153 N.Y.S. 439 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1915
The complaint shows that plaintiff is the son of Clement B. Finley, deceased, who died , on board of defendant’s steamship Minneapolis while a passenger on the voyage from London to New York, leaving “ no wife living nor any relative nearer "than the plaintiff; ” that upon the death of the deceased the
Eights in connection with the burial of dead bodies have come before the courts generally in two ways: (1) To recover damages for the mutilation of the body; and (2) to determine where the place of burial shall be. The first class of cases is illustrated by the case of Foley v. Phelps, 1 App. Div. 551, where it was held that the person entitled to the possession of the body in order to bury it had a right of action for injury to his feelings against any one who had, without authority, mutilated the body. A valuable discussion of the general subject of rights in dead bodies is found in Matter of Widening Beekman Street, 4 Brad. 503. While the circumstances presented in this case are unique and entirely different from those in any of the adjudicated cases, the principle upon which the cause of action is based may be readily derived from the adjudicated cases. The principle governing the disposition of the case is equally clear as a matter of independent reasoning.
The cause of action herein is not the violation of any rights of ownership in the body of the deceased. Plaintiff does not sue for the possession of the body nor for the right to bury the body in any particular manner or place as against the wishes of other next of kin. The plaintiff sues for the injury he has suffered because of the defendant’s unlawful interference with his, right of
The right of near relatives to the solace and comfort of burying the remains of the deceased and their right to sue to prevent interference with the body or the burial rites or to recover damages for mental anguish or expense resulting from such interference has been repeatedly recognized by the American courts. Darcy v. Presbyterian Hospital, 202 N. Y. 259; Foley v. Phelps, 1 App. Div. 551; Cohen v. Congregation, 85 id. 65; Jackson v. Savage, 109 id. 556; Hassard v. Lehane, 143 id. 424; Snyder v. Snyder, 60 How. Pr. 368, 371; Danahy v. Kellogg, 70 Misc. Rep. 25; Matter of Donn, 14 N. Y. Supp. 189; Matter of Widening Beekman Street, 4 Brad. 503; Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Wilson, 123 Ga. 62, 67; Wright v. Hollywood Cemetery Corporation, 112 id. 884, 890; Beam v. C. C. C. & St. L. R. R., 97 Ill. App. 24, 27, 28; Palentzke v. Bruning, 98 id. 644, 650, 651; Renihan v. Wright, 125 Ind. 536; Anderson v. Acheson, 132 Iowa, 744, 749; Seaton v. Commonwealth, 149 Ky. 498, 501; Kanavan’s Case, 1 Maine, 226; Larson v. Chase, 47 Minn. 307, 308; Lindh v. Great Northern R. Co., 99 id. 408; Litteral v. Litteral, 111 S. W. Rep. (Mo.), 872, 873, 874; De Festetics v. De Festetics,.81 Atl. Rep. (N. J.) 741, 742, 743.
In the leading decision on this subject (Matter of Widening Be'ekman Street, supra), the court said: “ The real question is not of the disposable, marketable value of a .corpse or its remains as an article of traffic, but it is of the sacred and inherent right to its custody in order decently to bury it and to secure its undisturbed repose. The dogma of the English ecclesiastical law that a child has no such claim, no such exclusive power, no peculiar interest in the dead body of its parent, is so utterly inconsistent with every en
The court further held that this right to solace and comfort in burying the remains of a deceased relative “ includes the right to preserve them by separate burial, to select the place of sepulture and to change it at pleasure ” p. 532. It is not disputed that a cause of action exists in the case of mutilation. What gives that conceded cause of action1? Not the injury or indignity to the corpse, but the interference with some right of the plaintiff. This right is not founded upon the duty to bury the remains. If it were, obviously, there would be no cause of action in the case of mutilation by dissection, for still the remains require burial and there is that duty to be performed and which may and must be performed regardless of the indignity to which the corpse has been subjected. It is true that in Buchanan v. .Buchanan, 28 Misc. Rep. 261, is the dictnm of a very learned judge that a person has no legal right to the possession of a corpse because of relationship in the abstract, and that it is only where an arrested right, founded upon the duty of burial, has been violated before burial that a person aggrieved may possibly maintain an action at law for the violation. But that was an action to replevy a corpse, instituted by the widow of the deceased against his brother,
It is true that the demurrer does not admit the conclusion that the defendant’s acts were negligent, wrongful or willful, but it does admit the facts pleaded and these facts, which include the allegations that the body was in a perfect state of preservation and was proof against decomposition when it was cast into the sea only a few hours from the docking point, certainly sustain the inference that the act complained of was, prima facie, needless, and therefore negligent, wrongful and willful. Admitting all of the facts pleaded in the complaint, the case discloses wanton violation of well recognized, established and sacred rights, and a reckless disregard of the tenderest human sentiments, bound to inflict mental anguish. That substantial damages may be recovered for the deprivation of the solace and comfort of burying the remains of a deceased relative and for any interference by third parties with the remains which may lacerate the plaintiff’s feelings and deprive the plaintiff of the solace and comfort is undoubted. Foley v. Phelps, 1 App. Div.
Defendant’s point that “ the death and burial of Clement B. Finley took place on the high seas ” is not available on this demurrer. The court cannot take judicial notice that when the body was cast overboard the vessel was on the high seas, simply because Nantucket Shoals is in the high seas. The allegation is that the body was cast “ into the sea in or near the tidal waters off Nantucket Shoals. ’ ’ Whether this was inside or outside the three-mile limit or within the territory of the jurisdiction of the United States does not appear. Neither does it appear that there was a “ proper burial at sea in accordance with the usual custom in such matters.” Casting the body overboard does not necessarily imply “ a proper burial at sea in accordance with the usual custom in such matters.”
It is also urged that there is a defect of parties plaintiff, but the point is not well taken. By the law of the state of New York the right to the possession of a body for the purpose of burial belongs to the surviving husband or wife, or next of kin, in the absence of any testamentary disposition. Darcy v. Presbyterian Hospital, 202 N. Y. 262. But this is not an action for the possession of the body, but is to recover damages for mental anguish and expense resulting from an interference with plaintiff’s right of solace and comfort in the burial of his father’s body, and it is established that an action for the violation of such rights does not require joining all the next of kin as parties plaintiff. People v. Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 58 How. Pr. 55, 64, 65; Wright v. Hollywood Cemetery Corpn., 112 Ga. 884. In cases where the sole question involved is the right to the custody of the body of the deceased it is frequently stated that the right to the body for the purposes of burial is in the next of kin in the order of relationship, but it is established that this is no hard and fast rule, the degree of kinship to the deceased of claimants to his body being merely “ guides to be considered and-applied as the case may require.” Pettigrew v. Pettigrew, 207 Penn. St. 313, 319; De Festetics v. De Festetics, 81 Atl. Rep. 741, 742.
Under the doctrine of the cases above cited the fact that the plaintiff herein was the son of the deceased, who left no wife or any nearer relative living, and that the plaintiff resided in the same community with the deceased, and that the plaintiff’s address for purposes of notification was among the papers found upon the
Motion for judgment granted, with ten dollars costs, with leave to defendant to withdraw the demurrer and answer within ten days upon payment of said costs.