135 Ala. 417 (33 South. 335); Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Jones, 21 Colo. 340 (40 Pac. 891); Blair v. Bloomington
The enabling statutes were not intended to accomplish such a result as insisted upon by the defendant. The conjugal partnership between husband and wife still exists with its bonds of love, affection, and devotion, together with the attendant privileges and filial duty of each to contribute to the care and attention of the household, the comfort and convenience of each other, and the care, nurture,, and education of the children, in accordance with their mutual scriptural obligation. In all these relations and more the wife is and should be the helpmeet of the husband in conformity with their necessities and station in life without the expectation of pecuniary compensation or claim for the same. We are not in accord with the assertion that a husband is entitled to recover damages for the loss of the services of his wife only in actions for seduction, alienation of affections, and the like: See Ainley v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 47 Hun (N. Y.), 206; 3 Blackstone, *139; 1 Cooley on Torts (3 ed.), 470. Compensation for the loss by a husband of consortium of his wife is to be determined not from direct evidence of its value, but by the jury from their observation, knowledge, and experience: Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Jones, 21 Colo. 340 (40 Pac. 891).
“The plaintiff in this case was required to exercise reasonable care; that is, that degree of care which a person of reasonable prudence would exercise in the situation in which he was placed. If he had reason to suspect carelessness or incompetency on the part of the driver, it was his duty to protest and remonstrate with or caution him against being careless, or to caution him concerning the operation of the ear, and if the driver was running the car at a dangerous rate of speed, and the plaintiff knew of the rate of speed and its danger, or, in the exercise of reasonable prudence, ought to have known and appreciated it, it was his duty to remonstrate against such speed, and direct the driver to slacken the same, and if he knew and appreciated the danger of a collision in time to avert it by promptly warning the driver, it was his duty to do so. ’ ’
We find no request for any more specific or different instruction upon this point. The law wss given to the jury substantially as announced in Rogers v. Portland Ry. L. & P. Co., 66 Or. 244, 251 (134 Pac.
From an examination of the record we find no error therein. Tbe judgment of tbe Circuit Court is therefore affirmed. Affirmed.