184 A. 663 | Pa. | 1936
Argued January 8, 1936. On February 7, 1934, Martha Kalkosinski was a passenger in an automobile driven by her husband, Frank Kalkosinski. An accident occurred in which both were killed. Jan Kaczorowski, sole surviving parent of Martha, brought this suit against the administrator of Frank's estate, alleging that her death was due to the husband's negligence and that it deprived him of her consistent contributions to his support. An affidavit of defense was filed, which questioned the right to recover on these facts. The court below held there was none and this appeal followed.
The basis of the court's decision was that an action for wrongful death is derivative and maintainable only where the deceased, if living, could have brought an action and, since actions between spouses for torts are prohibited, the present suit was likewise banned. This action was commenced under the provisions of the Act of April 15, 1851, P. L. 669, section 19, as amended by the Act of April 26, 1855, P. L. 309, which provides that "whenever death shall be occasioned by unlawful violence or negligence . . ." an action may be maintained by the surviving spouse, children or parents of the deceased. The act is modeled upon the English Statute of *440
9 and 10, Vict., c. 93, section 1, commonly known as "Lord CAMPBELL'S Act." The latter provides for a right of recovery when "the act, neglect, or default is such as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled the party injured to maintain an action . . . ": see 29 Col. L. Rev. 621. Although there is a difference in the wording of these statutes, since the English statute expressly conditions the right of action for death upon an act such as would have entitled the injured party to sue while ours does not, we, in common with most jurisdictions, have hitherto interpreted our statute as if worded in the same manner [Tiffany, Death by Wrongful Act, (2d ed.), section 63;] that is, we have held that a right to recover must exist in the party injured when he died in order to entitle those named in the act to sue. We have therefore held, in order that the death action impose no new and unjust burden on the defendant, that where the deceased would have been barred by contributory negligence (P. R. R. Co. v. Zebe,
Actions for death were unknown at common law (Death as aCivil Cause of Action, 15 Harvard Law Review 120) and, as the right to recover therefor is purely a creation of statute, we have frequently stated that it is a new cause of action: P. R.R. Co. v. Zebe, supra; Shambrach v. Middle Creek Elec. Co.,
Appellant has devoted much of his brief in an attempt to show that the common law prohibition upon suits between spouses has been abrogated in this jurisdiction by the various Married Women's Acts, but, after a careful survey of these statutes, we are convinced that so far as actions for personal torts are concerned such disability has not been removed. Two reasons suggest themselves as barring such actions at common law. The first is founded on the principle of unity of husband and wife. "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of a person is suspended during a marriage": Blackstone *443 (Lewis's Ed.) 442. At common law a married woman had no causes of action or property of her own. All causes of action which accrued to her had to be brought on her behalf by her husband. Difficulties presented themselves therefore when the wife sought to sue the husband for a tort committed by him upon her. In the first instance it was impossible to secure a plaintiff without having the same party as defendant. The second difficulty was that any damages recovered passed immediately from the defendant husband to the plaintiff husband. With the emancipation of the wife and her separate control over her property and actions, there has grown up a more compelling theory to account for the continued prohibition upon suits for personal torts between husband and wife which, in large degree, has superseded the reason of fictional unity of husband and wife. That reason is as stated in Koontz v. Messer QuakerState Oil Refining Co., supra: "The personal immunity which protects him [the husband] is based simply upon the plea of preserving peace and felicity."
It is immaterial what reason may be assigned for the prohibition on tort actions between spouses, it is obvious that though they successfully prevent actions between the spouses themselves, they cannot be extended to include actions by third parties who may be injured by the same act or others who may be liable for the injury as in Koontz v. Messer Quaker State OilRefining Co., supra. The application of the rule would be an injustice since neither of the reasons for the rule apply to such situations. The fictional unity of husband and wife does not apply here as the parties suing are neither husband nor wife, but a parent asserting an independent right for the loss sustained by him alone. Any damages coming from the husband would not return to the husband as they would in a suit between living spouse at early common law. These damages compensate the parent for a loss suffered peculiarly by him. *444
The second reason for prohibiting suits between spouses disappears entirely in a suit by a parent under a death statute. When the policy behind a rule no longer exists, the rule should disappear. There is no marital peace and felicity to be preserved here. Both husband and wife are dead and the suit is under the death statute. In Koontz v. Messer QuakerState Oil Refining Co., supra, we had the following circumstances: Plaintiff accompanied her husband on a trip in an auto driven by her husband on his employer's business. Due to his negligence while acting in the scope of his employment, the wife was injured. She sued the husband's employer, who brought in the husband as an additional defendant by a writ of scire facias. We sustained the judgment for the plaintiff. It was there also argued that the immunity of the husband's suit should be extended to his employer. We stated: "The personal immunity which protects him [the husband] is based simply upon a policy of preserving domestic peace and felicity," and, quoting from the opinion of Justice CARDOZO in Shubert v.Shubert Wagon Co.,
Having found that the rule forbidding suits between spouses did not prohibit recovery in that case, certainly we should find less difficulty in reaching the same conclusion here. There the husband, as additional defendant, was liable over to the original defendant for the amount of the judgment recovered by the plaintiff, his wife. Here both the husband and wife are dead. The source of the satisfaction of the judgment, if any, is the husband's estate. The party to recover the damages is *445 not the wife but the parent of the wife who sues for the wrong to himself growing out of the deprivation of his means of support.
It would be an unjust and harsh law which would narrow the scope of the statutory death action merely because of a rule, the reasons for which are nonexistent. Our decision is based on our own death statute, and for that reason is not opposed to that in other jurisdictions which have been confronted with this problem: Keister's Admr. v. Keister's Exrs., 96 S.E. 315;Wilson v. Brown,
Our conclusion is that since this derivative cause of action is founded on a death which removed the reason for the incapacity of the injured party to sue and since the statute gives an independent right of action to the parent for the damages peculiarily suffered by him, this action is maintainable.
The judgment is reversed with a procedendo.